CS-Cart Multi-vendor Alternative for Building Ecommerce Marketplace
A well-engineered marketplace solution is one that has features and functionality that give it dominance over other leading eCommerce solutions. CS-Cart is among renowned eCommerce platforms when it comes to developing a multi-vendor marketplace.
But, who knows if it is the ‘best’ solution? What if there is a better alternative of CS-Cart out there? You will find the answer to these questions by the end of this blog! So, if you are someone who is,
- Planning to purchase CS-Cart, or
- Want to migrate from CS-Cart, or
- Exploring other alternatives to CS-Cart,
Then you have landed at the right place. Let’s dig deeper and find out why Yo!Kart by FATbit Technologies is the best alternative for the CS-Cart Multi-vendor Marketplace Platform.
Limitations of CS-Cart Multi-vendor Marketplace Platform
A person who is ready to spend thousands of dollars for a multi-vendor marketplace is already aware of the market or industry and is looking for the following answers:
- Does your product have sustainable advantages over competitors?
- What is the health and velocity of your sales pipeline?
In the case of Yo!Kart, prospects continuously ask them about their competitor spectrum and how they are better than them. So, they decided to compare each eCommerce solution one-by-one starting with CS-Cart.
To make it easier for you I am listing some limitations of the CS-Cart Multivendor Marketplace Platform based on this comparison. So, here we go!
1. PRICING
The basic package of CS-Cart is for $1,450, however, Yo!Kart’s basic package GoQuick is available for $999.
2. BASIC PACKAGE FEATURES
Let’s compare the features that these platforms are offering through their basic package.
Admin Features
Service Level Features
Vendor Features
Buyer Features
Here is the list of Add-Ons that CS-Cart provides at Extra Cost but Yo!Kart gives it FREE in the base package:
3. MULTILINGUAL FUNCTIONALITY
The ability to communicate globally is now a make-or-break proposition for eCommerce retailers. Language is the dimension of service that directly influences the usability of a website, its acceptance with the culturally determined metaphors, preferences, and other attitudes of the target group.
CS-Cart multi vendor can display content in 26 different languages. The translations are available for the storefront, admin, and vendor panels. However, a cloud-based machine translation service, i.e., MSN language API, is integrated within Yo!Kart multi-vendor, and it supports more than 60 languages. It is a proven, customizable, and scalable technology for automatic translation and equipped with features such as a bilingual dictionary and transliteration.
RTL (Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Hebrew, Just to Name a Few)
In CS-Cart, a right-to-left (RTL) design flip is offered at an additional cost. But, at no additional cost, Yo!Kart multi-vendor offers the RTL design flip for the web platform as well as for Android and iOS apps(buyers).
4. MULTICURRENCY FUNCTIONALITY
A customer is more likely to buy or buy again when the whole process is simple and quick. Without the multicurrency option, you will never be able to achieve these aims.
In CS-Cart multi-vendor, prices can be displayed in different currencies. Its live currency convertor is an add-on feature; you have to pay extra for it.
In Yo!Kart multi-vendor system, the prices can be displayed in different currencies. The marketplace owner can accept payments in any regional currency selected in the payment gateway. Further, with the help of an application programming interface (API), the owner can manage currencies automatically, hence staying up to date with the latest currency conversion rates.
5. ELASTIC SEARCH
ElasticSearch is a document-oriented database specially designed to store and retrieve structural, unstructured, geo, metric, or any other type of data.
By integrating ElasticSearch, you can have the following benefits to for an eCommerce marketplace:
- Helps to manage a vast amount of data and fetch the required search query within 10 ms.
- Can make geo-localized searches.
- It can collect analytic information that assists while calculating the performance of the products.
- It can scale up to thousands of servers and accommodate petabytes of data.
Elastic search is not included in the base copy of CS-Cart (it is an add-on feature). Further, many business owners found its integration with the marketplace hard. While Yo!Kart multi-vendor provides all the above mentioned benefits at no additional cost.
6. TECHNICAL SUPPORT
CS-Cart multi vendor offers free 90 days support. The credit-based support system is not based on time. For example — Questions about CS-Cart and Multi-Vendor functionality or how to set it up — 5 credits and Complex code modification — from 20 credits. The transparency is further affected as the credits charged can be changed if the CS-Cart team discovers more facts.
On the other hand, Yo!Kart is providing multiple-channel support in the form of online chat, social media, email, text messaging, and phone. The biggest advantage of Yo!Kart support is that it offers FREE 12-months technical support for all Yo!Kart packages to resolve any bugs/errors found in the system. You can also opt for paid technical support after 12 months if you want.
Please note that the 12-month Free Technical Support becomes invalid for those who have done any customization in Yo!Kart script either on their own or through any 3rd party.
Apart from above, Yo!Kart has its very own project management tool, “Bizixx”, that can single-handedly address all of the client’s management-related requirements and issues. A client can directly assign any project-related task to the concerned person here and manage all the aspects of it.
You can read the detailed comparison here — Discover why most entrepreneurs prefer Yo!Kart over CS-Cart.
Why Migrating Your Multi-vendor Marketplace from CS-Cart to Yo!Kart is a Good Idea?
Let’s take a look at some of the reviews from Capterra where the business owner considered CS-Cart as an alternative but eventually opted for Yo!kart.
Review 1
“Yokart as a marketplace”
We are in the Americas and they are in India time so we typically meet once a week or once every two weeks now that the system is stable with AC who is our day-to-day liaison, zoom Meetings are late night or early morning, I prefer the late night meetings because they typically have answers or fixes/ results by morning. We have a WhatsApp group did we use as a way to keep track of the issues, and We have developed a great working relationship with them. I feel like I have the best of both worlds the ease of implementation of a hosted platform as well as the on-demand customization of a made from scratch platform, With the added benefit that it feels like I have a team of all star developers creating upgrades for me on a yearly basis, Now of course they charge for the upgrades, But at least I feel like my e-commerce marketplace software is not going to fall behind.
Alternatives Considered: CS-Cart Multi-Vendor
Switched From: WooCommerce
Review 2
“Great, Coding easy to understand”
Overall: We feel very helped buying this software, we can skip basic feature on ecommerce, also skip planning code architecture, we plan to modify the platform based on our need, and it very helpful because the clean code structure
Pros: Code: MVC structure & Good documentation Feature: Most of the content (for our business need) are customizable, Buyer & Seller in one account
Cons: need to have some times to understand the system
Alternatives Considered: CS-Cart B2B & B2C
Reasons for Choosing Yo!Kart: Better Default UI/UX
Conclusion
This blog post provides insights on several features of two multi-vendor solutions — Yo!Kart and CS-Cart for transparency. However, I insist you visit their websites, try the demo and then choose the solution best suited for your business.
