CS-Cart Multi-Vendor Reviews

Summary: We have bought this 7 plus months ago and still in set up mode, wish there were availability of qualified people at CS cart that can help do the set up too as a package. The happiest customers are ones who have things moving forward.

Positive: CS-Cart lists a lot of features.
Has potential to create a strong framework for a medium size marketplace.
There are good themes available now which have to be purchased.

Negative: While the list of features is long, they are not easy to turn on unless you can find a CS-Cart developer with lots of experience.
The most important part for us, the multivendor aspect, it has to be easy to load products, that is not as easy looking at it from a vendor aspect.
The 4.12.1 has come up with the Bulk Product import, but it's not simple to get working for a non developer.

Summary: Beside the minor cons, I like the Cs-Cart and I think you can build a multi-million dollar business with this platform. It has the capability to do anything you wish, BUT, just like any other platform, you will need to spend the time and/or buy additional products to make it happen. We availed the free trial before we purchased the platform, I suggest, you do the same!

Positive: - FAST was to building your company as this platform is Turn-Key
- Our vendors think it is relatively easy to use
- Easy to use after you spend time reading their detailed instruction manual.
- IF you don't know how to code, the add-ons are relatively inexpensive
- Offers a mobile app version which is a MUST for developing countries
- Free support for the first few months. (it sometimes take a day or two for them to respond but it is free)

Negative: - If your goal is to sell high end products, the default design is very primitive and ugly. I guess they did this on purpose so you have to buy a theme.
- Finding/hiring a local developer who has experience using the platform is practically impossible in SouthEast Asia.
- Payment gateway options are non-existent for Southeast Asia

Summary: Hard work effort by developer team, Well done CS-Cart team, also the support team too, but they must consider more about help because starter business do not has experience to use the cs cart solution

Positive: 1- Many features
2- Simple uses
3- Smartphones app
4- Multi vendors
5- Multi level administration roles

Negative: 1- design need more experience
2- expensive solution
3- need more extra fee like buying addon or theme
4- smartphone app need more features for administrators, vendors and sellers

Summary: In the end, CS-Cart Multivendor offers everything you need to develop your marketplace. Don't hesitate to read their documentation to discover all the features of the platform.

Positive: CS-Cart Multivendor is a fast, efficient, and above all affordable solution for young start-ups and larger online stores.

The platform offers a great balance of scalability, flexibility, and security. It allows admins and sellers to effectively grow customer engagement, traffic, and revenue with a whole suite of optional addons (available on CS-Cart Marketplace).

You'll be able to have unlimited sellers who can list unlimited products. CS-Cart Multivendor allows you to create physical, downloadable, and variable products.

As an administrator, you can use CS-Cart Multivendor to control everything that happens on your marketplace. Vendor registration, product posting, subscription renewal, and all other vendor activities can be done through you.

Negative: Wish they had more updated themes available. Of course, a good web designer can easily handle this but still... wish CS-Cart could provide 2 or 3 of them.

Summary: Given the competition out there, I think CS-Cart delivers quite a good value for money for small businesses to very quickly set up a marketplace and go live with it, with key essential functions included in the price. It does take a little exploring around to know where to set different things, but once you get the hang of it, it will be much faster to get some setting or change done.
Would surely recommend the free trial.

Positive: Easy to get help with setting up for a small fee (that's what I did). After that, it's pretty easy to self-manage add-ons and do upgrades. As an admin with only very basic server management and also coding capability, there are certain small things that I can do on my own, which is great. Anything more complex or fancy would probably require some more professional help, which there is a good list of resellers and service providers that you can approach for a quote. Open source means plenty of add-ons directly from cs-cart or other developers readily available for more feature rich things or localisation (e.g. setting up local payment gateway).
Access to the template files directly from the admin portal, no need to go via cpanel.

Negative: Designs/themes are not very fancy, just basic and but passable. More fancy themes at a cost.
The guides could still be improved further, especially if the target customer base is SMB who could possibly be doing most of it DIY and not engaging professional help. (e.g. the guide on upgrades said if you hit a particular warning, contact the helpdesk or get professional help, would be helpful to provide a little additional info or help there in the guide itself.
If you're in Asia, then not many Asia-adapted features, options or integrations may be available out of the box, e.g. payment and shipping options.
Messaging requires a login to the portal, Can't see content of the message in the email itself, which is kind of irritating.

Summary: CS-Cart is the solution i would recommend for multi vendor. I am curious how the shop system will go into operation when it is fully operational.

Positive: We are developing a regional marketplace for all local dealers with no online presence. This solution is the only known one with all features out of the box. For our vendors it is easy to register and to use it.

Negative: Some administration features are not so easy to handle. Payment configuration for us and several features for our vendors are not clear to understand when using the first time.

Summary: Overall we feel that this product has good positives, in that the platform itself can be easily worked with once the initial set up is done. However, doing the initial set up and dealing with issues as you go along is a bit of a nightmare.

Positive: If you're planning to build a platform for long term use, then the cost makes sense as you don't have to constantly be spending a monthly amount to keep the platform running. The layout of the majority of the backend is clear, and easy to use. There are quite a few features included which are nice, and when there are additional add-ons needed I like that there is a one time cost.

Negative: The support team sometimes gives useful answers, but often they do not seem able to understand what an issue is, and things just go back and forth to no end. There are quite a few things that we can get much better answers by doing a Google search than asking the customer support team - plus they take a really long time to respond. If you are not a developer the set up of the back end can be challenging, as it seems unnecessarily complicated, even for people who are tech-savvy.

Summary: For multi channel shipments and order generations, CS helps. Its extraordinary interface helps in managing all the channels and its delivery system easy. Support team helps in integrations and hand hold services.

Positive: Most of the market place listing can be made from single point. Inventory managed from single point. Commission calculation can be made from Single point. Integrations with various shipping partners act as an add-on service.

Negative: Sometime customization required for integration which seems tough but thanks to support team which make it easy.

Summary: Very good overall experience. Definitely the best option for marketplaces platform compared to other players in the market.

Positive: - Easy to set up with many helpful video tutorials available
- Free support during the first 3 months were very good and, most of the time, quick to respond.
- A great range of features available to enhance the customer experience

Negative: - Expensive support after the 3 months
- Not ideal for services as the platform is very much focused on selling products.
- Payment processing time is slow with no clear reason why.

Summary: As an artist I need a better storefront to sell my products online with better presentation and CS-Cart provides just that.

Positive: A much better alternative to sell your products online when compared to other services such as Gumroad, Sellfy, etc.
Also provides a decent 3 months free trial. and its also 1 Time payment which i prefer.

Negative: Costly but worth every penny since it is one time payments and you don't have to keep paying those annoying monthly subscription.

Summary: CS Cart Multi-Vendor is a good comprehensive solution for any business looking to create their own online marketplace.

Positive: Easy to setup and use.
Lots of features to customize your multi vendor marketplace.
Great community support.
One time license fee .

Negative: Support model needs improvements.
Upgrades are only free for 1 year.

Summary: I don't have a lot of experience with different eCommerce engines, however I know well about CMS system and current trends. I've chosen CS-Cart because it's not that pricey for multi-vendor features and there is not much discovered lack of security compared to other publishers. CS-Cart looks long time developed with some functions needed to be updated for better experience, especially for newbie users in eCommerce. The good thing is I can see once a month a new version of CS-Cart. There is 30 days cost free installation so it's easy to try it first. Customization for more advanced users demands knowledge of Smarty + PHP and API of CS-Cart. You must choose carefully proper template to avoid any additional customization or even widgets. A lot of add-ons helps to enhance usability. Overall it's good software.

Positive: - Every update includes a lot of new features
- Very energetic free support forums (Russian and international)
- A lot of add-ons
- Possible to run shop without hiring programmer for customization
- Some countries have really great support

Negative: - Point-and-click and drag & drop interfaces not fully developed (some parts of interface I have to organize by manually by select priority number),
- List of templates are limited or they are a bit outdated,
- Still old jQuery library supported,
- Most add-ons cost a bit or their support have been limited to 6 months, also software has limited full support to 3 months only.
- Interface languages creates a copy of each product description in database even there is only one language description.

Summary: CS-Cart Multi-Vendor is the perfect solution for e-Commerce! I've been using it for MONTHS now. I can safely advise!

Positive: Love the customisation aspect of the platform. It has the ability to install plugins and themes to get the look and functionality that you are after. It also has so many great features already built in, and is a great tool to get you started, as well as if you are an experience e-commerce user and most importantly they offer great support.

Negative: It needs to purchase credits for technical support after some time with a bit high cost.

Theme editor need to be expanded. Takes time to learn! Though videos are available, it's still a daunting task to learn it.

Summary: Value for money, I will certainly recommend the product. It has worked well for me so far. I am happy with the product.

Positive: Packed with features, adaptable, scalable and with lots of add ons.

The software has a lot of features, enough to get you started and even run a viable ongoing marketplace.

Adaptable- it can be used for different niche, both physical and non-physical products.

It is scalable, one of the key things I like about it, and plenty of ads on as at when needed.

Negative: It takes a bit of time to learn the features and may need a developer in some cases.

Too much and too frequent upgrades.

Summary: Overall my experience been good but it is is mainly based on the setup process so far. We have just started using the cart so how it'll work under pressure is yet to be seen.

Positive: It is easy to setup. I am not a developer per se but I was able to set it up quite easily. A lot of support is available through CS-Cart's website and through forums. Googling your query mostly gets you the answer.

The guides and videos setup by CS-Cart are quite good.

Negative: The design and themes have their limitations and if you want make any specific change that either requires specialist programming knowledge or has to be done through CS-Cart and/or their preferred developers which can be quite costly.
Support is free for the first 90 days but after that you need to buy support credits to be able to lodge a ticket and that can be bit frustrating. Support is normally quite slow in responding back.