Features/Customization: 10/10
Installation: 9/10
Integration: 10/10
Requirements: 5/10
Plug-ins: 10/10
Support: 8/10
Price: 8/10
Why Buy?
Why Avoid?

After recommending SalesCart Pro for many years now, I have decided to write up a short review of the product, and why I believe it stands out from the rest of the shopping carts today.


Product Overview:
SalesCart PRO contains over 60 features. In fact, it provides more features than any other shopping cart that I know of. With key features such as auction capabilities in the base product at no additional cost, flexibility of having different shipping modes, and single button removal of shipping and payment from the entire checkout system makes SalesCart PRO one of the most powerful shopping carts in existence. There is just no limit to what you can accomplish with SalesCart PRO. In addition to its level of power, SalesCart PRO will integrate with any website within a matter of minutes. During checkout, the sensitive data can be encrypted with SSL prior to transmission. This includes the customer ordering process and processing of orders. SalesCart PRO also comes with many other plug-ins that I will describe in detail. As a web developer, this shopping cart program doesn’t just help my client. It gives me the showcase of a superior shopping cart backend. I would recommend this program to other people who plan to have a fully customizable shopping cart with almost every feature one would need. The one-time license fee gives you the latest fixes and release for that version. If you purchase version 5.0, you will get 5.1, 5.2, and so forth. However, when it comes time to upgrade to 6.0, there is an upgrade fee of around $150-$250. The basic program itself costs $399. A little expensive compared to the other ecommerce shopping carts, however, none of the other shopping carts can compare to the features of SalesCart PRO. The software I think is worth well over $599. I do believe if they set their price down to $199 or $299, more people would be interested in their software. The only reason I say this is that their competitor’s prices are very low- even though the competitors cannot compete with the features SalesCart PRO offers.

Features/Customization:
Using the one license, you have the ability to create an unlimited number of shopping carts, without paying any monthly fees. SalesCart has unlimited features, is fully controllable, and allows you to purchase an unlimited number of items. SalesCart completely integrates with both the FrontPage AND DreamWeaver interface. There is NO other shopping cart that can compare to something so wonderful. It is easy to add products to your web site. In fact, SalesCart integrates into your web site as another ‘Tool’ option. You click the SalesCart tool, select ‘Add product’ enter a few details, and you are done! It is as simple as that.
The database is very expandable; the product database can be any ODBC language you desire including, for instance, Excel, Access, SQL, Oracle, Sybase, Informix, FoxPro, etc. I find that Access works well with SalesCart. ( View the Add Product Wizard )

The checkout system is just as great at the actual shopping cart it self. Using the Link-Wise checkout will allow you to control every aspect of your order. You are able to customize all of the pages, as well as view the source code for the actual shopping cart! Of course, SalesCart PRO already has a basic template that needs no configuration at all to function. You can open all of the pages inside of either FrontPage or DreamWeaver! Never do you have to modify source code to change certain aspects of your page.

SalesCart PRO allows you to disable shipping, payment, and tax directly through a wizard. Special discounting can be accomplished by either a percentage of total cost or an absolute amount.

The extensive shipping module allows you to specify shipping cost using: Weight-based, Value-based, Volume-based, Quantity-based, Product Only-based, Whole Order-Based, and Free-based shipping methods. Some of these shipping options can be combined; for instance, product-based shipping can be used in conjunction with Weight-based shipping.

In addition to this, SalesCart PRO offers three-tier tax support for products at three different levels. It allows you to calculate the Tax at the State or Province level, Tax at the Country/County level, to apply a single tax percentage on a product-by-product basis for luxury items, or to account for taxes imposed on a product-only basis.

SalesCart PRO also offers coupons that can be based either on entire orders or specific items. It allows you to specify coupon numbers and specific discounts which can be a percentage or an absolute amount. Upon checkout, your customer can specify coupon # and receive either a % discount off the entire order or a flat-discount (like $5.00) off the entire order depending on your entry.

The ability to have an unlimited number of product attributes, as well as all the price attributes for each setting are easily configurable inside of the wizard.

SalesCart PRO comes with an integrated currency converter that will work directly with OANDA. This real-time currency calculator gives the specific “real-time” International currency calculations at checkout time. These calculations are done at checkout instead of during the product display.

Shipping and handling can also be set inside the wizard. Specify an individual shipping cost/amount for each product. Specify a per-product shipping amount which can be used in isolation or in combination with whole-order shipping options. As well as specify an individual handling cost/amount for each product. Specify a per-product handling amount which can be used in isolation or in combination with whole-order handing options.

There is a step-by-step Wizard that builds your shopping cart for you. (View wizard screenshots) All you have to do is enter a few fields, and then you are off! Basically, everything can be customized in your wizard in a matter of minutes.

The support has 30-days of unlimited on-line support via their support tracking wizard. Although SalesCart PRO is very easy in terms of setup and installation, everyone understands that support is a must in this world.

The functions for the shopping cart keep getting better and better. The latest release of SalesCart PRO has the affiliate tracking built-into the program. A product-by-product basis specifies a particular merchant/affiliate/shipper or supplier code for each product. It allows you to track particular products to particular affiliates, merchants or suppliers.

The ability to have an auction for the item can allows you to specify auctioning on a product-by-product basis. Also, it allows you to enable and control the size of the price field so that the customer may specify a price during an auction. Mix auction and regular sales in the same shopping experience. One of the attributes you can set for the auction is the minimum auction price. This allows you to change the minimum acceptable value during an auction. Another auction feature allows you to specify a product expiration date and description. You can specify a date for each product. When this date is reached, the product can no longer be ordered or bid on if it is being auctioned. The specifics of the expiration message can be customized on an item-by-item basis.

SalesCart PRO’s built in e-mail friend is the easiest way for others to spread the word about a particular product. You can allow your customers to e-mail specific details to your friends which will then send a detailed description about the product to the friend’s e-mail address.

Returning customers will have no problems with picking up where they left off the last time they visited your shopping cart.

SalesCart PRO has support for International currency Displays and complete customizability for back-end check-out internationalization. There are very detailed instructions with it that explain how to set these features up.

One thing that makes this shopping cart unique is the ease of working with products. Utilizing, multiple product discounting options available, you can set a 10% discount if the price is great than $100. If they pay in the USA, they can receive a 5% discount. If they pay for $105, they could get 10% discount, plus a 5% discount for being in Arizona. There are unlimited possibilities for this product.

Products can be set up to have unlimited options. This is perfect for displaying a separate price for the color of the item for sales. All of these customizations are done using a wizard, or a product options tab. Never do you have to mess around with source code again.

One of the best parts about this product is the ability to have real-time shipping rates calculated from UPS! Automatic shipping calculations can be done by value, by weight, by volume, by product. Even automatic sales tax calculations are customizable on a product-by-product basis or for tax-exempt customers. Support for all major online transaction processing systems are available, including on-line, real-time checks. There are detailed purchase orders and other Access (or whatever Database you chose to use) Reports built-in on all orders.

There are plug-ins that will allow you to administer the database online, so that you can view your customers, sort by name, price, and so forth. You can even set up your products online to get the product information directly from the database! Another plug-in is the On-line Store Management system allows you to create purchase orders, invoices, configure shipping, taxes, even labels all on the online interface. It possesses an Open Back-end with over 7 different payment gateways, Including: PayPal, WorldPay, AuthorizeNet, CardService, LinkPoint, CyberCash, VeriSign, Bank of America and more... You must visit their web site for more information about the plug-ins.

Installation:
Installation for SalesCart is a breeze. You will usually not have problems with the software; however, there tends to be problems with Windows ME in setting up the Personal Web Server. SalesCart receives a 9/10 on the installation, just because there are problems with setting up the software to run on PWS (Personal Web Server) or IIS. This is very complex to get set up, and people run into a lot of problems while trying to set it up. ( View the SalesCart PRO Web Site Wizard )

Integration:
SalesCart integrates directly into FrontPage and DreamWeaver. Easy installation takes less then 10 minutes to configure. When installing a SalesCart PRO web site in FrontPage, you will be prompt with some boxes that will ask for your web site name, username, password, admin e-mail address, the e-mail messages used that are sent out when orders are complete, along with a few more fields. To integrate SalesCart PRO into an existing web site, simply click on ‘Add to current web’. It will add all of the files needed.

Requirements:
SalesCart lacks the ability to work well if your computer fails to meet its requirements. The biggest problem is when you try to set up the server and successfully run http://localhost. I have never been able to get the PWS set up on Windows ME. Microsoft does not support Personal Web Server- something that SalesCart Pro needs, unless you are using IIS.

There are a few requirements for the SalesCart Pro 5.0 program to function.

The client will need: