What is X-Cart?

X-Cart is shopping cart software written to use PHP as the server-side scripting language and MySQL as its database. It is a very powerful and capable shopping cart system. For what you get, it is very reasonably priced! X-Cart is not for everyone though because it is really only good if the developer can modify the look and some degree of the default functionality. A product called Lite-Commerce is available from the same developer that is directed towards the less venturesome merchants so if the idea of making modifications has you really nervous from the beginning, look into Lite-Commerce instead of X-Cart. But beware of any shopping cart system that limits you to a standardized model of what your store should be!

There are many online store-builders out there ranging from cheap to expensive and they all require some learning and some tweaking to get the most basic e-commerce site off the ground. Many shopping cart systems use proprietary software. Once you figure out how to do everything you want, forget about applying much of that knowledge to another system. This was one several important reasons that I opted to start working with X-Cart a number of years ago. The NotAMall Store on this site runs with the X-Cart system and a number of stores have been built with X-Cart for our clients with more in the works.

So what is this section all about? Am I trying to sell X-Cart development services? No. I like the product and understand working with it enough to attempt helping others who are making e-commerce decisions. As developers, we are also affiliates with the producers of the software. If this article is helpful and forthright, it is my hope that you will purchase by following the links on NotAMall whereby we would receive a small commission and you would pay no more than you would if you didn't follow the links here to purchase. That's the simple value proposition. If it works well, we help each other.

Down to Brass Tacks - Why X-Cart?

With the basics out of the way, here are the most important reasons that I started to use X-Cart and why I continue to use it for my clients as well as our own projects. I will not give you a long series of bullet listed features ... you can get that on the X-Cart site and it may not mean much until you've worked with it enough to know what you really want to happen on your own store! This is crucial if you are just entering the e-commerce development field, be it as a merchant yourself with some HTML skills or a web developer looking for the right solution for your clients. The features required for any store will evolve as it is designed and tested so reading the features list for any well marketed software will always look great ... but what will you really want down the road?

Ownership ... When you purchase an X-Cart license you get the whole set of scripts. Everything, with no exceptions or proprietary holdbacks! Because it is based upon PHP and MySQL (and uses Smarty templates ... more about that later) you basically receive files that can be opened and edited in a wide range of programs. You can modify them in any manner you like, even to the point of making a useless mess out of them if you want. But more likely you would appreciate this because your store can be as unique as you can figure out how to make it. Both PHP and MySQL are free, open source technologies that are provided on many servers or fairly easy to install on your own server and they both have an enormous user base with many different sources of help and free support.

Improvements ... X-Cart is updated regularly by the developers and every license holder has a perpetual right to every new release, both incremental updates to the last "stable" version as well as the ability to download and use the newest version. When I say regularly I really do mean it. If I've been busy for a few months working on my sites and tending to client matters and then go to check on the status of the current release version, I typically find that several updates have been posted and have been made available to me. One detail that I will get into in depth in future tutorials is that once you have modified the X-Cart system, say you started working with version 4.0.9 and the current version available is now 4.1.2, upgrading can be a chore depending upon what you have modified. The decision to upgrade the store should be based upon what features the newer version offer that are relevant to your store and a properly working store need not be upgraded just for the hell of it. For example, a while ago there was an important security release and the X-Cart developers made it clear that it was a highly recommended upgrade. That was important while bug fixes to payment gateways that you don't even use would be irrelevant.

Gateways ... On to payment gateways which are critical to your store being able to accept credit card payments automatically. You certainly have the option of doing manual processing with X-Cart but why do that extra work if you don't have to? Someone sees what they want, puts it in their cart and checks out. You get the order and the payment is already a done deal with the processor having to worry about a stolen card and such. X-Cart has also added anti-fraud capabilities. X-Cart supports over 100 different payment gateways including PayPal. Check that number with them but most important, you have a lot of choices when you decide what company to work with for card processing. Or, maybe you already have a gateway and you can check to see if they are supported ... chances are they will be in the list unless it is Moe and Zeak's Card Running Service (no offense to Moe but Zeak is a real moron).

Cost ... I didn't put the cost first because it is so reasonable that the real risk is the time required to learn about the structure of the system and the basic logic it uses to take the customer through the store and the checkout system. The X-Cart Gold system is $199.00 as of this writing for the first license that is registered to a specific domain. After that, the cost is even less for an additional license. The licensing is based upon the domain that will be hosting the X-Cart store (the store's domain can be relocated) and the pricing system is great for web designer-developers for obvious reasons. Despite the fact that the system is very capable and customizable, that cost allowed me to easily convince one of my clients that he should let me purchase a copy and start to design his new store with X-Cart to really see if it would allow us to get what he needed from the package. If it didn't work out, it was a very small price to pay for really knowing. There is a 30-day demo available but quite honestly, it's not like a desktop application such as Photoshop or Dreamweaver that can run and then expire if you don't cough up the dough. They have to protect what they give you because, as I mentioned before, they are selling you the full set of scripts and templates. The trial has to be replaced with a non-protected version if you decide to buy. In reality a lot of your work will be lost if you have really started to customize a store and are starting to get it right by the end of the trial.

Community ... Sounds a bit cheesy huh? Well it isn't when you're stuck, and unless you know all there is to know about PHP and the Smarty template system, stuck you will be. There are three separate routes to get help solving problems once you have purchased an X-Cart license. The first is through technical support from the developers. These guys are Russians and they are damn good PHP programmers. Being in Russia, they are on a rather different time zone than most of their customers who appear to be mostly in the US and Britain ... other countries too of course. Despite that I have had excellent turn around time on critical issues that I simply could not figure out or that were not working properly the way I had set them up. They use a support points system and give you a certain number of points (that equate to development time) for buying any particular product and you can purchase points for additional support if needed. Or, they will quote you specific tasks that might include upgrading a heavily modified store (as I said, it can be a chore) or customizing something in particular, or just fixing a setup that wasn't done right. I don't hesitate to call upon them when needed but typically don't take that route first.

The X-Cart forum is where the community comes to play and without the help of the other developers, expert and novice alike, I would have been stuck much more often. There is a huge amount of information on the X-Cart developers forum and a valid license is all that is needed to take part. It tends to be very active and questions get answered rather quickly. It is very likely that someone has already had the same question or problem. Some time searching and poking around the forum will often get some resolution. My only criticism is that people should name their posts better but that's just human nature ... "Help needed" isn't a very useful subject line. Overall, the forum users are new developer's best friends.

Last but not least there are a number of expert X-Cart developers that are making excellent 3rd party add-ons and modifications for the basic system. They range from being able to add a completely different look to the system (a skin) to adding special features like being able to see where visitors are in the store in real time (no, not seeing into their houses ... just what pages they are viewing) and knowing where they came from to get to your store (like a particular search engine etc.). Some developers also take on customization work and the X-Cart developers also sell add-on components for specialized requirements such as an affiliate system for X-Cart. Thus, beyond the world of the basic X-Cart Gold shopping cart system there is a healthy amount of extensibility available. However, the basic system is perfectly capable of running and managing a full featured online store. It is simply important to know that there are options for greater complexity available without having to do all the heavy lifting yourself.

If this article has piqued your interest, please follow one of our links to the official X-Cart site where you can find more information on purchasing the software and becoming an X-Cart developer. Fact is, the more good developers there are, the better at our craft we all become!

John Harwood
NotAMall admin
e-Media & X-Cart developer

This article represents the professional opinions of the author and is in no way connected with the developers of X-Cart Gold or any other entity. No responsibility can be assumed for any decisions or purchases that might influenced by this article. Every attempt has been made to insure accuracy but the reader is responsible to confirm all facts. No portion of this text may used without the permission of the author and/or NightShade Media, Inc.