Top 5 Best Online Shopping Cart for 2022

With the advent of Covid, building an online store for your business is even more important. 

But for small businesses, finding the best online shopping cart to fit their needs can be a difficult task. Gathering all the information to make an informed decision is a long and time-demanding job. It gets even harder if you don't have the expertise.

So, we've done it for you. Here's a curated list of the best shopping carts for your eCommerce website.

But first...

What is a shopping cart?

An online shopping cart allows your customers to select products or services to purchase them. The software or platform accepts payment methods through a payment gateway (like PayPal or Stripe) and makes the customer information available to the merchant to proceed with the purchase.

Shopping cart software can also take care of order management, taxes, calculating the shipping cost, managing product inventory, and other features essential for running a performing eCommerce store.

Why is it essential for your eCommerce website?

First of all, an eCommerce shopping cart solution makes the purchase process a lot easier for customers, resulting in more sales. It also makes the purchase processing easier for merchants since all the customer's required information is collected during checkout and readily available in one location. Shopping cart solutions can also accept different payment options, making it easier for different customers to complete a purchase.

Types of shopping cart solutions

There are two main categories of shopping carts. They differ by the way they are integrated and what features they offer.

Hosted

→ If you don't want the hosting headaches

Hosted by a third-party provider, no need to download or host the software. Update, maintenance, and system backup are not your responsibility. It can come in the form of add-ons and monoliths.

Monoliths

→ If you need a site from scratch and everything in one place

This type of SaaS offers a hosted online platform that includes everything that is needed to build and manage an online shop. From website building to order fulfillment, it's usually all done within the platform. The functionalities vary on the chosen solutions, but they're generally offered on a monthly subscription with a fee for each transaction. They are usually the easiest method for someone with no technical knowledge to build a new eCommerce website.

Add-ons

→ If you already have a site or a favorite site builder

This kind of hosted shopping cart is particularly useful for existing websites or people who want the freedom to develop with their favorite stack. Merchant can use it to add eCommerce functionalities to their existing website.

Some solutions are relatively simple, only allowing customers to add items in a cart and proceed to payment. Others are further complex and offer a full suite of merchant back-office functionalities like inventory management, cart abandonment recovery via email marketing, multi-currency support tax management, discounts, etc.

Licensed

→ If you or your developers have an easy way to host your store

Instead of hosted solutions, the licensed shopping cart needs you to host them yourself (through a hosting provider or your own server). You're also responsible for maintenance, updates, and security. These solutions need more work but often offer more flexibility over hosted solutions. As for hosted solutions, the licensed can provide a wide range of functionalities from a simple cart and payment process to a full-on suite in which you can build your website, manage orders, shipping and inventory.

They also vary a lot in terms of pricing, some are free and open-source, and others are subscription-based.

Top shopping cart solutions

Shopify

Hosted | Monolith or Add-on

Pros

• Simple to use

• Big community

• A lot of resources

Cons

• Not as flexible & customizable as other solutions

• Can be expensive

Shopify is probably the most well-known solution on this list and the most popular among beginners and people with less technical knowledge. It offers a wide range of solutions from a fully hosted all-in-one platform with a website builder and an entire merchant back-office.

It also has another solution called Shopify Lite. It includes all the features from the admin panel without the website builder and CMS (content management system). The pricing for this tier is more advantageous if you don't need or want to build and manage your website on their platform.

Features

Pricing

Snipcart

Hosted | Add-on

Pros

• Customizable

• Can be integrated into any existing website

• Comprehensive merchant dashboard

Cons

• Some advanced features & customization might require a developer

• Doesn't support marketplace or social media shop

Snipcart is a flexible shopping cart that can easily be integrated into any website in minutes.

You add Snipcart's checkout to a site like you'd do with Google Analytics: by copy-pasting a few lines of code snippets.

Products are added pretty much in the same way!

Snipcart offers a friendly, fully hosted, merchant back office to manage all of your eCommerce operations: orders, discounts, abandoned carts, shipping, and more.

Some clients choose to get help from developers to expand their Snipcart customization and integrations.

It offers a fully customizable shopping cart with the help of webhooks & APIs.

Features

Pricing

WooCommerce

Licensed | Add-on

Pros

• Simple

• Cost-effective

Cons

• Need to use WordPress

• Lots of extensions are required for more basic & advanced features

• Need to keep it & the add-ons updated

WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin for self-hosted WordPress sites.

Its initial free solution, WooCommerce Core, offers all the features needed to manage basic eCommerce operations. WooThemes ( from WooCommerce founders) run a large and diverse marketplace of paid extensions to customize online stores or augment their capabilities.

They also provide a free eCommerce website template, Storefront, to get started quickly.

Features

Pricing

Ecwid

Hosted | Add-on

Pros

• Easily sell on social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc.)

• Offers a free tier

• Apps market for more integration

• Marketplaces support

Cons

• No multi-currency support

• Can't customize the shopping cart & checkout UX

Ecwid is a simple eCommerce platform for merchants who want to sell on their sites, social channels, marketplaces, or on the go. It aims to diversify sales channels for merchants and provide an easy way for up-and-coming merchants to sell online.

With a few lines of code, you can add a storefront to any of your websites or social media. You can then manage all of your eCommerce operations and settings inside an Ecwid control panel.

Features

Pricing

PrestaShop

Licensed | Monolith

Pros

• Flexible

• Act as your e-commerce CMS (might be a con for some)

Cons

• You need to host it yourself & maintain it

• Need web development knowledge or a developer to make the most of it

• Need to pay for add-ons if want to extend features

PrestaShop is a free, PHP open-source eCommerce solution. You'll need to host the software yourself to get started or use one of the offered hosted versions through partners. PrestaShop also runs an extensive, paid add-ons marketplace filled with modules, themes & services.

PrestaShop could be called an "all-in-one" solution: it acts as a site-builder, shopping cart, and eCommerce back-office. Since it's free, it's not the overall best option for serious merchants.

Features

Pricing

Closing thoughts

There's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to choosing a shopping cart solution, it all depends on what your needs are.

Of course, I'm biased toward Snipcart because I'm part of the team but also because I love the simplicity of use and the features it brings. Give it a try and see for yourself, test mode is free forever.

If you don't have the basic web development knowledge and don't mind using a generic template, an all-in-one, no-code solution like Shopify might be your best bet.

Any questions? Let me know in the comments!