Lance Johnson

Hey Guys,

I'm trying to figure out which shopping cart to go with. Right now it's between 3:

• Cheddr
• 1shoppingcart
• InfusionSoft

Cheddr and 1shoppingcart both look pretty decent, and I've noticed a couple of people with big lists using Cheddr, with a ton using 1shoppingcart.

All I know about InfusionSoft is all the "gurus" use it. Anyone know if it's worth it?

The big things I want:

• Good email delivery rate
• Solid affiliate program management
• Single opt-in and double opt-in

Please let me know what kind of experience you guys have had.

Thanks!

JMJ
-Lance

InternetSuccess001

Hi,

They all have very slick looking websites. I've heard of 1shoppingcart, and believe they've been around for a while. Infusionsoft, yes, have heard of them more recently. The last one, haven't heard of it until now. Ranking/popularity wise, 1shoppingcart & infusionsoft are close to being tied. So would probably go with one of those two.

Lance Johnson

Yeah, they definitely are some slick websites.

Feature wise, they're pretty equal, but InfusionSoft seems to have more automation capabilities. Pretty sweet. But, it's $499 per month for pro.

Maybe I'll do 1shoppingcart now, and InfusionSoft later.

Since Cheddr and 1shoppingcart have pretty close to the same features, it'd be nice to know if someone has used them and has feedback on how well they execute those features.

DogScout

I used Infusionsoft for a while
baffles me why 'gurus' would use them.

Lance Johnson

That bad eh? What do you use now?

DogScout

Don't use a cart. Planning on using magento when I do. For ARs, I use Aweber and TrafficWave. Traffic wave allows as many contacts as you want at the same price and as I do a bunch of offline, I find a ton of people outside the local businesses sales area opt-in and it doesn't makes sense to pay for clients you will never see (off-line business never quite gets that part ). Besides, in spite of other ARs claims that it takes money when the contacts go up to ensure in-box delivery, over half of the people who send me infusionsoft mail ends up in the junk folder and about 10% of Awebers mail ends up there as well and I have never had a TW email go to junk. (though to be fair, I get less of them)

Traffic-Bug

I have been using aweber so far, but I have heard good things and seen in use, the 1shoppingcart thing. I am also on Infusion's email list, and their products look good also. Cheddr seems to be a recent new entrant and looks colorful solid and good, I see there are alignment issues in my firefox browser (including overwriting text)

Lance Johnson

I'm using Prosender (private label of Aweber) right now for an autoresponder. The deal is I want a full payment processor, affiliate tracker and autoresponder. Essentially an all-in-one marketing cart.

Good to hear about 1shoppingcart's success. It's looking pretty good for them.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

Bruce Hearder

Infusion is the best..

Have used it, written apps for it and integrated it with other apps, and it "ROCKS"!!

Most people haven't got a clue how to drive it properly. They think of its as a glorified autoresponder.. Its not and autosresponder.

Its an eCommerce platform that can handle just about anything you can throw at it..

If you can afford it, get it.. You won't regret it..

Bruce

All Night Cafe

We,ve been with 1shoppingcart for 4 years. It has worked well
for us.

Good luck.

paulgalloway

Hi Lance,

From my viewpoint, the perfect solution has yet to be created, and I don't think it ever will. No matter how much you (speaking as a programmer here) try to make your system do, someone's going to want it to do something more or something different -- something it wasnt designed for, and thus doesn't do very well.

In fact, I'd say I have to disappoint at least 10-15% of the people who inquire about my software (Will it do this? Can I do that?) -- there never will be a "one size fits all" solution.

So the biggest question IMHO is "what do you want it to do"? What MUST it do well, every time, and what would just be "nice to have"?

Sometimes a a 4-function pocket knife is more useable than an 80-function Victorinox, know what I mean?

I've had several clients who absolutely hate 1shoppingcart. A few who can't help but whimper while relating their experiences with "ConfusionSoft" . . .

I've never used InfusionSoft myself -- have only poked around a bit on behalf of a couple of clients. But what I have heard from several of them is that it has a very steep learning curve. I've heard rumors of problematic affiliate tracking, but that issue may have been fully resolved by now.

1shoppingcart seems to be the system everyone "loves to hate" -- I frequently see people grousing about poor email deliverability and incorrect affiliate tracking (I've actually seen that myself while using it for a client's launch -- but that was a couple years ago).

Cheddr is relatively new. It certainly looks promising (nice site too!) but whether it's reliable or not is anyone's guess at this point in time. Do you want to be the guinea pig?

I'm purposely leaving out my own software, but another to consider is CartFreak.com, though I don't know if they include any kind of list service.

Personally, I think it's better to use a dedicated list service like Aweber (my favorite) or iContact . . . maintaining acceptable email deliverability is a full time endeavor. I've had clients who are too invested in 1shoppingcart to leave, but they still switched the email list functions to a dedicated service. I think that's something you should consider.

I'm surprised your list of considerations didn't include Delavo (also surprised nobody else has mentioned it). I've never used it myself but it seems to be regarded highly by members here . . .

Best,

Paul

Lance Johnson

Thanks for all the feedback guys! Great to hear about the experiences you've had with each of them.

I can see that InfusionSoft has a steep learning curve, but looks like the potential is pretty huge. 1shoppingcart has been around for a while, and Cheddr is pretty new.

Right now, I think I'm going to test all three of them by using them in different niches. And actually am going to throw CartFreak in the mix too. I like the fact that it can integrate with Kunaki for my free + shipping offers.

Thanks again for all the feedback!

JMJ
-Lance

musthave

Hey guys...

Just thought I'd pop in here since I got a google alert about CartFreak which is my shopping cart.

I agree with most everything said on here. Confusionsoft is an understatement and I've worked extensively with them on behalf of partners and clients.

(actually funny enough one of my good friends was bragging about how Infusionsoft just upgraded their one click upsell system to make it easy and I said I'll believe it when I see it. 24 hours later he was calling ME at midnight to help him figure it out. I said I own CartFreak not Infusionsoft.)

Even so, I will say they are the most ROBUST solution out there if you have the knowledge, skills, people or money to help you manage and setup everything. In fact, I even refer some clients over there if I think they need more than what CartFreak offers.

I also send people to LimeLight which is probably the only Cart on earth I would even think about using besides my own. Only thing is it costs like $3500 upfront and $800 a month last I checked.

1Shoppingcart used to suck but is now very good since they added 1-click upsell express or whetever. However, I wouldn't recommend them for email.

I use and recommend Aweber and at CartFreak we help you integrate with them or just about any other email service provider like icontact, constant contact, mailchimp, emaillabs, bronto, getresponse etc.

As a shopping cart provider, we want to specialize in what we are experts at - designing features that MAKE YOU A LOT OF MONEY!

Features like:
One Click upsells (that can be up and running in an hour or less)
100% CD/DVD Fulfillment/Automation with Kunaki.com
Dynamic Pricing Technology (run dimes sales / fire sales / roller coaster etc.)
Host Your Own Order Forms
100% Customizable Order/Checkout/Upsell Pages
Accept Credit Cards or Paypal
Even PAYPAL RECURRING

We are certainly NOT experts at email delivery or managing ISP relationships so we didn't even try to build an autoresponder into CartFreak.

Instead we allow you to do what most marketers want - to be in full control!

I was my first customer!

Best,

Joe Lavery
CartFreak.com

OPLeads

If you are technical, use Sendpepper.com / officeautopilot.com as your marketing tool while integrating it with a 3rd party schoppingcart / affiliate system such as ultracart.com - rocks!


+1 for LimeLight if you are thinking about becoming a CPA merchant

Scott Million

Cheddr looked promising...until I read their blog. Last post Jul 17, 2009... not a good sign.

eddiejames

I've recently (like thursday) signed up with UltraCart, after noticing that traffic geyser use it.

Seems pretty good and I think we'll be going ahead with it, for the following reasons:

- Supports SagePay (ProTx) a popular card gateway here in the UK
- Has a decent API, XML callbacks etc
- Fully customisable checkout pages
- Really in depth control for continuity programmes (We want something that can bill $60 for the first 3 months as an introduction price, then $60/month and had a hard time trying to find something that offers this)
- Also supports PayPal, ideally we'd like to offer paypal subscriptions as an alternative to card payment - although I'm unclear if UltraCart support subscriptions or not as of yet.

rstanley

I own and use, Aweber, Sendpepper (baby autopilot), Infusionsoft, 1shoppingcart, extreme member and Nanacast. (wow.. need to consolidate).

They all have their strengths and weaknesses.

1shoppingcart - Cart and affiliate, email but rather poor (my opinion). 1sc is a great place to start.

Sendpepper - no cart system , no affiliate system, but email, contact tagging and physical postcards. I think its better for offline business and direct mail integration.

Infusion - Cart system, affiliate tracking (superior), email, contact tagging and upsells. IMHO the best product to ensure commission tracking by IP, Email and Cookie. Think about it, affiliates are going to be much happier when they aren't relying on a cookie. Tagging and webforms are super powerful too.

Nanacast - super powerful cart and affiliate system for physical and digital products. Tougher to understand than Infusion in my opinion. But definitely powerful for upsells, downsells, Firesales and other crazy stuff.

I could probably write a 100 page document covering all this stuff but I think I would rather go to bed.

Anonymous Affiliate

1ShoppingCart is easy to setup and to operate. It's a good and cheap one-stop solution, I am happy with them.

jh3000

Yes ultracart is a great alternative to 1shoppingcart. It is all about what you need though. Some larger volume sellers may want limelight, but most won't need it.

Now that 1shoppingcart offers 1 click upsells, it would be good to go if the actual page was more customizable.

Tory

too bad I cant just read your silly website without being forced to optin and listen to a little boy talk slowly....

I wanted to see your cart dangit.

sargshep

Ultracart - SendPepper/OfficeAutopilot rocks in my opinion.

prettyboy

I've used infusionsoft and 1shoppingcart...I like 1shoppingcart a lot more than infusionsoft. Despite the fact that you 1shoppingcart is a whole lot cheaper, it's easier to use. Infusionsoft has a lot of slick features, but frankly I really didn't use those special features that often.

GlenH

I've been with 1shoppingcart for 6 years, and I have no complaints at all really.

It's powerful and easy to use and reasonably priced.

I thought about switching to Infusionsoft, but when I was confronted with a 300 + page users manual, I just couldn't stomach having to go through that.

Just my opinion

--Glen

dlucca

My 2 cents...

If all you want to do is make sales and deliver email online, you would be missing the amazing power of Infusionsoft. Lots of the "gurus" are getting that having a lasting and robust business means offline contact. Infusionsoft can do it all.

You may not need or want all it can do.

If so, I vote that you do the easiest thing you can.

Karlsbad

Ive used Infusion for 18 months...from the get go of a new online biz. I bought when it was $3K up front...and pay $300 a month. Steep learning curve...but HUGE capability and I use nearly everything it offers. Could never had built my biz as fast as i did and kept track of everything and everyone without it....I use the shopping cart and order forms ... tagging and actions on everyone and every transaction so my segmentation is excellent all within one app. The tech support is excellent too...alwasy get my answer on the phone usually with in 10 min. The other "choice" is 1shopping cart with Aweber....and is used by nearly everyone. However many of the big dogs use a combo of Aweber to prospect...and when a prospect turns into a customer...they enter the infusionsoft CRM. I am considering do this...Aweber supposedly has a slightly better delievery rate...I dont have any personal comparsion to back this up however. Many of the big dogs even use a third auto reponder icontact .

selcor

Stay away, no RUN AWAY from infuSXXXSXft -- they do not even use their own software to their own customers in an effective way, its been a nightmare dealing with them and they are not customer focused or care about customer satisfaction - RUN AWAY from them

John Thornhill

I signed up with Infusionsoft about 10 weeks ago and I’m sorry to say it’s been a total nightmare from the start and I still can’t take recurring billing sales using... wait for this...

PayPal...

They will tell you what you want to hear to make a sale (I was told I could take recurring billing sales using PayPal) and after that you’re on your own.

This is not a company that values it’s customers, support tickets go unanswered, deadlines are constantly missed and they will tell you anything to get you off the phone when you contact support.

I wish I could recommend Infusionsoft as I had high hopes and had heard good things about them but I’m at a stage where I am about to pull the whole project I had planned and go with someone else.

John Thornhill

CoachEric

I've been using ISoft for less than 6 months and I've found their support to be awesome. I've been able to get all my questions answered on their tech line and their annual conf was amazing. Have used Aweber and constant contact, but Isoft is much more robust and included all the autoresponder sequences as well as lead-scoring so you can sift through your leads and call only the good ones.

Recently launched a new e-commerce site and needed a more robust shopping cart solution, so launched that with volusion.com, but isoft's shopping cart solution is robust enough for the general user

hope that helps

stormyweather

Just to let you know - one objection raised above is that Infusionsoft can't work with PayPal recurring payments. It can now because we've developed a WordPress plugin that makes Infusionsoft work seamlessly with PayPal.

Even if you don't use WordPress it will still work for you. I.e if your sales pages are on another platform it will still work. It's called InfusionPP