Cart of the Week: CashCowCart

There are extra than 500 on-line purchasing carts. And every week we characteristic one, interviewing each the cart’s developer and a buyer. “Cart of the Week” isn’t a evaluation or an analysis, however reasonably a possibility to find out about a purchasing cart from the individuals who construct it and use it.

This week, we’ll hear from Bernard Kohan, chief enterprise growth officer and co-founder of Comentum, a software program growth firm. It presents a hosted ecommerce resolution referred to as CashCowCart that serves round 2,000 on-line retailers, in addition to a personalized ecommerce resolution referred to as Comentum Customized Cart.

We’ll additionally hear from a CashCowCart buyer, Alec R. Lopez, CEO of Sitbetter.com, a San Diego, Calif.-based retailer that makes use of the net cart to promote workplace furnishings and equipment.

Sensible eCommerce: Please present some basic background on CashCowCart.

Bernard Kohan

Bernard Kohan: “CashCowCart was launched 1998 and was modeled after massive scale, well-known, present purchasing carts. It has advanced into a strong, full-featured purchasing cart with lots of of options, equivalent to search engine-friendly pages, PCI compliance, built-in CMS, advertising, ease of use, and versatile coupons.

“Moreover, there are alternatives to completely customise the cart and tailor it for a selected {industry} or customized want. The cart makes use of a standardized open supply framework to offer higher scalability and development.”

PeC: Is it hosted, licensed, or each?

Kohan: “CashCowCart is hosted, however we provide each choices.”

PeC: How a lot does CashCowCart value?

Kohan: “It begins at $750, which incorporates some customizations to combine together with your present web site, and $39 per thirty days for internet hosting. There are not any further per-purchase charges.

“Alternately, the Comentum Customized Cart averages round $15,000, with no per-transaction charges. Internet hosting is offered, however not included on this model.”

PeC: What’s your organization doing to grow to be PCI compliant?

Kohan: “We have now created our personal safety scan instruments, and we’re additionally utilizing third occasion scanning instruments, equivalent to SecurityMetrics, to commonly verify and repair any new safety points.” (Editor’s Be aware: Neither Comentum nor CashCowCart is listed on The PCI Safety Requirements Council’s checklist of validated fee purposes or on Visa’s world checklist of PCI DSS validated service suppliers.)

ListenListen to Bernard Kohan talk about the beginnings of CashCowCart, and likewise supply ideas for retailers.

PeC: What are CashCowCart’s greatest strengths?

Kohan: “It has the flexibility to be simply personalized and the pliability so as to add sturdy, tailor-made options.”

PeC: What are a few of its weaknesses?

Kohan: “CashCowCart isn’t totally customizable, so it could not go well with a service provider who’s searching for intensive customizations. (However, Comentum Customized Cart requires customizations for every web site, so it will not go well with the service provider who’s searching for a generic cart.)”

PeC: What plans do you’ve gotten for future cart growth?

Kohan: “Our ecommerce software program is all the time evolving to accommodate right this moment’s expertise wants, equivalent to cellular gadgets, Fb integration, and extra.”

PeC: How would your cart assist an ecommerce service provider, versus the cart she or he is utilizing now?

Kohan: “It may enhance the way in which they do enterprise as a result of the cart can carry out the way in which a shopper wants it to function for his or her particular enterprise necessities.”

PeC: Every other ideas for our readers, who’re primarily ecommerce retailers?

Kohan: “If you’re planning for substantial development and success, you’ll need a dependable, long-term developer and a versatile and customizable purchasing cart software that may develop and evolve with you. Our firm presents these choices.”

A Buyer’s View

Alec Lopez is CEO of Sitbetter.com a web based retailer that sells workplace chairs and ergonomic equipment by way of CashCowCart. The web site processes roughly $950,000 in gross annual income, and Lopez gives his feedback and opinions about CashCowCart under.

PeC: How lengthy has your organization been utilizing the cart?

Alec Lopez

Alec Lopez: “Our web site was initially constructed on CashCowCart two years in the past, and we’ve stayed with it. We selected greater than a cart, we needed a strong accomplice in launching our web site. Different carts had been generic, and simply that–carts. CashCowCart was an answer that could possibly be dynamic and will evolve to our particular {industry} wants.

“Additionally vital, the corporate that got here with the cart match the kind of accomplice we had been searching for, and to whom we might entrust our cart-building and stock administration software program. We mentioned, “Construct a spine to our web site that may develop with us,” and so they did.”

PeC: What are the cart’s greatest strengths?

Lopez: “Its malleability in the direction of our industry-specific wants. Something we have to be customized constructed might be performed.”

PeC: How might the cart enhance?

Lopez: “Reporting. The reporting is sweet, however not nice. At present, we weigh the gross sales studies from CashCowCart with Google Analytics and we depend on QuickBooks studies greater than something.

“Integration with QuickBooks can be good, however we now have not requested it right now. Enhancements to the cart are by no means basic enhancements, however reasonably particular to my model of the cart, which is nice.”

PeC: How would CashCowCart enhance one other service provider’s enterprise?

Lopez: “If one other service provider is utilizing ‘get-arounds’ (that means the present cart does loads, however not precisely all the things wanted), or has options not in use however the service provider is paying for, then the service provider isn’t getting the complete worth from the cart. Since CashCowCart was designed for my use, and since we’re enhancing on it commonly, I pay precisely for what I would like.”

PeC: Do you propose on persevering with to make use of the cart?

Lopez: “Sure.”

PeC: Every other ideas for our readers in regards to the cart?

Lopez: “I contemplate CashCowCart greater than only a cart; it’s our service provider accomplice and the spine of our web site. The cart’s means to alter, and the corporate’s means to work carefully with us, gives us with a novel relationship with our cart developer that basically lets the cart meet our exacting wants.”

Different CashCowCart Websites

• My Lineage
• Callaway Winery & Vineyard
• CLIAwaived.com