Huge Cartel is an ecommerce platform that focuses on servicing creative and artistic sellers. Powering greater than 83,000 on-line shops, Huge Cartel is an inexpensive selection for a lot of, particularly for its ease of navigation and customizable capabilities. With varied free templates and stay lessons that can assist you get arrange, you possibly can construct an internet retailer in lower than 45 minutes. By trying on the good and the unhealthy, let’s discover out if Huge Cartel is the correct platform for you.

Evaluating Huge Cartel to The Greatest Ecommerce Platforms

Sadly, Huge Cartel didn’t make it onto our high listing—however that doesn’t make it a nasty ecommerce platform. Actually, 1000’s of customers love Huge Cartel due to its inexpensive strategy to rework your on-line retailer with little to no effort from you. 

We reviewed dozens of ecommerce platforms in the marketplace and narrowed them right down to the highest 12. We checked out every choice to see who it’s finest for, what options to contemplate, and the right way to discover the most suitable choice to your wants. Need to scope out your entire choices? See all of our high picks right here. 

Huge Cartel: The Good and The Unhealthy

Identical to for all ecommerce platforms, there can be good and unhealthy options to contemplate. After in depth analysis, we discovered that Huge Cartel gives glorious options that the majority customers are completely satisfied to proceed utilizing, with only some drawbacks. Let’s take a deep dive into either side of the spectrum earlier than you determine.

The Good 

Extraordinarily Simple to Navigate: The very best half about using Huge Cartel to construct your on-line retailer is how simple it’s to navigate the backend and set it up from scratch. You don’t want earlier constructing expertise to make use of Huge Cartel as a result of it provides you all of the instruments you have to succeed. To first join, you want an electronic mail deal with, password, store identify, and store URL. 

After signing up, Huge Cartel lets you add your first product, choose a theme, arrange your checkout, add a profile picture, and create any low cost codes. When you select a premium plan to enroll with, you can too select to allow stock monitoring and use a customized area as a substitute. Navigating the backend throughout this course of is seamless as a consequence of its giant font textual content and arranged pathways. 

Respectable Number of Templates: A template is the muse of your on-line retailer, which you’ll be able to customise and make your personal. Fortunately, Huge Cartel gives a good number of free templates, which is beneficiant contemplating most ecommerce platforms solely supply one of the best templates for a value. All Huge Cartel’s themes are easy and go well with the wants of many enterprise niches, comparable to artists, photographers, and even bloggers. 

Huge Cartel has optimized every template for any cell or desktop gadget, and they’re utterly customizable for personalization. You possibly can set the variety of featured merchandise on the house web page, share buttons for social media, show your retailer’s emblem within the header, showcase a search bar, and present or cover sold-out merchandise. Each template gives a unique distinctive characteristic, comparable to slide-down purchasing carts or drop-down menus, so you possibly can select the way you need your prospects to work together along with your retailer. 

Customizable: Huge Cartel additionally has a good vary of customization capabilities that can provide help to enhance the performance of your retailer. Aside from using Huge Cartel’s customized templates, you possibly can profit from including customized pages, photos, hyperlinks, redirects, and favicons to your on-line retailer to personalize issues somewhat additional. Huge Cartel moreover goes that one step additional and allows you to optimize your web site for serps, edit your theme code, hyperlink social media profiles, embed an Instagram profile, again up your theme, and embed a video. 

The customization facet of Huge Cartel is straightforward to navigate and isn’t overly sophisticated, even if you’re coping with code. However in the event you need assistance throughout any customization course of, Huge Cartel has in-depth tech documentation to help you appropriately. 

Dashboard and Metrics: Working and managing an internet retailer is extra than simply importing and promoting merchandise. If you wish to know what number of merchandise you promote, how a lot income you make, and what merchandise are hottest, you will want a metrics system in place. Fortunately, Huge Cartel gives a easy but complete dashboard full of key metrics and statistics that can assist you maintain your finger on the heartbeat of your enterprise. 

Huge Cartel’s dashboard consists of order and customer stats, conversion charges and developments, product and class stats, and superior analytics with the Google Analytics integration. Every key statistic comes within the type of a easy graph or chart, with colours which can be simple on the eyes and thoroughly labeled subsections. 

Reside Lessons for Setup: When trying on the extra useful aspect of issues, Huge Cartel gives stay lessons on Youtube that goal that can assist you arrange the fundamentals of your on-line retailer. A Huge Cartel buyer assist consultant directs every class, taking you thru each step whereas exhibiting you precisely what to do by recording their display screen. There are presently 5 stay lessons, together with including a product, creating a reduction, cargo settings, account settings, and packaging your merchandise. 

The stay lessons are a superb asset to Huge Cartel as a result of many individuals are visible learners and having the choice to comply with together with a video is far simpler than studying a long-form doc. 

Apps and Integrations: In contrast to most ecommerce platforms, Huge Cartel doesn’t supply an enormous vary of apps and integrations that can inevitably make you’re feeling overwhelmed with decisions. As a substitute, Huge Cartel gives a small handful of highly effective integrations for advertising and marketing, retailer administration, manufacturing and transport, cost processors, and area suppliers. Primarily, Huge Cartel gives you with probably the most obligatory purposes. 

You get between 6-10 software choices in every space, making it simple to decide on the mixing you want most as a substitute of what’s fashionable or distinctive. 

Managed Safety: An internet retailer wants safety, and whereas Huge Cartel’s model isn’t probably the most superior, it’s nonetheless worthwhile for the value level. Each Huge Cartel retailer has SSL safety for an encrypted layer, and the remainder of the safety controls are elective. With that mentioned, Huge Cartel allows you to add a backup telephone quantity, assessment energetic gadgets and linked apps, and alter your password. 

The Unhealthy

Restricted Help Selection: On the subject of supporting customers, it’s useful for corporations to supply quite a lot of methods to contact them. Nonetheless, this isn’t the case for Huge Cartel, as the one strategy to contact the client staff for basic assist is thru electronic mail from Monday to Friday between 8am-6pm EST. Huge Cartel doesn’t presently supply a telephone quantity or stay chat choices, so getting a response for an instantaneous difficulty is a little bit of a trouble. 

It’s not all unhealthy although, as most customers discover Huge Cartel’s buyer assist staff to be pleasant and responsive, which is a plus, however it might be ultimate for a lot of customers if there have been faster contact choices. 

Diamond Options Are Missing: Whereas it’s extra inexpensive than most ecommerce platforms, the Diamond tier options are missing in comparison with different scalable plans. The one distinction between the Diamond and Premium tiers is the variety of merchandise you possibly can listing in your retailer, which Huge Cartel, sadly, caps at 500 for the Diamond tier. If customers spend an additional $10 monthly, it might be higher to have a vast quantity of merchandise as a substitute. The plan is inexpensive, however it doesn’t appear appropriate sufficient for enterprise-level shops. 

Not PCI Compliant: PCI compliance refers back to the set of safety requirements for corporations to just accept, course of, retailer, and transmit bank card data in a safe atmosphere. Sadly, Huge Cartel is just not a PCI-compliant platform, that means customers are technically chargeable for an internet retailer’s potential legal responsibility if it operates below Huge Cartel. Nonetheless, Huge Cartel gives third-party cost gateways which can be already PCI compliant, so you possibly can depend on these processors—however it’s nonetheless one thing to bear in mind when in search of an ecommerce platform to work with.

Huge Cartel Pricing and Choices

Huge Cartel is an ecommerce platform that many customers love for its affordability, and that’s as a result of it gives a totally free model with fairly beneficiant options. The free model allows you to add 5 merchandise with one picture per product, free customizable themes, and real-time stats. Listed below are some extra nifty options that include the free model: 

• Promote on-line and in-person
• Use a customized area
• Provide reductions and promos
• Cargo monitoring
• Product choice teams
• Gross sales tax autopilot 

Alternatively, Huge Cartel gives two further tiers that scale to the dimensions of your ecommerce enterprise. Right here’s a fast overview of every one:

Platinum 

• $9.99 monthly. Consists of 50 merchandise and no itemizing charges.

Diamond

• $19.99 monthly. Consists of 500 merchandise and no itemizing charges.

Each the Platinum and Diamond tiers supply the identical options. The one distinction is the variety of merchandise you possibly can listing in your storefront. Each choices are nonetheless extremely inexpensive, however the Diamond tier is actually higher for large-scale on-line shops that promote extra merchandise and want further house. 

Huge Cartel gives a superb vary of options for each tiers, together with 5 photos per product, theme code modifying, Google analytics, stock monitoring, and bulk modifying. 

Huge Cartel for iOS and Android

Huge Cartel has created cell purposes for iOS and Android customers to assist them take their store anyplace. Each apps are free and supply distinctive options to enhance your general ecommerce expertise, making it extra versatile.

Each the iOS and the Android model of this software gives a bunch of options, together with: 

• Create, edit, and rearrange merchandise
• View gross sales statistics
• Add product photos straight out of your picture library
• Settle for in-person money funds utilizing money or bank cards by way of Stripe
• Search and think about orders, add notes, and print packing slips
• Get push notifications
• Observe and replace order standing
• Add, edit, or take away reductions
• Regulate account settings
• Ship receipts immediately 

The necessities for iOS are iPhone, iPad, or iPod Contact on iOS 13+, and the necessities for Android range with every gadget, however you need to use it in your telephone or pill. 

Huge Cartel Pulley

Huge Cartel’s Pulley product is the simplest manner for artists to promote digital merchandise on-line, permitting you to promote your merchandise anyplace you want and never essentially out of your Huge Cartel ecommerce retailer. 

Whether or not you’re promoting music, ebooks, video, or software program, Pulley can assist you promote your merchandise at lightning velocity by permitting you to add and promote merchandise in just some clicks. Every buyer you promote to will get a singular hyperlink that lets them obtain the file by way of electronic mail, and with no further effort from you when Pulley retains monitor of your gross sales. 

Using Pulley allows you to promote from any totally different platform, comparable to your web site, weblog, social media profile, or electronic mail by utilizing Pulley’s Purchase Now hyperlinks. You too can combine Pulley into your Huge Cartel retailer for optimum efficiency. 

You’ve got to enroll in a Pulley account to make use of the answer. Nonetheless, this solely takes just a few steps, and you’ll then hyperlink your distinctive Pulley URL to your Huge Cartel account. 

The very best half is that Pulley isn’t restricted to promoting via Huge Cartel. If you wish to promote via PayPal, you possibly can! All you must do is add your PayPal electronic mail deal with and a Success and Cancel URL. 

As soon as your account is about up, Pulley provides you entry to its dashboard, which helps you to view your newest orders, hottest merchandise, and a gross sales graph that you may kind by day, week, or month. 

You additionally get functionalities like order emails, variables, and syntax for extra freedom and customization.

Pulley is presently $6 monthly, and Huge Cartel gives a 14-day free trial, no bank card required.

How Huge Cartel Ranks

Whereas Huge Cartel doesn’t rank on our high listing, it’s nonetheless a reasonably nice ecommerce platform to select from for its affordability and ease of use. With glorious customization, you possibly can utterly rework your on-line retailer for as little as $10 monthly and even without cost if you must. 

Here’s a brief overview of the highest ecommerce platforms: 

1. Bluehost – Greatest for computerized WooCommerce retailer setup
2. Shopify – Greatest all-in-one ecommerce platform
3. Wix – Greatest ecommerce platform for inexperienced persons
4. Squarespace – Greatest portfolio-based ecommerce builder
5. BigCommerce – Greatest for multichannel gross sales
6. Ecwid – Greatest free purchasing cart extension
7. WooCommerce – Greatest ecommerce plugin for WordPress
8. Shift4Shop – Greatest ecommerce platform for builders
9. Simple Digital Downloads – Greatest WordPress plugin for digital merchandise
10. Volusion – Greatest ecommerce platform for big shops
11. Magento – Greatest enterprise ecommerce platform

Abstract

Total, Huge Cartel is an inexpensive strategy to create an internet retailer that’s private to you. With managed safety, stay setup lessons, and complete metrics—what’s to not love about Huge Cartel? 

Particularly with versatile cell purposes and dependable options that can assist you promote digital merchandise, Huge Cartel is a stable various that can assist you promote merchandise and develop your enterprise on-line.