https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL7ggP2EsjY
SamCart is an online shopping cart software that was founded in 2013 by Scott and Brian Moran. It’s been around for a while, but lately, it seems to be everywhere.
A lot of marketers, business owners, and entrepreneurs are touting it as the best shopping cart software available today.
But, does it really live up to the hype?
This SamCart review will share my experiences with the software, including who it’s best for, its pros and cons and whether it’s worth it to your business.
SamCart: Is it worth it?
SamCart demo available. Click Here for a free demo
In my opinion, SamCart is absolutely worth the investment because compared to the majority of other shopping cart platforms, it offers tons of useful features and is optimized to help you increase conversions which ultimately boosts your bottom line.
As a marketer, you know the importance of testing your pages to optimize conversions, and SamCart has done all the work for you to make sure that you maximize the profit you make from each sale.
If you sell a $47 PDF and you use a standard checkout page, you might not be allowed to add an extra sale. But, with an upsell to the same offer (using SamCart, of course), you may be able to sell an additional $60 product to 30% of your customers.
What does this mean for you?
This results in more revenue per sales and higher order sizes. In the end, more money in your pockets.
Sidenote: If you do purchase SamCart, I’d be grateful if you supported me by clicking on this link to purchase.
The countless reviews and testimonials from happy customers speak for themselves:
Who is SamCart Good For?
SamCart is ideal for anyone selling stuff online. From physical products to digital products like courses, events, books, and seminars. It can also be used to sell services such as consulting on your website.
However, unlike other shopping cart software, it is specifically designed for a specific user. This means it will not be suitable for all.
Depending on whether you are selling information products, software, or memberships, you will find out the various features and functionality of SamCart to help you decide if it is the right shopping cart for your needs.
SamCart Pros and Cons
SamCart has its pros and cons, just like any other software. I have listed them below so you know exactly what to expect from this shopping cart.
SamCart Pros
- User-Friendly Platform: SamCart is a user-friendly platform for selling both physical and digital products online.
- Integrations: The software integrates with a ton of marketing tools and services through Zapier.
- Flexible Payment models: SamCart offers flexible payment options, including subscriptions and payment plans.
- Supports One-Click Upsells: You can use one-click upsells, downsells, and even “bumps” to boost your revenue.
- Granular Coupons & Discounts Control: You have complete control over the way you use coupons or discounts on your products.
- Affiliate Management: SamCart has an in-built affiliate marketing program management system that rivals other shopping carts. This will make it easy to manage your affiliate program.
- Excellent Support:SamCart is equipped with a wide range of knowledge to assist you with any type of issue. You can also get support through email, Facebook group, and live chat.
- Analytics and Reporting: The platform offers an impressive reporting dashboard that gives you useful insights from your data.
Want to see a demo of SamCart in action? Click Here to get a FREE demo
SamCart Cons
- Not Great For Services:SamCart doesn’t work well for selling services. However, you can still do so by being creative with how you name your offer.
- Limited Design Options: SamCart’s checkout templates design options are not as extensive as other shopping cart software within the same price range.
- You cannot accept cryptocurrency payments using SamCart. It also doesn’t have Apple Pay.
- Few Payment Integrations: Although SamCart has a ton of payment models, it actually integrates with very few payment processors, like PayPal and Stripe.
- High Price: SamCart does offer an impressive range of features, but the pricing is still a bit high for small business owners and individual marketers. This is especially true when compared with platforms such as ThriveCart which offer their services for a one time payment.
Top SamCart Functionality
The one thing that might make you choose SamCart over other types of shopping cart software is its functionality. This is where the real strength of SamCart lies.
We take a look below at each function of SamCart, to give you a better understanding of what makes SamCart different and how it can benefit your business.
One-Click Upsells
This is one of the main features that differentiate SamCart from the rest. The platform has one-click upsells that help you maximize your profits from each sale you make.
You’re wasting a lot of money if you don’t use upsells in your sales funnel. The world’s biggest retailer, Amazon, reports that SamCart makes upselling easy and seamless, and according to their website, once you set it up, it will increase your customer value by up to 68.1%.
Bump Offers
SamCart offers cross-selling order bumps. This strategy is also known as “bundling”, which involves combining the main product with other products in order to increase profits.
An example of this concept at work is when McDonald’s offers you fries and drinks with your burgers. Or, if you purchase sports equipment, you might also get an offer for half price gym membership or something like that.
So, for instance, if you sell laptops using SamCart shopping cart software, you might also offer bump offers of laptop bags, antivirus packages (Avast could really use this) , etc. as a way to increase your customer value.
SamCart makes this extremely easy to do with just a click of a button. All you have to do is set it up, and the platform will do the rest to get customers to make the purchase through its optimized checkout process.
Checkout Pages
Samcart’s checkout platform currently has 18 professionally-designed shopping cart templates. All of these have been proven to convert.
All the pages are mobile responsive and they have a unique “sandbox” mode that allows you to check that everything is working perfectly before going live. This is unlike other shopping cart software where you have to publish your page, then test it.
A lot of well-known marketers use SamCart which means that you will be able to avoid having to spend countless hours designing and testing checkout pages on your own. Take the advice of others and use their experience to see immediate results in your sales and marketing campaigns.
SamCart’s checkout templates include testimonials, security reassurances and guarantees. These trust elements are designed to increase conversion rates.
SamCart demo available. Click Here for a free demo
You simply need to choose a template and customize it to your brand’s style and colors.
One-page Checkout
This unique feature allows you to add multiple payment options on one checkout page.
Here’s an example of what that looks like:
For instance, if you are selling an online course for $447, you can use SamCart to offer your customers a payment plan whereas, on other shopping cart pages, you might have to use separate checkout pages to achieve that.
SamCart’s single-page checkout keeps customers on the page while they choose the best payment method for their product.
As an online marketer, I’m sure you know the importance of being able to keep your visitors on-page, otherwise, you risk losing them altogether if they leave for any reason.
Affiliate Center
SamCart allows you to sell products online and recruit affiliates to promote your products and increase your revenues.
The platform’s affiliate management function is so powerful that you don’t even need to spend time promoting products or services.
Affiliates are a great way to promote your product or service without having to spend money on advertising or other marketing. You only pay them once you make a sale.
Subscriber Saver
This SamCart feature is very appealing if you are selling subscription products online.
You know that not everyone pays their bills on time. You might miss payments because your credit card expired or you might have unscrupulous individuals who cancel or decline to pay their bills to avoid paying their obligations.
Regardless of the reason why payments don’t go through, it’s bad news for the marketer because oftentimes you can’t get your money (barring taking legal action against the customer).
SamCart helps to guard you against expired credit cards and declined payments by sending your customers an email on your behalf whenever a payment fails.
In the email, there will be a link where customers can update their payment information on file straight from their inbox. This will save you time and prevent you from spending valuable time trying to find customers who have not paid their bills.
SamCart will automatically cancel a customer’s subscription if they fail to update their payment information. After receiving multiple emails, SamCart marks them as “delinquent”. This allows you to identify the person and contact them if necessary.
Subscription Saver’s easy-to-read dunning report from SamCart allows you to keep track of what’s happening.
A/B Testing
Split testing is a common practice among marketers. Split testing can be especially helpful if you have a high cart abandonment rate. Even a small improvement can result in a huge increase in your revenue.
This goes for your blog post headlines, opt-in pages, email subject lines, sales pages, and pretty much anything else you can think of.
However, very few marketers bother to test their checkout pages. When you consider just how much money you stand to make by optimizing your pages, it makes no sense that someone would knowingly ignore such an important part of their sales funnel.
SamCart makes it easy. You can even run live A/B tests on your pages, a feature that is unique as far as shopping cart pages go.
There are tons of different things you can test on SamCart, such as changing the template, trying out a different guarantee/testimonial, etc., removing fields (tests have shown that the fewer fields you have, the better), and much more.
SamCart demo available. Click Here to get a FREE demo
SamCart Integrations
SamCart offers a wide range of integrations that will allow you to connect your shopping cart to the rest of your marketing stack.
Here are some of the main integrations on the platform:
Payment Providers The first thing you will be asked to do when you log in to SamCart is to setup your payment processor. SamCart has only two payment options, but they are constantly adding more integrations to the shopping platform. It’s also important to note that there are no cryptocurrency payments, such as bitcoin, or mobile payments, such as Apple Pay on the platform.
Email Marketing Providers Email marketing is a key integration for most marketers before choosing a shopping cart. SamCart supports many email marketing solutions including iContact and HubSpot, Ontraport. Active Campaign, MailChimp and Drip.
Membership platforms:SamCart supports many membership platforms including Thinkific and Post Affiliate Pro as well as WishList Member, Digital Access Pass and Optimize Member.
Webinar platforms: SamCart’s check-out software can be used to help you sell your products and services if you host webinars . Although there currently aren’t any native integrations for webinar platforms on SamCart, the software easily integrates with Zapier which allows you to connect to a wide range of webinar platforms, including GoToWebinar and WebinarJam.
Fulfillment services: If you are selling physical products with SamCart shopping cart software you only have one option for fulfillment: ShipStation. However, with Zapier, you can link out to a variety of other fulfillment systems to suit your business needs.
SamCart Alternatives
There are many shopping cart options available today, as we have already mentioned.
SamCart is only one platform, but it’s not the only one.
Listed below are four SamCart alternatives, and depending on the specific features you need for your business, these may prove to be a better (or worse) option. This post has more alternatives.
SamCart vs. ThriveCart
Note: You can read my full SamCart vs ThriveCart Review here.
ThriveCart, an online shopping cart software for e-commerce websites, is available. It offers many of the same features as SamCart, such as one-click upsells and affiliate management center.
SamCart has a lot more features than ThriveCart. The one place where ThriveCart outshines SamCart is on price.
SamCart can be purchased at a monthly cost, but you can also get ThriveCart by paying a $495 one-time fee.
This is one of the many reasons why a lot of digital marketers prefer this SamCart alternative over all the rest.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that ThriveCart integrates with most of the major payment processing systems available right now, whereas SamCart only integrates with PayPal and Stripe.
SamCart vs. PayKickStart
PayKickStart is a flexible shopping cart that will help you power your online business in an affordable way.
The software has features such as a sales funnel page builder, a powerful page editor, and checkout form pop-ups, among others. PayKickstart can be integrated with Braintree and Stripe, PayPal and Authorize.net.
This is the main difference between SamCart and PayKickStart. Everything else is pretty much the same.
Both platforms support multiple languages and currencies. They offer deep actionable insights through a robust reporting dashboard, and both shopping cart solutions are easy to set up. Each comes with a smart dashboard and conversion tools.
When it comes to pricing, PayKickStart offers four different subscription plans: Basic $99/month, Growth $199/month, Scale $299/month, and a custom plan that will be tailored to suit your business.
Compared to SamCart’s price, which starts at just $49/month, it’s easy to see why most marketers are drawn to SamCart over PayKickStart.
SamCart vs. Shift4Shop (formerly 3D Cart)
Shift4Shop is a renowned e-commerce platform that was established over two decades ago. The software comes with a lot of features that make it easy to create optimized checkout pages for higher conversions.
This makes it a good alternative to SamCart, particularly for anyone who wants a wider variety of checkout page templates to choose from. Shift4Shop has over 50 free templates, each of which contains all the features and elements required to boost your conversions.
When you choose a higher-level plan, you will have access to even more templates. Premium templates are responsive to mobile devices, which will ensure excellent viewing experience for your customers on mobile.
Shift4Shop also allows you to promote your products on social media, and all the plans come with $50 ad credits to get you started reaching a wider audience on different social media platforms.
Prices for Shift4Shop range from $19/month for “Startup” stores to $229/month for “Pro” stores.
SamCart vs. Clickfunnels
You can find my SamCart and Clickfunnels comparison here.
Clickfunnels is yet another great shopping cart software you can use to create attractive checkout pages.
It supports a wide range of payment processors including Stripe and PayPal. It supports many email marketing and automation tools such as Ontraport, Infusionsoft, and NMI.
Compared to other shopping cart software, Clickfunnels is a more complete system as it allows you to build landing pages as well as shopping cart pages.
This means, in essence, that it’s a lot more than just a shopping cart. It is an A-Z sales funnel which eliminates the need to use a lot of marketing tools for people who want to sell products or services online.
Also, I wrote this Shopify Comparison.
Truth be told, Samcart has a lot of competitors because many systems add checkout functionality. Kajabi, Convertkit and Aweber are just a few of the many systems that offer checkout functionality. As good as these platforms can be for their intending purpose, they aren’t nearly as focused as Samcart is.
Pricing
SamCart offers four plans:
- Launch: $49/month
- Grow $99/month
- Scale – $199/month
- Enterprise: $399/month
The pricing structure is simple, and the features available in each plan build on the ones from the previous plan.
You get the Launch plan and the Grow plan.
You get the same if you choose to go with the Scale plan. You get all the features available in the Grow plan, as well as additional features like the dunning tool, affiliate center, CRM integrations, and A/B testing.
Each plan comes with a 14-day free trial, as well as a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you pay yearly, you get additional discounts on the fees outlined above.
Product Support
SamCart provides support via email, chat and Facebook groups. They also have detailed documentation on the site, as well as an intuitive, user-friendly interface that is designed to remove potential roadblocks and help beginners navigate the platform easily.
Want to see a demo of SamCart in action? Click Here for a free demo
Here is a more detailed look at the support offered by SamCart.
Intuitive Interface: From the time you log on to the platform, you will be guided on the steps to take to help you get set up as quickly as possible.
Help Centre: SamCart offers a comprehensive knowledge base, including written posts and videos to assist you in solving any potential problems you may face.
Live Chat: If you come up against a problem that requires urgent assistance, you can get support via SamCart’s live chat. Although the reply time can vary, for the most part, SamCart support is very responsive to requests for help.
Facebook Group: SamCart has a huge Facebook community of over 24,000 members and includes a support team that will happily answer all your questions on Facebook.
Email Support: Although SamCart doesn’t offer direct contact to the support team, they do offer email support during business hours (that is, 9 AM to 5 PM ET weekdays).
FAQ
What is Samcart?
Samcart allows you to sell digital products and online services. It can also be used to sell physical items. You can create sales pages, marketing channels, run an affiliate programme, and much more with Samcart. Samcart is the most popular online shopping cart due to its excellent marketing and wide adoption by business owners all over the world.
What does Samcart do?
Samcart can be used across many industries. Samcart is a tool that can be used to help individuals sell products or services online. They have solutions for course creators, authors, coaches/consultants, agencies, side hustlers, amazon and Etsy sellers, Physical product sellers, entrepreneurs, and even non-profits.
How do you integrate SamCart with Zapier
Zapier allows you to integrate SamCart. This will allow you to instantly connect to over 3,000 marketing automation apps and tools to automate your work, increase productivity, and improve your bottom line.
Can SamCart Handle VAT?
SamCart helps keep your online tax simple. All you have to do is add your marketplace address and VAT ID wherever applicable, and SamCart will automatically find the right tax rates for each of your customers, and then charge them sales tax accordingly.
SamCart allows coupon codes
SamCart allows you to use coupons. It also offers one of the most precise control features (compared with other shopping cart software) over how coupons are used for products and services.
For instance, instead of having any one coupon applied automatically to all your products, you have the option of applying one coupon to specific products, and a different coupon to other products in the same sales funnel.
Can You A/B Test Checkout Pages in SamCart?
SamCart offers a powerful A/B testing tool that will help you increase your conversions. You can test every aspect of your checkout page to find out which versions work best with your audience. The platform also has in-depth tutorials for those who are new to split testing and provides a step-by-step process to help you hit the ground testing.
Does SamCart offer a money back guarantee?
SamCart provides a 30-day money back guarantee if the software is not right for you. Just make sure you cancel your subscription a few days before the payment is due to go off in order to avoid having to needlessly pay for an additional month. The platform also offers a free 14-day trial, which will make it less likely that you will need a refund since you’ll have the chance to get to know the platform in-depth before opting for any of the premium plans.
What does SamCart pay you?
With regards to affiliate commissions, SamCart doesn’t pay you. Instead, the vendor or your platform manager will pay you. Payments will be made using any of the supported payment methods, such as PayPal, and Stripe.
Is SamCart Legit?
SamCart is a great tool for digital marketers looking to sell products or services online.
It’s an affordable shopping cart software that makes it easy to optimize each of your sales through the use of various payment models, discounts, coupons, and bump offers so you can increase your revenue.
SamCart is a valuable tool that is easy to set up and makes a great addition to any online business.
I would be very grateful if you decide to use SamCart.