.avif)
What is SamCart?
SamCart is an online shopping cart software that was founded in 2013 by Scott and Brian Moran. It has been around for quite some time, but lately it seems to be all over the place.
Many marketers, business owners, and entrepreneurs present it as the best shopping cart software available today.
But is he Really Up to the Task infatuation?
In this SamCart review, I'm going to share my experience with this software: who it's right for, its pros and cons, and whether or not it's worth it for your business.
Who is SamCart for?
SamCart is perfect for anyone who sells products online. From physical products to digital products like courses, events, books, and seminars. You can even use it to sell services, like consulting services on your website.
But, like all other shopping cart software, it's specifically designed for a certain type of user, which means it won't be ideal for Everyone.
So, depending on whether you're selling information products, software, memberships, or services, read on to find out the various features and functionalities of SamCart to determine whether or not it's the ideal shopping cart for you.
Features
The only thing that could make you choose SamCart over other types of shopping cart software is its functionality. This is where its real assets lie.
Below we look at each of the features of SamCart, so you can better understand why SamCart is different from the others and how it can be useful for your business.
1. Upselling
This is one of the main features that differentiates SamCart from the others. The platform offers one-click upsells that help you maximize your profits for each sale you make.
If you're not using upsells as part of your sales funnel, you're leaving a lot of money on the table. The world's largest retailer, Amazon, says that More than a Third of Its revenue comes from upselling efforts.
SamCart makes upselling easy and transparent, and according to its website, once you set it up, it will increase the value of your customers up to 68.1%.
2. Bundles
SamCart also offers you cross-selling orders. This strategy, also known as “bundling,” consists of grouping the main product or service together with complementary products in order to increase the profits from each sale.
An example of this concept in action is when McDonald's offers you fries and drinks with your hamburgers. However, if you buy sports equipment, you can take advantage of a half-price membership offer to a gym or something like that.
So, for example, if you sell laptops using SamCart shopping cart software, you can also offer bundles of laptop bags, antivirus packs (Avast could really benefit from this), etc. in order to increase customer value.
SamCart allows you to do it very easily, with just one click. All you need to do is set it up, and the platform will do the rest for customers to make the purchase through its optimized checkout process.
3. Payment Page Templates
At the time of writing, Samcart's platform offers 18 professionally designed shopping cart templates, all of which have a proven track record of converting.
All pages are mobile-friendly and have a unique “sandbox” mode that allows you to check that everything is working perfectly before going live. It's different from other shopping cart software, where you have to publish your page and then test it.
A lot of renowned marketers use SamCart, which means you'll be able to avoid spending countless hours designing and testing checkout pages by yourself. You can simply take the advice of the experts who came before you and build on their work to start seeing immediate results in your marketing and sales campaigns.
All of Samcart's checkout page templates also incorporate testimonials, security guarantees, and other trusted elements that are meant to increase conversion rates.
All you need to do is choose a template to use and then customize it to suit your brand colors and style.
Examples of payment pages
This is a unique feature that gives you the ability to add multiple payment options on a single checkout page.
Here is an example of what that looks like:
For example, if you sell an online course for $447, you can use SamCart to offer your customers a payment plan while, on other cart pages, you may need to use separate checkout pages to do so.
Samcart's single-page checkout keeps visitors on the page while they decide how best to pay for your product.
As an online marketer, I'm sure you know the importance of being able to keep your visitors on the page, otherwise you may lose them completely if they leave for whatever reason.
4. Affiliate center
SamCart not only allows you to easily sell your products online, but it also allows you to recruit a whole army of affiliates who will promote your products and increase your revenue.
In fact, the platform's affiliate management function is so robust that you don't even have to spend time promoting your products or services.
There's no need to pay for ads or any other type of marketing, because with affiliates promoting your product or service, it's an easy way to generate sales since you only have to pay affiliates when they make a sale for you.
5. Subscription Management
If you sell subscription products online, here is a SamCart feature that you will find extremely interesting.
As you know, not everyone pays on time, all the time. Some missed payments may be due to credit cards that have simply expired, or to unscrupulous people who refuse charges or cancel their cards to avoid meeting their obligations.
Whatever the reason the payments aren't being made, that's bad news for the marketer, as it's often impossible to get their money back (unless you take legal action against the customer).
SamCart helps you protect yourself against expired credit cards and declined payments by sending your customers an email on your behalf when a payment fails.
The email will include a link for customers to update their payment information directly from their inbox. This saves you from wasting valuable time looking for customers who didn't make their payments.
For customers who don't update their payment information after receiving multiple emails, SamCart automatically cancels their subscription and marks them as “bad payers” so you know exactly who they are and can choose to contact them if you want to.
You can keep an eye on what's going on in Subscription Saver thanks to Samcart's simple and effective reminder report.
6. A/B testing
Every marketer has a good idea of the importance of testing everything separately. Split testing can be especially useful if you have a high cart abandonment rate. Even a small improvement can lead to a huge increase in your revenue.
That goes for the titles of your blog posts, registration pages, registration pages, email subject lines, sales pages, and just about anything else you can imagine.
But few marketers really bother to test their checkout pages. When you know how much money you can make by optimizing your pages, it doesn't make sense for someone to knowingly ignore such an important part of their sales funnel.
Luckily, SamCart makes this part easy as well. You can even run live A/B tests on your pages, a unique feature in the area of shopping cart pages.
There are tons of different things you can test on SamCart, like changing the template, trying a different warranty/testimonial, etc., deleting fields (the tests showed that the fewer fields you have the better), and much more.
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:
1. Payment providers
One of the first things you are asked to do when you sign in to SamCart is to set up your payment processor. For now, there are only two options available, but SamCart is working on adding new integrations to the shopping cart platform. It's also important to note that there are no cryptocurrency payments, like Bitcoin, or mobile payments, like Apple Pay, on the platform.
2. Email marketing providers
For most marketers, email marketing is among the most important integrations to consider before choosing a shopping cart solution.
The good news is that SamCart supports a large number of email marketing solutions including iContact, HubSpot, Ontraport, Active Campaign, MailChimp Sand Drip.
3. Membership platforms
SamCart supports a wide range of membership platforms including Thinkific, Post Affiliate Pro, WishList Member, Digital Access Pass, Optimize Member, and Membermouse.
4. Webinar platforms
If You Organize webinars As part of your marketing strategy, you can use Samcart's checkout software to sell your products and services.
While there is currently no native integration for webinar platforms on SamCart, the software integrates easily with Zapier which allows you to connect to a wide range of Webinar Platforms, including GoToWebinar and WebinarJam.
5. Order Fulfilment Services
If you sell physical products using SamCart shopping cart software, you only have one option available to fulfill orders: ShipStation. However, with Zapier, you can connect to a variety of other order fulfillment systems to meet your business needs.
Alternatives to SamCart
As mentioned earlier, there are tons of shopping cart solutions on the market today.
SamCart is just one example among many, and while it has amazing features and functionalities, there are a few others that can give this platform a boost for its money.
Below are four alternatives to SamCart. Depending on the specific features you need for your business, these alternatives may prove to be a better (or worse) option. If you are looking for other options, see This article that offers other alternatives.
1. ThriveCart
ThriveCart is an online shopping cart software designed for e-commerce sites. It has a lot of the same features as SamCart, including one-click upsells, affiliate management center, and more.
But, SamCart has a lot more features than ThriveCart. The only place where ThriveCart outperforms SamCart is the price.
While SamCart comes at a monthly price, you can get ThriveCart for a one-time fee of $495.
This is one of the many reasons why many digital marketers prefer this SamCart alternative over all the others.
It's also worth mentioning the fact that ThriveCart integrates with most of the major payment processing systems available right now, while SamCart only integrates with PayPal and Stripe.
2. PayKickstart
PayKickstart is a flexible shopping cart that will help you boost your online business in an affordable way.
The software has features such as a sales funnel page builder, a powerful page editor, and payment form pop-ups, among others. You can integrate PayKickstart with Braintree, Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, and Easy Pay Direct.
This is the only main difference between PayKickStart and SamCart. Everything else is pretty much the same.
Both platforms support multiple languages and currencies. They offer detailed and actionable information through a robust dashboard, and both shopping cart solutions are easy to set up. They both have a smart dashboard, conversion tools, an affiliate center, and robust app integration.
As for 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 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.
3. Shift4Shop (formerly 3D Cart)
Shift4Shop is a renowned e-commerce platform that was created over two decades ago. The software is packed with features that make it easy to create checkout pages that are optimized for higher conversions.
This makes it a good alternative to SamCart, especially for anyone who wants a wider variety of payment page templates. Shift4Shop offers over 50 free templates, each of which contains all the features and items you need to increase your conversions.
When you choose a higher tier plan, you have access to even more templates. Premium templates are mobile-friendly, ensuring a great viewing experience for your mobile customers.
Shift4Shop also allows you to promote your products on social media, and all plans come with $50 ad credits to allow you to start reaching a larger audience across various social media platforms.
Shift4Shop prices range from $19/month for “Startup” stores to $229/month for “Pro” stores.
Pricing
If you pay per month, SamCart offers four different plans:
- Launch: $49/month
- Grow: $99/month
- Scale: $199/month
- Enterprise: $399/month
If you opt for an annual plan, you'll save 20% on all of these prices.
The pricing structure is simple, and the features available in each plan build on those in the previous plan.
For example, when you opt for the Grow Plan, you get all the features of the Launch Plan, plus a few advanced features, such as customer management, subscription payment reminders, advanced subscription cancellations, and more.
The same is true if you opt for the Scale Plan. You get all the features available in the Grow Plan, as well as additional features like the follow-up 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 annually, you get additional discounts on the fees described above.
Customer Support
SamCart offers support through a variety of means, including email, live chat, and a Facebook group. They also have detailed documentation on the site, as well as an intuitive and user-friendly interface that is designed to remove potential obstacles and help newbies navigate the platform easily.
Here is a more detailed look at the support offered by SamCart.
1. Intuitive interface: As soon as you connect to the platform, you are guided on the steps to follow to help you get set up as quickly as possible.
2. Help center: SamCart has a comprehensive knowledge base with written articles and video tutorials to help you solve any type of potential problem you may face.
3. Live chat: If you encounter a problem that requires urgent support, you can get help through Samcart's live chat. Although response times may vary, SamCart support is generally very responsive to help requests.
4. Facebook group: SamCart has a huge Facebook community of over 24,000 members and includes a support team that will be happy to answer any questions you may have on Facebook.
5. Email support: While SamCart does not offer direct contact with the support team, it does offer email support during business hours (i.e. 9:00am to 5:00pm EST on weekdays).
FAQs
Can you integrate SamCart with Zapier?
You can integrate SamCart with Zapier, which will then allow you to instantly connect to over 3,000 marketing automation tools and applications to help you automate your work, supercharge your productivity, and increase your bottom line.
Can SamCart manage VAT?
SamCart helps you simplify your online taxation. Simply add your marketplace address and VAT number, if applicable, and SamCart will automatically find the appropriate tax rates for each of your customers and charge them sales tax accordingly.
Does SamCart allow discount codes?
Not only does SamCart allow coupons, but the platform also has one of the most granular control features (compared to other shopping cart software) over how you use coupons for your products and services.
For example, instead of automatically applying a coupon to tutti Your products, you have the option of applying a coupon to specific products, and a Other Coupon to other products in the same sales funnel.
Can we do A/B tests on SamCart payment pages?
SamCart has a solid A/B testing feature designed to 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 new to split testing and provides a step-by-step process to help you get started with testing.
Final Verdict
SamCart is definitely legitimate for digital marketers who want to sell services or products (physical and digital) online.
It is 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 bundles in order to increase your revenue.
SamCart is a valuable tool that is easy to set up and is an ideal complement to any online business.
