2011 Pinnacle Cart Review: PHP Cart Overview

• Drag & Drop Design
• Highly Optimized for Search Engines
• PHP Shopping Cart
• 24x7 Email and Phone Support
• PCI Compliant Hosted Solution
• PA-DSS Certified Hosted & Licensed Options

Pinnacle Cart provides users with an easy to use, PCI-Compliant, ecommerce solution that includes a licensed version or a hosted shopping cart option. With over 450 features, Pinnacle Cart is one of the most robust ecommerce solutions reviewed on ZippyCart. Packages range from $29.95 to $149.95 per month for their hosted solution and $797 or $897 for their licensed option. While this licensed price may seem high when compared to other licensed shopping carts on ZippyCart, the in-depth feature set makes this price a bargain for many merchants that want to take their online store to the next level. Some of the most popular Pinnacle Cart features include drop shipping and wholesale integration, search engine optimization tools, free live chat, and free SSL. To learn more about the pros and cons of Pinnacle Cart, read the detailed Pinnacle Cart review below.

2011 Pinnacle Cart Review: Shopping Cart Report Card

Shopping Cart Feature	ZippyScore (out of 5.00)	Shopping Cart Feature	ZippyScore (out of 5.00)
Overall Value (15%)	4.45	Customer Service (15%)	4.25
Level of Customization (15%)	4.34	Ease of Use (15%)	4.31
Search Engine Friendliness (10%)	4.52	Range of Tools Available (10%)	4.34
Depth of Reporting Tools (5%)	4.37	Social Media / Social Commerce Integration (5%)	4.22
Mobile Commerce Integration (5%)	4.34	Free Trial Features (5%)	4.50

Overall ZippyScore: 4.36 out of 5.00

Pinnacle Cart Review: Expert PHP Cart Review

Pinnacle Cart has been a top ecommerce solution on ZippyCart for multiple years, and it continues to be one of the most popular PHP shopping carts for merchants running an online store. This ecommerce software solution is from Desert Dog Software out of Phoenix, Arizona, who has created a very easy to use PHP cart with a variety of hosted and licensed options to meet merchant needs and budgets. Throughout the end of 2010 Pinnacle Cart made many upgrades and improvements to their ecommerce software, and even added free migration services for those merchants switching from another solution. Additionally they added social media features which allow customers to promote products on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. All of the improvements on Pinnacle Cart have made it a Silver Award Winner on ZippyCart, which means it ranked number 4 in our top 10 ecommerce solutions list of 2011. Pinnacle Cart also won some Zippys this year, which our annual awards that ecommerce solutions receive for excelling in specific categories of ecommerce. Pinnacle's Zippys include:

1. Best Overall Marketing Tools: First Place
2. Best SEO: Third Place

In 2011 Pinnacle Cart will continue to improve upon their already popular PHP based ecommerce solution, so that they can attract more merchants to choose their software to power an online store.

Store Set Up & Design With Pinnacle Cart

Merchants who choose Pinnacle Cart ecommerce software will have an easy time setting up their online store and designing it to have a unique look that matches their brand. What makes the set up so simple, is the Quick Start guide that Pinnacle Cart has, which allows a merchant to go through the necessary steps to get things going with their online store. Merchants begin by inputting company information, and then selecting the free skin (template) that the storefront design should be based off of. Once that is complete the next steps are to pick category page and product layout style, as well as define the checkout process. In terms of the shopping cart checkout process with Pinnacle Cart, merchants can either choose a one page checkout or a traditional two to three page checkout process. Next merchants are prompted to input SEO information for the homepage of their online store, which includes the meta title, description, and keywords. Now a merchant has the option to allow Pinnacle Cart to pre-populate the online store with products and categories, so they can play with the design and get a better feel for what things will look like. If you do not choose this pre-population option, then you can choose to get all of your products and categories set up manually with ease, so that all that is left is to set up payment and shipping information.

Once a merchant is done with the Quick Start guide, the next thing to do is further tweak the template so that a truly unique design can be achieved for their online store. Merchants just need to activate the cart designer and then they can jump in and start using the drag and drop functionality, WYSIWYG editor, and a cool design toolbar at the bottom of the screen to help along the way. This means that you can do everything you need in terms of design without having to know HTML or CSS, but if you do have those skills you can just go in and edit the source code to achieve a more unique look. One thing to note is that the admin panel is not as intuitive initially during the start of designing. Finding the section to activate the cart designer takes a bit of navigation. Once activated though, designing is extremely easy.

SEO & Marketing

In terms of SEO and marketing tools, Pinnacle Cart has merchants covered, with an extensive set of features in both areas to help make an online store successful. Pinnacle Cart has flat URL generation tool, which makes it easier for top search engines to index the pages of your online store, plus merchants can create their own URL structure, which is great when switching from another shopping cart. All of the URL's can be controlled at the category, product, or page level, so merchants should have an easy time managing everything. Pinnacle Cart also allows merchants to have image tags for their products, which can aid SEO efforts. The HTML and CSS can be modified easily, if there are more specific things which you want to do for your SEO strategy. Overall Pinnacle Cart has a very search engine friendly architecture that merchants should enjoy, and hopefully benefit from by being able to push up their URL's higher in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages).

SEO is definetly a very important component when driving more traffic to your online store, but Pinnacle Cart also provides a variety of other marketing features and tools that will help merchants attract customers. Social media and ecommerce are continually overlapping, and that is just one reason why Pinnacle Cart wanted to add Pinnacle Cart eCommerce PLUS, which is an application that allows merchants to sell their products on their Facebook fan page. This is a great way to expand the reach of an online store, and hopefully increase sales as it will be able to attract people via Facebook which merchants might not have reached elsewhere. Another marketing feature which merchants like is the integration with MailChimp, which is a favorite email marketing tool among ecommerce software solutions. MailChimp can help elevate marketing efforts, and keep merchants engaged with customers so that they want to return and continue to shop online.

Once people are on a Pinnacle Cart powered online store, merchants can use their "Products you may like" tool, which is a great way to try and increase sales by recommending products to customers based upon what they have viewed thus far. Additionally the Pinnacle Cart ecommerce software solution can allow merchants to create a variety of discount/promotional codes, customers who bought "x" also bought "y", buy x, get y free, and even gift certificates. Another marketing tool that is becoming a big requirement for merchants is Live Chat software, which Pinnacle Cart provides for free with their ecommerce solutions. All of these features are great ways to increase your revenue, and there are many more Pinnacle Cart marketing features like this that merchants will enjoy.

Store Management (Images, Products, Orders, Customers & More)

When it comes to store management, there are various things that a merchant needs to oversee, and the biggest areas include images, products, orders, and customers. Pinnacle Cart has some solid features that will allow a merchant to upload images via FTP or bulk image loader, and then the system can automatically generate thumbnails and catalog page images. Another tool for images is Image Zoom, which allows customers to mouse over a product image and see close up detail of that product so they can determine if they want to purchase it. Customers care a lot about seeing great images of the product before they purchase it, so having Image Zoom is very important.

As for product management, Pinnacle Cart has a massively long list of features and tools that will give merchants the power to control every aspect of the products they display and sell at their online store. This includes controlling attributes of the products, merchandising, and overall management. Merchants can easily do critical things like dictate which products appear on the home page, which products need an "On-Sale" image, and add a manufacturer's logo to a product page. Pinnacle Cart also supports merchants who want to sell digital products, which has become more common over the last few years with ebooks and MP3's. Alongside product management, is the ability to manage the inventory with Pinnacle Cart, so you can keep track of what is in stock, and when you need more inventory. This inventory management includes things like low-stock emails and other notices that allow you to stay on top of your product catalog

Images, products, and inventory are key to an online store, but without customers there would be no one to make any purchases, and this is why ongoing customer management is so important. Providing amazing customer service is a great way to build loyalty, and studies have found that consumers will pay more for a product at an online store where they like the service they receive. The Pinnacle Cart ecommerce software solution has a variety of excellent customer management tools and features like the ability to create customer groups, send automated emails for order creation and shipment, create wish lists, Live Chat, and a saved cart feature. Additionally the order management features and tools are solid, and merchants should have no troubles using that part of the Pinnacle Cart ecommerce solution to provide customers with speedy delivery.

Customer Service from Pinnacle Cart

Merchants who partner with Pinnacle Cart should know that they have great customer service which ZippyCart frequently receives positive comments about. They have free customer support via the phone and email, a great user manual, knowledge base, and helpful video tutorials to guide you through step-by-step on how to do things within your Pinnacle Cart software. The Pinnacle Cart team is always on the hunt for the next feature that merchants will want, so they make it easy for merchants to send in feature requests. They use this information to help guide them as they continue to improve the Pinnacle Cart ecommerce solution, and try and implement frequently requested features as they do new releases of their software.

When ZippyCart secret shopped Pinnacle Cart, we found that there were some hiccups in their support. Sometimes, emails went unanswered for more than two business days and often when they were answered, they were stock emails that just included links to common FAQs. When you call into Pinnacle Cart, you will have a much better experience and get answers from knowledgeable reps. Another plus about Pinnacle Cart is that you are usually given a dedicated sales rep who you can build a rapport with as you work through using this solution. As such, if you are looking for good phone support and don't mind a lag in emails, Pinnacle Cart has decent customer service.

Prices & Packages - Including Licensed & Hosted

As mentioned before, Pinnacle Cart has a variety of options for their hosted and licensed ecommerce software solution, and most merchants should be able to find something that meets their needs. In terms of Pinnacle hosted ecommerce software solutions, the entry level option starts out at $29.95 and their high end option tops out at $149.95. They also have enterprise options with virtual private servers (VPS), which range from $249 to $349 per month. Those merchants looking at Pinnacle Cart licensed can expect to pay a one-time fee of $797 or $897, depending on if you want access to the full source code. Regardless of which version of Pinnacle Cart ecommerce software interests you, the best way to decide if you want to purchase it is by testing it out first via a free 14-day trial, which does not require a credit card.