CoreCommerce Review

CoreCommerce is an online store builder geared towards small, medium and enterprise level businesses that need a hosted, scalable and secure platform that enables them to sell worldwide, in multiple currencies. CoreCommerce comes with a host features right out of the box and allows 3^rd-party integrations.

By the end of this CoreCommerce review you will have an overview of the capabilities of CoreCommerce, its pricing scheme, and the positive and negative aspects of this customizable SaaS eCommerce solution.

CoreCommerce Overview

Built on a proprietary shopping cart technology, CoreCommerce was established in 2001 by Matt DeLong. The company is based in Brentwood, Tennessee, and currently hosts over 13,000 businesses in 70 different countries, which is also due to the multiple language and multiple currency features supported by CoreCommerce’s platform.

In December 2015, CoreCommerce has seen a change in its management team and partnered up with a group of entrepreneurs with the goal to invest in product development and services to better position themselves on the competitive SaaS eCommerce market.

Features of CoreCommerce

CoreCommerce comes with a broad set of tools and features that all contribute to helping you sell and promote your products globally. The most notable features of CoreCommerce include:

• Level 1 PCI-DSS Compliance & free shared SSL: CoreCommerce offers PCI compliance and shared SSL to allow your customers to transact securely;
• 99% uptime: CoreCommerce’s managed hosting provides high availability to your online store as well as premium bandwidth for reliable speed;
• Hundreds of free templates: not all templates are responsive, in fact, only 17 are, which significantly narrows down your choices;
• Multilingual support and multi-currency support: allows you to add an international component to your online store; currency rates are updates hourly;
• Built-in marketing tools: built-in mailing list & newsletter, integration with email marketing tools like MailChimp, wish lists, gift registry, rewards program, sell products on Facebook, Google Trusted Store, social sharing capabilities, built-in blog platform, etc.;
• Visitor conversion tools: create coupons, product reviews comparison tool, good product features (recently viewed, last viewed, related products, etc.), unlimited product photo uploads, advanced search options, quantity based pricing, abandoned cart saver, one-page checkout, allow customers to sign in with Facebook, Twitter or Google accounts;
• Inventory management: batch import/export/update of product information, inventory tracking, low inventory/restocked items email notification, vendor log-ins, supply orders from admin panel;
• Integrated payment gateways: major credit card payment processing, possibility to accept payments by gift certificate or money order;
• Shipping & order fulfillment: international shipping integrations available, easy print of shipping labels, drop shipping options, accurate shipping quotes;
• SEO tools & analytics: Google Analytics integration, affiliate statistics, sales reports, coupon usage reports, keyword and search term reports, bandwidth usage report, tax reports, and various other reports;
• Integration with other marketplaces: sell your products on Amazon, eBay, Facebook.

These are only some of the features of CoreCommerce, for a comprehensive list of features, you can download Core Commerce’s Comprehensive Platform Features Document.

CoreCommerce Plans & Pricing

All CoreCommerce plans come with the same features, limits can be found only in the number of products allowed and the number of email accounts, bandwidth and storage offered. If you exceed your storage limits, expect to pay overage fees on every extra Gb that you use.

CoreCommerce offers a 15-day free trial to demo their platform. To sign up for the free trial, you are not required to submit your credit card details.

Other plans are arranged in five pricing tiers, as follows:

Pioneer: sells at $36/month (annual billing), allows 300 products, 5 email accounts, 4 GB bandwidth, and 1 Gb storage.

Advanced: sells at $81/month (annual billing), allows 2,000 products, 10 email accounts, unlimited bandwidth, and 5 GB storage.

Professional: sells at $123/month (annual billing), allows 6,000 products, 15 email accounts, unlimited bandwidth, and 10 GB storage.

Premier: sells at $176/month (annual billing), allows unlimited products, 25 email accounts, unlimited bandwidth, and 50 GB storage.

Enterprise: sells at $526/month (annual billing), allows unlimited products, unlimited email accounts, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited storage.

Monthly billing is also available, but expect at least a 10% price jump on monthly plans. Enterprise plans receive semi-dedicated hosting, while nonprofits can enjoy a 50% discount on all plans.

Customer Support at CoreCommerce

CoreCommerce’s customer support is based out of the US, and it’s available through phone, email/support ticket, and live chat (available in admin). The company site features a well-kept knowledgebase where you can browse for information by topics.

Video tutorials are currently in the works and although the site also features a CoreCommerce Community Forum as well, we couldn’t find any active member posts there.

CoreCommerce has a social media presence as well, you can connect with them on Facebook and Twitter.

Pros & Cons of CoreCommerce

CoreCommerce is abundant in features necessary for the launch and growth of an online store, but lags behind the competition with limitations on resources.

Pros

• Level 1 PCI-DSS Compliance;
• Multilingual support & multi-currency support;
• Good customer support;
• Free 15-day trial;
• Many third-party integrations;
• Robust inventory management and product features.

Cons

• Limitations on products, storage and bandwidth;
• No integrated CDN;
• Outdated templates;
• Complaints about downtimes and difficult-to-navigate admin interface.

Overall, CoreCommerce ranks high in customer support and the many third-party integrations they support, however – as we will see in our conclusion – it’s not quite up to par with the best eCommerce solutions available today.

CoreCommerce Review Conclusions

Although CoreCommerce has the tools and features to help you build and promote an online store, unfortunately, it lags behind its competitors in some important features. Limitations imposed on products, storage and bandwidth position it far behind BigCommerce, for example, which offers unlimited products, storage, bandwidth, and staff accounts across all plans.

Another problem is CoreCommerce’s site admin, which is difficult to navigate and makes customization feel like a chore. The lack of a content delivery network is another weak spot for CoreCommerce.

We strongly encourage you test the platform yourself before committing to a plan, with special focus on the admin and customizability components of the platform.