15 Best Free Shopping Cart for Websites in 2024

Many will agree that adding to cart is the most exhilarating part of the shopping experience for customers. For store owners, this part is just as exciting until the cart gets abandoned before or once it reaches checkout. This, unfortunately, is a very common occurrence in ecommerce sites where the average cart abandonment rate has reached nearly 70% in the second quarter of 2022.

The reasons behind cart abandonment vary, from costly additional charges to customers finding your ecommerce site untrustworthy. Fortunately, a number of cart abandonment issues can be fixed if your shopping cart software is capable of improving your customers’ online shopping journey.

If you are an owner or operator of an ecommerce site and having issues with your current shopping cart solution, chances are you are considering trying other options. And if you are a new online store owner looking for a website shopping cart free of charge, this article about the best free shopping cart for websites is for you.

Shopping cart abandonment has led to ecommerce merchants’ staggering $18 billion loss in annual sales revenue. According to a report, this dilemma has persisted despite the improvements made on the merchants’ end from changing their site’s design and taking other steps to increase the comfort of their online shoppers. These efforts, however, are deemed futile with nearly 90% of surveyed online shoppers admitting to abandoning their online shopping carts.

But why do shoppers choose to not complete transactions, especially upon checkout? Statistics on shopping cart abandonment show that this has been going on for years. According to Baymard Institute, the extra costs are the leading cause of shopping cart abandonment. The high amount of additional charges, which include taxes and shipping, are expected, but customers are more likely to complete their purchases if there is a free shipping fee or discount coupons included.

While the other reasons can be considered as completely out of the merchants’ control, some areas, including simplifying the checkout process and offering more payment options can be addressed with the help of the right virtual shopping cart tools.

How can personalization improve the shopping cart experience?

Personalization has become a crucial component of ecommerce, especially in enhancing the shopping cart experience. By tailoring the online shopping journey to each customer’s preferences and past behavior, businesses can increase conversion rates, improve customer satisfaction, and reduce cart abandonment. Here are some ways personalized shopping cart features can benefit your ecommerce platform:

• Targeted Product Recommendations
  Providing relevant product suggestions based on a customer’s browsing history, previous purchases, and preferences can encourage additional purchases. Personalized recommendations make the shopping experience more engaging, helping customers discover items they might not have found on their own.
• Customized Discounts and Offers
  Offering individualized discounts or promotional offers within the shopping cart can incentivize customers to complete their purchase. For instance, displaying a discount code or free shipping offer can provide the final push for hesitant customers.
• Abandoned Cart Reminders with Personal Touch
  Using personalization in abandoned cart emails—such as addressing the customer by name and highlighting specific items left in their cart—can re-engage potential buyers. Personalized abandoned cart recovery emails are more effective at encouraging customers to return and finalize their purchase.
• Localized Content and Pricing
  Tailoring the shopping experience based on the customer’s geographic location, currency, and language makes the checkout process smoother and more relevant. Showing prices in local currency and offering region-specific shipping options build trust and remove common barriers to conversion.
• User-Defined Preferences for Checkout
  Allowing customers to save checkout preferences, such as shipping address, payment method, and delivery options, simplifies the purchase process, making it more likely they’ll complete the transaction without hesitation.

In the list below, we gathered 15 of the best free shopping cart for websites equipped with essential features to make your customers complete their purchases and increase your sales.

Best Free Shopping Cart Software for Websites in 2025

1. Wix

Wix is a leading website creation platform and one of its popular offerings is its online store builder with an integrated shopping cart. Similar to the best ecommerce solutions in today’s market, Wix provides small and medium-sized online sellers with standard and advanced ecommerce tools. These tools include selling an unlimited number of products with sorting and filter options to make it easier for customers to browse through the product category they want. Wix also enables merchants to sell on other platforms, such as marketplaces and social media.

Wix automatically calculates sales tax based on current rates across different regions. To build brand loyalty, Wix enables online sellers to set up their own programs and offer rewards in the form of discounts, coupons, loyalty points, etc. Furthermore, online sellers can set up automated reminders to customers who abandoned their shopping carts via email. As for payment options, sellers can either opt for Wix Payments or connect their online store to some of the top payment gateways.

As for the pricing plans, Wix’s website builder is completely free. But if you would like to take full advantage of its ecommerce features, the premium plans offered start at $17 per month.

2. X-Cart

Next on our list is X-Cart, a highly customizable and scalable ecommerce platform ideal for businesses of all sizes. X-Cart’s core features include easy-to-use tools for creating your own online store based on available templates or your own unique design. And to help your customers find specific products and product categories faster, your X-Cart provides you with a real-time smart search function via CloudSearch. X-Cart’s design is also fully optimized for mobile devices, which gives your mobile-based customers a smoother shopping experience.

Omnichannel ecommerce is another area where X-Cart excels. Aside from being able to expand your reach across social media and major marketplaces, such as Amazon and eBay, you can also sync your brick-and-mortar store’s cash flow and inventory and manage your sales and products from both online and physical stores on one platform.

X-Cart also ensures that your customers’ shopping journey is tailored to their convenience. They can choose between one-page or multi-fast lane checkout options, as well as a mode of payment through some of today’s top payment gateway providers. And if you have customers from different parts of the globe, this platform also allows cross-currency transactions and also automatically offers the most affordable international shipping options.

Pricing for premium plans starts at $199 per month.

3. Shift4Shop

Formerly 3dCart, Shift4Shop offers a completely free shopping cart website solution for online sellers. This platform gives you unlimited access to start-up and enterprise-grade features, such as unlimited data storage for your online store and unlimited bandwidth to accommodate a large number of site visitors. Furthermore, Shift4Shop does not charge any fee for every transaction like other shopping cart software.

Shift4Shop also allows you to sell on social media sites like Facebook and marketplaces, including Amazon, eBay, Houzz, and Motors. And to avoid surprising tax and shipping charges at the checkout, Shift4Shop automatically calculates sales tax and shipping rates as your customers add products to their shopping cart. In terms of payment method, this platform is equipped with its own processing system for credit card users, but you can also provide other online payment options like PayPal.

Other functions you can get for free are marketing tools that allow you to send automated email reminders and newsletters to customers who abandoned their shopping carts. Moreover, Shift4Shop’s store manager feature lets you create deals and promotions and offer discounts and coupons.

Aside from its comprehensive free version, Shift4Shop also offers premium plans that start at $29 per month.

4. WooCommerce

If your website is built on WordPress, you can add WooCommerce for free. This open-source platform gives you access to cart and checkout blocks equipped with essential tools to create a seamless buying experience for your customers. You can fully customize the purchase flow, which allows you to remove unnecessary steps that prolong the checkout process that can lead to cart abandonment. Adding to this feature is the instant field validation that further speeds up the purchase process.

The payment process is just as seamless with the express ApplePay option. If your customers do not have ApplePay or prefer other payment methods, they can choose to pay via credit cards, bank transfer, check, and even cash-on-delivery. Moreover, Stripe and Square can be integrated with WooCommerce as additional payment gateways. Aside from WooCommerce Payments, Square, and Stripe, this platform also supports Google Analytics, WooCommerce Shipping and Tax, Points and Rewards, and more.

5. OpenCart

OpenCart is an award-winning ecommerce solution that caters to small and medium-sized businesses. This open-source platform is both free and user-friendly, especially for users who are not tech-savvy. Not only is it easy to set up, it is also mobile-ready by default. With OpenCart, you can sell an unlimited number of digital and physical products, categories, and subcategories. The platform also comes with a rating and review function, as well as a reward program that you can tailor according to your promotional strategies.

To make your store accessible to international customers, OpenCart is available in more than 40 languages. As a shopping cart for website free, the shopping cart platform also accepts any currency and allows you to set up tax based on the most updated rates. As for payment methods, OpenCart lets you choose from more than 30 payment gateways, including PayPal, Skrill, and WorldPay. Furthermore, you can extend the platform’s functionality by adding extension modules available in the OpenCart Marketplace.

6. Jimdo

Considered as one of the best website builder software for business, Jimdo lets you create your own website for free. Without spending a penny, you can build your mobile-optimized website and gain access to an extensive library of high-quality images. The free website builder also lets you add contact forms to allow your site visitors to get in touch with you.

Jimdo also provides tools to help you build a fully functional online store that does not cost you any transaction fee. The online store also comes with at least 10GB of bandwidth so your site can run smoothly for your site visitors. You can also have another 10GB or more for data storage for your content, image, and video uploads. Jimdo also lets you create multiple product variants and flexible product layouts to make it easier for your customers to find what they are looking for.

If you also plan to sell your products on Facebook or Instagram, you can connect both to your website and manage your sales and promotions on a single platform. Aside from social media platforms, you can integrate Jimdo with Mailchimp, Dropbox, Bookstream, and more.

While the website builder is free, the online store is offered as part of Jimdo’s premium plans and the price starts at $15 per month.

7. SITE123

SITE123 is a free website builder that comes with robust content management tools, making it ideal for businesses that want to establish their online presence. This platform gives any user the capability to set up their own professional and business websites using an intuitive editor that basically takes care of your website’s design structure. Simply put, all you need to do is choose the type of website, pick a template, upload your content, and publish. If you choose to create an online store, your business will be up and running once it is published. It is also important to note that your website is automatically optimized for mobile devices. You can also take advantage of native SEO tools to further improve your placement in the search rankings and draw more customers from different parts of the globe.

Aside from its code-free website editor, SITE123 offers free web hosting and free domain registration. In terms of data storage and bandwidth, the free version provides 250MB for each. If you would like to increase your bandwidth and data storage capacity, as well as gain access to the platform’s more advanced features, you have to subscribe to the premium plan that costs $5.80 per month.

8. Ecwid

Ecwid targets businesses that already have their own website but do not yet have a dedicated online store. This platform gives you the freedom to create your own online store that you can add to your website for free. The online store comes with essential ecommerce features, including a mobile-friendly shopping cart, tax invoices, and single-tap checkout with ApplePay. Your online store also enables you to promote on major sites like Google, Facebook, and Pinterest.

Although the free plan limits your online store to selling only a maximum of 10 products, it offers unlimited bandwidth and also allows you to simultaneously sell on multiple sites. If you would like to upgrade to one of the premium versions, you can choose from the three options that start at $15 per month.

9. Zen Cart

Zen Cart is another open-source free shopping cart website solution. This software can be installed on any website hosting service and can run on servers that support PHP, MySQL, and Apache. Licensed under GPL2, Zen Cart is fully customizable, which means you can modify your shopping cart’s source code to your heart’s content. And when it comes to payment processing capabilities, you can either build your own payment module or integrate your shopping cart with various payment gateways, such as PayPal.

Aside from its extensive features and capabilities, Zen Cart also has a large community of experts, including programmers and web developers. These professionals are willing to share their knowledge and expertise, especially to new users.

10. nopCommerce

Another open-source ecommerce platform on our list is nopCommerce. A leading product of ASP.NET Core, this fully customizable shopping cart software is built on Microsoft Technologies and caters to businesses of all types and sizes. It comes equipped with built-in and integrated functionalities that enable SMBs, growing businesses, and enterprises to continue to improve their sales globally.

With nopCommerce, you can create an online store that is fully optimized for both desktop and mobile devices. You can also run multiple web stores on a single admin account, as well as white label each storefront. Furthermore, you can sell on multiple channels by integrating your online store with major sales channels like Amazon, Wish, Google Shopping, and Facebook.

When it comes to the checkout and payment process, nopCommerce is all about simplifying the steps to give your customers a smooth and hassle-free experience. The platform allows your customers to choose between anonymous or guest checkout or one-page checkout, as well as other options that allow your customers to customize their purchases. As for payments, the platform accepts major credit and debit cards and also lets you apply the most effective payment methods to each country. Sales tax is also configurable per state and country and you can also display your products’ prices with or without tax.

nopCommerce is completely free for any user but if you have a specific project in mind that you wish to be developed, you can request a quote from the platform’s top partners.

11. Big Cartel

Big Cartel is an independently run online platform created for artists to showcase and sell their works. For free, you can create your online store using the platform’s customizable themes and customize your domain. You can also feature a maximum of five products and post one image for each. Furthermore, the free version allows you to run promos and discounts, autopilot sales tax, and provide shipment and tracking options.

If you are planning to sell a larger volume of products and want your online store to have more advanced features, you can upgrade to either of the affordable premium plans that start at $9.99 per month.

12. ShopSite

ShopSite is one of the easiest-to-use shopping cart solutions that’s ideal for small and medium-sized businesses. This platform is equipped with an intuitive store wizard that walks you through the basic elements needed to build a customer-friendly and mobile-ready online store. ShopSite also allows you to host your store anywhere, so you have the freedom to choose a hosting service that fits your budget.

Other features that come with ShopSite are SEO tools to help boost the store’s online presence. Customers can pay via a selection of secure payment gateways that you can integrate with your store. And to further entice your customers to complete their purchases and lessen cart abandonment, ShopSite lets you offer coupons, gift certificates, and other rewards.

ShopSite’s free version can feature 10 products, so if you have more products to sell, you can check out the premium plans that start at $5.99 per month.

13. Spree Commerce

Another open-source platform is Spree Commerce. This ecommerce solution comes with an extensive set of functionalities. Among its features are its mobile-first design that has site search and guided shopping capabilities. Provide your customers with a personalized shopping experience with product recommendations tailored to their preferences and wishlists. And to further encourage your customers to return for more sales, Spree Commerce enables you to configure your own loyalty reward system.

Spree Commerce also offers faster checkout options via PayPal Checkout, ApplePay, and Amazon Pay. The payment methods accepted include all major credit cards, more than 140 payment gateways, country-specific payment options, as well as installment payments. Furthermore, customers also have options for expedited shipping and a more convenient return and refund or exchange process.

Other features offered by Spree Commerce include marketing and merchandising support, SEO support, customer management, and development capabilities.

14. Avactis

Avactis is a shopping cart solution that enables users to quickly set up their own online store. And if you already have your own website, you can easily add your Avactis store to it and offer your customers a more convenient shopping experience. Among this platform’s core features are a varied selection of store themes, the capability to accommodate a large volume of traffic, sizable storage space, and the option to develop a custom mobile app for your business.

While this platform is mainly cloud-based, it also offers a downloadable software called Avactis Free eCommerce Core. This on-premise version comes with a lifetime license and free updates. You can also gain access to both standard and premium themes, core extensions, and documentation and user video capabilities.

Avactis’ on-premise software is free and its cloud-based versions start at $19.95 per month.

15. osCommerce

osCommerce combines the functions of ecommerce, store management, and shopping cart solution in a single platform. This open-source software solution offers its shopping cart completely free. You can download and install osCommerce’s shopping cart on any website that supports PHP 7.3 and newer and Maria DB 10x, which ensures its fast performance and security.

What makes osCommerce even more ideal for online sellers, especially small startups, is that it does not charge processing or transaction fees like other platforms. You also no longer have to configure it to be mobile-friendly as it is already designed to be so out of the box. Furthermore, its osCommerce App Store offers a wide range of free and paid integrations, including those with third-party payment gateways, shipping, design, and SEO tools, among others. And if you need help on how to make the most of your shopping cart or if you need custom designs or applications, osCommerce has a large community of developers who dedicate their time and expertise to helping online sellers.

Can shopping cart software stop cart abandonment?

The battle against cart abandonment has been going on since the dawn of ecommerce. Despite the time, this disruption has not relented and may seemingly have only worsened over the years. This, however, does not mean that all hope is lost as current ecommerce trends show that emerging ecommerce tools are far more equipped with advanced technologies to navigate the losses caused by customers abandoning their shopping carts before purchase.

While it is true that there is still no direct answer to the cart abandonment problem, having good shopping cart software is definitely a step in the right direction. And what better way to test a shopping cart solution than to start with Wix or the other free online and on-premise options as provided by this list of the best free shopping cart for websites.

Key Insights

• High Cart Abandonment Rates: The average cart abandonment rate reached nearly 70% in the second quarter of 2022, causing ecommerce merchants a significant annual revenue loss of $18 billion.
• Primary Reasons for Abandonment: Key reasons include high additional costs (48%), the requirement to create an account (24%), slow delivery (22%), and complicated checkout processes (17%).
• Solutions for Cart Abandonment: Simplifying the checkout process, offering multiple payment options, and using advanced shopping cart software can help mitigate cart abandonment issues.
• Feature-Rich Free Shopping Carts: Many free shopping cart solutions offer robust features, including tax automation, multiple payment gateways, mobile optimization, and SEO tools to enhance the customer shopping experience and reduce abandonment rates.
• Importance of Mobile and SEO Optimization: Mobile-friendly and SEO-optimized platforms like Wix and WooCommerce ensure that online stores are accessible and visible, catering to the growing number of mobile shoppers.

FAQ

1. What is the average cart abandonment rate for ecommerce sites? The average cart abandonment rate for ecommerce sites reached nearly 70% in the second quarter of 2022.
2. Why do customers abandon their shopping carts before completing a purchase? Customers abandon their shopping carts for various reasons, including high additional costs (48%), the requirement to create an account (24%), slow delivery (22%), and complicated checkout processes (17%).
3. How can shopping cart software help reduce cart abandonment? Shopping cart software can help reduce cart abandonment by simplifying the checkout process, offering multiple payment options, automating tax calculations, and providing mobile-optimized and SEO-friendly features.
4. What are some key features to look for in a free shopping cart solution? Key features to look for include tax automation, multiple payment gateways, mobile optimization, SEO tools, abandoned cart recovery, unlimited product listings, and customizable checkout processes.
5. Which free shopping cart software offers mobile optimization and SEO tools? Platforms like Wix, WooCommerce, and Ecwid offer mobile optimization and SEO tools, ensuring better visibility and accessibility for online stores.
6. How does offering multiple payment options affect cart abandonment rates? Offering multiple payment options can significantly reduce cart abandonment rates by providing customers with their preferred payment methods, making the checkout process more convenient.
7. What are the benefits of using open-source shopping cart software? Open-source shopping cart software, such as WooCommerce and OpenCart, allows for extensive customization, flexibility, and access to a large community of developers for support and enhancements.
8. Can shopping cart software help with international transactions? Yes, many shopping cart solutions support multi-currency transactions and international shipping options, making it easier to cater to global customers.
9. What role does abandoned cart recovery play in ecommerce? Abandoned cart recovery tools, such as automated email reminders, can help re-engage customers who left items in their carts, encouraging them to complete their purchases and reducing lost sales.
10. Is there a cost associated with using premium features in shopping cart software? While many shopping cart solutions offer free versions with basic features, premium plans with advanced features and higher limits are available at additional costs. For example, Wix’s premium plans start at $17 per month, and Shift4Shop’s premium plans start at $29 per month.

By Louie Andre

B2B & SaaS market analyst and senior writer for FinancesOnline. He is most interested in project management solutions, believing all businesses are a work in progress. From pitch deck to exit strategy, he is no stranger to project business hiccups and essentials. He has been involved in a few internet startups including a digital route planner for a triple A affiliate. His advice to vendors and users alike? "Think of benefits, not features."