LemonStand is a tricky name, because this shopping cart builder is well-designed to meet the needs of big companies. It’s also targeted at online merchants who want to stand out but feel constrained by off-the-shelf solutions provided by popular shopping cart systems. However, for small online sellers who aspire to grow big in sales and branding (who wouldn’t?), LemonStand may also be a good foundation. Our B2B experts prepared a detailed review of LemonStand and evaluated it with a very high score of 9.0/10 and 100% customer satisfaction rating. You can also easily try the software out for yourself with the LemonStand free trial.
To help you decide if this app right for your company, this review will share with you some details on the following:
What make sLemonStand unique in comparison to other shopping cart solutions
How it fares with key aspects of a great SaaS software
LemonStand other key features and characteristics
Our final verdict – is it worth buying?
1. Pricing
You may want to check out LemonStand free trial offer before comitting to a paid plan.
Starter Plan – $49/month
Unlimited Products
1 Staff User
Zero Transaction Fees
100% Customizable Design
Advanced SEO
Custom SSL Certificate
Content Management
Professional – $89/month
Starter features
2 Staff Users
Enhanced Google Analytics
Priority Support
Digital Product Selling
Webhooks
Growth – $149/month
Professional features
10 Staff Users
Wholesale Features
Custom Fields
Subscriptions
Concierge Set Up
2. What Makes LemonStand Unique?
Comprehensive customization
If changing themes, colors, and button style isn’t enough for you, LemonStand gives you a deeper customization option. You get to customize various aspects across the entire shopping process, including checkout design and content look.
You can create unlimited product attributes beyond color, size, and material and add backend fields to display special product specifications. You can also create as many product tabs as you need to give customers the essential information, and output images in numerous ways.
For full custom functionality, you have LemonSync, the software’s open source development tool. This is helpful if your product can’t be fit in a retail box.
Likewise, LemonStand allows you to organize merchandise by unlimited categories and levels that fit your catalog. Its content management system also lets you layout content in different styles other than the standard catalog look.
The software uses Twig to create dynamic and custom e-commerce sites. It also has a robust API in all its pricing plans to help you create rich apps and smooth integrations.
Moreover, we found the LemonStand API portal well organized and simplified with documentation divided into products, product options, and product variants. You can gun for a different look for the shopping cart right away, but it also helps to have a ready module as a base.
The drawback in all of these, of course, is you need a web designer or coder to tap LemonStand’s full customization potential.
1. Unlimited product images; 2. Unlimited product variants; 3. Product tabs and FAQ; 4. Custom fields.
No transaction fees
It’s one of the unfair hidden terms in many “low-cost” shopping cart solutions: you’re charged with a transaction fee per sale. In the long run, you end up losing revenues because of a bloated overhead.
LemonStand does away with transaction fees. You’re charged with a monthly flat fee for features that you use and that’s it. Your sales are all yours even if it runs into millions of dollars per year.
It bears to point out, though, that at $49/month (Starter Plan) LemonStand isn’t exactly the cheapest shopping cart builder. However, it’s a good investment if you grow your business.
Advanced SEO
The title tags and meta fields you find in many off-the-shelf shopping cart builders help you optimize for search, but they’re not enough to get a good SERP ranking. In LemonStand, you’ll get more SEO tools that increase other ranking factors.
For instance, you can customize URLs for your keywords instead of using an auto-generated page address. If you’re targeting, say, Korean-style suits, you can use that phrase as a short URL to generate more SEO juice in that niche. All your pages also come with SSL and a mobile responsive version, factors that impact search results.
It’s also easy to create header tags, meta descriptions, and rich snippets with the software’s user-friendly onpage SEO tools. Likewise, LemonStand uses servers across the globe (CDN) to load content faster based on your geographic location, which is a major SERP factor.
The trade-off, of course, is these robust SEO tools are one of the reasons LemonStand has a higher price tag compared to standard shopping cart systems. If SEO is a major part of your marketing plan, this app is worth it.
Built-in onpage SEO tools make it easy to create optimized tags.
No redirect on checkout, plus conversion optimization tools
Shopping cart abandonment is a major sales killer and it’s worse if your checkout page isn’t yours, which means you can’t make adjustments. That’s what happens with many e-commerce sites, which are directed to their vendor’s own domain upon checkout.
In LemonStand, the checkout page is within your own domain. However, owning your checkout page doesn’t guarantee to reduce your abandonment rate, but it does give you flexibility. You get conversion rate optimization tools, such as:
Add related products for cross selling
Integrate an A/B test app to improve design and copy
Create dynamic content triggers to motivate buyers to purchase more
Of course, these tools are only as good as your copywriting and direct selling skills; otherwise, you may need to hire a professional to make use of these conversion tools.
You get your own checkout URL.
All-in core features
LemonStand has all important features across its pricing plans. Among others, it offers:
Total design control
RESTful API
Coupon code discounts
Custom domain name and SSL
Real-time carrier shipping
Advanced SEO
Mobile-ready storefront themes
Unlimited product variants
Unlimited product categories
Likewise, the software has built-in business models for digital products, subscriptions, and wholesale products (Professional and Growth plans). Note that some of these features are sold separately in other shopping cart builders, so in that respect, you can save more with LemonStand.
“Important,” however, is subjective. You may or may not need all core features. For example, if you’re okay with a standard shopping cart theme, you won’t be needing the API. Similarly, the unlimited product variants and categories won’t be maximized if you have regular items. To fully appreciate LemonStand, make sure you need at least most of its core features.
3. How LemonStand Fares With Key SaaS Aspects?
These characteristics are important to any SaaS product because they guarantee the smooth adoption of the software across the business process, in this case, shopping cart fulfillment.
Ease of use
LemonStand is intuitive to set up, similarly to any standard SaaS dashboard designed for non-techie users. The layout is organized in a way that requires little effort to discover even the more complex features like setting up product attributes and tinkering with advanced analytics.
However, to fully appreciate the software, you should leverage its customization features. The RESTful API and backend design customization tools require at least someone with basic technical and design skills. The checkout style also depends on direct marketing knowledge to arrest shopping cart abandonment. These extra skills are likely one-time costs that can help you maximize the full potential of the app.
Integration and add-ons
The standard plans come with RESTful API for full custom integration, which ensures you get to add your own apps. The good news is, you may not need to tinker with the API because LemonStand has a rich base of built-in integrations from taxes to shipping to payments, necessary apps that streamline your online selling workflows. The software also connects to Zapier, which opens integration to hundreds of more third-party apps, albeit expect additional steps through this channel.
Scalability
The shopping cart software can be scaled from 1- to a 10-staff team and from retail to wholesale purchases. You can also get a dedicated concierge service to set up the store if your business is too big to micro manage. Similarly, because it has unlimited product variants and categories, plus a robust API and open-source theme development tool, LemonStand can handle even complex storefronts. It’s expected that a small online store can grow with LemonStand with a few or no transition hiccups at all. Moreover, you can upgrade or downgrade the plan on a month-to-month basis to match your business growth or lack of.
Support
The vendor claims to provide above-industry support through email and phone. Instead of using support forums to provide answers, the vendor said it answers customer problems directly and at once. This setup is unique because many popular shopping cart vendors direct you to support forums to look for answers. In LemonStand’s case, the vendor said they’ve even had developed features based on customer feedback. The vendor will also recommend a web designer if you can’t find one. We can only hope the vendor maintains this level of support because many SaaS customers will benefit from it.
Security
LemonStand features a site-wide 256bit SSL encryption, the standard security protocol for online shopping. That means all your e-commerce site pages are behind a secure wall. Likewise, the vendor said, “[We] never store credit card data and network environment has been audited and is monitored 24/7.” That means, too, that your site’s front- and backend activities, such as, credit card transactions, system log-ins, and exchange of confidential data, are protected.
4. Other Features
Here are some other key features of LemonStand that we’ve not discussed above:
Starter themes
Unlimited product images
Conversion rate analytics
Product sales insights
Revenue/sales reports
Built-in email marketing
Custom order statuses
Flexible shipping rates
Customer notifications
Automated inventory management
Simplified shipping, payment, tax workflows
Payment processing (Payfirma, Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.Net, Braintree, Beanstream, E-xact, eWay, FirstData US, Google Checkout, SagePay, WorldPay)
5. Our final verdict
If you aspire to become a major online store or a niche store with unique characteristics, LemonStand is a great choice. It gives you the flexibility and scalability to achieve your goals. Even if you’re still a small business today, it’s good advice to start the business on the right footing. That means paving the way for a smooth transition to a robust online company using LemonStand’s custom tools. Our final score for LemonStand is a solid 9.0/10 and we strongly recommend that you try out the great LemonStand free trial so check if this shopping cart can meet all your requirements.
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