How ProductCart is licensed

ProductCart is licensed on a per-store basis. A store is defined by:

• A ProductCart License Key that is issued at the time of purchase.
• The Domain Name on which the store is run.
• The Database that contains all information used by the store (products, customers, orders, etc.)

This translates into the following, basic rule: one ProductCart License Key can only be used to run one commercial store. You cannot use the same License Key to run multiple commercial stores. Additional licenses are required if you want to run multiple stores, and discounts are available.

The ProductCart Licensing model allows you to do the following.

• Activate and use ProductCart on your Web store
• Activate and use ProductCart on a test/staging Web server (or even your local workstation), and then move it to the production Web server.
  When you do this, you don’t need to re-activate the software: you can just edit the store URL in the file “includes/storeconstants.asp”. For more information about moving your store from a testing environment to the production server, see the following page: Moving your ProductCart powered store
• Change the domain name associated with your store one time. This includes the domain change that would happen when you move your store from a testing server (or your local workstation) to the production Web server. If you need to change the store URL more than once, you will need to contact Early Impact.

You will not be able to do the following:

• Activate ProductCart with license information that is not correct: you will not be able to complete the Setup Wizard if the license information that you enter during the Setup process is not valid.
• Activate ProductCart using the same license information on more than one store, even if the license information is valid. Valid license information can only be used on one commercial storefront. Discounts are available for customers that operate multiple storefronts.
• Log into the Control Panel on a store that had already been registered, but with an invalid license.
• Log into the Control Panel on a store that had already been registered, but where the URL of the store has been changed more than once.

Yes, you are allowed to install ProductCart on a testing store, which typically uses an IP address or local URL (e.g. http://localhost/...), then move the store to the production server. When you move the store to the production server, you will need to change the store URL in the file “includes/storeconstants.asp”. You will be able to do so once. The system prevents you from changing the store URL more than once. For questions and issues, contact Early Impact.

Sure, customers that wish to operate multiple commercial stores with ProductCart can contact us for a discount on the additional licenses that they wish to purchase. The discount amount varies depending on how many licenses they wish to purchase. For questions and issues, contact Early Impact.

The system will not allow you to run multiple stores on different domains, with the same License Key. Sharing the same database across different stores, hosted on different domains is a very rare scenario as there are all sorts of issues that come into place when multiple domains are used. For instance, there can be issues with the payment settings as different URLs attempt to submit payment using the same payment gateway account, which payment gateways may not allow.

When multiple storefronts are operated with the same license, technical support and updates are provided to a storefront that was not associated with any revenue source for the company, which is clearly not a sustainable business model.

For over 7 years now Early Impact has been developing e-commerce software non-stop, providing technical support to thousands of customers, and issuing numerous free updates to ProductCart users (there have been only 2 paid-for upgrades in the history of the application - the last one over 2 years ago). That's what a ProductCart license pays for.

Assuming that you find an open source solution that matches your feature requirements in the same way ProductCart does (i.e. comparable applications under a “feature” point of view), remember that there are often hidden costs in choosing to adopt an open source solution. The biggest one is clearly technical support. In many cases, what you end up spending in a yearly technical support plan matches or surpasses the cost of a ProductCart license.

There is also the hidden cost, much harder to calculate, of not being able to identify exactly who to contact when things don't go as expected. That uncertainty does not exist when you buy a ProductCart license. We have been developing our e-commerce software for almost a decade, back it up with outstanding technical support, and will act quickly and professionally to review and address a reported flaw in our e-commerce software. There is no guessing who's behind ProductCart. We are.