Kentico Xperience vs. ShipperHQ

Kentico is a robust and flexible CMS platform that is great for managing multiple websites and multiple environments (dev, stage, and production for instance). It makes content management very easy and makes it easy to keep the environments synced with the same content. However, the Kentico CMS does require a bit more technical understanding to get it set up properly and requires a bit more effort and support than, say, free open-source options.

Incentivized

ShipperHQ is almost too heavy-handed for our use case. We are only a single-origin shipper so we don't need the advanced functionality of multi-origin or drop-shipping. It is suited much better for organizations that have multiple origins or that use drop-ship facilities, or even a company managing multiple different eCommerce websites. We opted to go with it because of its great reviews, combined with less than stellar reviews of the competition.

Incentivized

• I love the intuitive top and left navigation within the content management platform. I can easily find what section, sub-section, and page I'm looking to edit
• For creating content, the WYSIWYG editor is so intuitive; it feels like you're working on an MS Word doc!
• The tab for adding metadata in simple fields takes away the headache of having to hunt and peck through code to add H1 tag, page description etc.
• The image library is easy to edit and manage

Incentivized

• It is easy to batch process orders.
• It quickly calculates rates to compare.
• It is easy to keep track of orders for future review.

Incentivized

• Kentico needs to invest in more enterprise class environment management utilities -- example: global CDN support via the CMS is sorely lacking. There are work-arounds, but it should be more elegant.
• The Kentico staging module could be improved to support the concept of bundled releases. Current staging module functionality is good, but could be improved.
• Kentico ecommerce support is a touch immature. While content management is superb, Kentico lags in this area when compared to many open source ecommerce engines.
• Kentico is lacking MVC support. 99% of the time this isn't an issue for the end-user or business user, but can be a hurdle for technology teams depending on the team's makeup.

Incentivized

• The user interface is a little tricky. It is not as easy to navigate as other shipping apps.
• I wish that ShipperHQ had the functionality to print shipping labels and manage shipments. We currently have to use a different third-party app for shipment management.
• I would also like to see the option for adding shipping rules if shipping management was integrated.

Incentivized

We are locked into Kentico for the long haul. It provides us with an easy and flexible solution for a very non technical company to create a site and have the features they want, especially with the inclusion of EMS into our license. Now we have a true platform to build and grow our solutions.

I give ShipperHQ a 10/10 because the software does exactly what it says, and has a rock-solid support team to help get everything set up. The features are pretty easy to use and implement.

Incentivized

It seriously is one of the best interfaces I have ever used. I also love the fact that I can use UI personalization to secure any functionality by user or role that I don't want that role to have access to. The best part is the customization of the UI, I can add in any button, tab, or menu item I want through it, no code required.

Incentivized

I'm not giving a 10/10 because I did need a little hand-holding to get through the initial setup. Overall, it's not that difficult to use once you understand how to apply custom dimensional rules.

Incentivized

Their support staff is friendly, knowledgeable, and will work with you until your issue is fixed. This could take a few phone calls back and forth, but they are very diligent in helping you.

Incentivized

Their support is the primary reason I elected to purchase a premium. They helped a lot with the initial set up.

Incentivized

The system provides many opportunities to integrate and enhance the platform and makes it easy to do so.

I've used Sitecore, Ektron, Joomla!, WordPress, and SharePoint (if you want to count that as a competitor for CMS). Kentico 8 blows them all out of the water. Nothing is more intuitive in the way that content is created, the way the site is setup, and how efficient rollouts can be with Content Staging.

Incentivized

USPS only allows you to use their services (obviously). It was sluggish and often offline. The shipsaver insurance saves us money. We had to guess shipping costs for items instead of entering their weights and sizes ahead of time. It integrates with our e-commerce site. Glad we have it now.

Incentivized

• Kentico has enabled faster speed to market for SMEs. They are empowered to enter content them selves while still having that content go through editorial review to ensure tone of voice and brand are maintained.
• Deploying Kentico has freed up web developer resources from manual content entry enabling them to build more useful solutions to support the business efforts
• Tapping into the Kentico event pipelne allows us to trigger external system events when product content is published.

• ShipperHQ is reliable and requires little to no maintenance, which for a small crew like ours is invaluable.
• ShipperHQ also offers the option to display either retail shipping rates or our discounted rates to our customers. This is handy because we can display those discounted rates, which results in higher conversion and fewer abandoned carts due to high shipping costs.
• One negative, however, is that since ShipperHQ lacks the ability to manage shipments, we have had to use another third party app which increases overhead.

Incentivized