The State of Custom Cart in 2026

Custom Cart is a term used to refer to any merchant who has a custom implementation of their online store, as opposed to using the standard offering of a platform such as Shopify. Nike.com is an example of a website that would be classified as a Custom Cart.

Custom Cart also includes merchants using a custom (or headless) website in front of a platform like Shopify. In these cases, we still try to determine if the website is using a well-known platform and map it to the platform if possible. In some cases, it is not possible to determine if a well-known platform is used by a custom implementation.

Finally, Custom Cart also includes merchants using a platform that is not yet supported by Store Leads. New ecommerce platforms are introduced regularly and though we support over 200 platforms, some newer (or smaller) platforms are not yet supported. Stores on these platforms are often classified as Custom Cart.

In this report, we'll cover the following essential statistics on Custom Cart usage.

• Custom Cart growth
• Social media usage on Custom Cart stores
• Contact information on Custom Cart stores
• Top categories for Custom Cart stores
• Top countries for Custom Cart stores
• Number of employees for Custom Cart stores
• Number of products sold for Custom Cart stores
• Top Custom Cart technologies
• Top Shipping Carriers used by Custom Cart stores
• Custom Cart store top-level domain distribution
• Top Custom Cart stores
• New Custom Cart stores
• Stores switching to Custom Cart from other platforms
• Stores switching from Custom Cart to other platforms

Custom Cart Growth

At present, there are 1,655,712 live stores running on the Custom Cart platform.

Here is the historical growth of stores running Custom Cart.

• Custom Cart stores decreased -1.2% quarter-over-quarter in 2025 Q4.
• Custom Cart stores increased 0% year-over-year in 2025 Q4.

Note: the store counts displayed in this section are based on actual historical store counts.

It's hard to know exactly when a Custom Cart store was first created but we use a heuristic that includes historical DNS data which provides a reasonable approximation.

Social Media Usage On Custom Cart Stores

Ecommerce brands use social media sites to engage with millions of consumers. Instagram and Facebook are the dominant social media sites for ecommerce stores, by far, with Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube also having notable usage.

• Instagram is used by 29.2% of Custom Cart stores.
• Facebook is used by 27.7% of Custom Cart stores.
• YouTube is used by 11.1% of Custom Cart stores.

Contact Information On Custom Cart Stores

Email remains an extremely popular communication channel for merchants. Many merchants also provide a phone number so that their customers can reach them instantly.

• 52% of Custom Cart stores provide a phone number on their website
• 45% of Custom Cart stores have an email on their website

Top Categories For Custom Cart Stores

Here is the breakdown of industry verticals for stores on Custom Cart.

• 9.1% of Custom Cart stores sell Home & Garden products.
• 8.3% of Custom Cart stores sell Apparel products.
• 6.8% of Custom Cart stores sell Food & Drink products.

Top Countries For Custom Cart Stores

Here are the top countries for stores using Custom Cart.

• 14.3% of Custom Cart stores are in United States
• 5.6% of Custom Cart stores are in Russian Federation
• 5.5% of Custom Cart stores are in Germany
• 3.0% of Custom Cart stores are in United Kingdom

With a paid account, stores can also be segmented by region and city.

Number Of Employees For Custom Cart Stores

Here is the breakdown of Custom Cart stores by the number of employees.

• 96.7% of Custom Cart stores have Unknown employees.
• 0.9% of Custom Cart stores have 1 - 9 employees.
• 0.5% of Custom Cart stores have 10 - 24 employees.

Number Of Products Sold For Custom Cart Stores

Here is the breakdown of Custom Cart stores by the number of products that they sell.

• 32.8% of Custom Cart stores sell 1 - 9 different products.
• 7.4% of Custom Cart stores sell 100 - 249 different products.
• 6.3% of Custom Cart stores sell 250 - 999 different products.

Top Technologies on Custom Cart Stores

We're tracking 812 different technologies that have 6,773,667 collective installs on Custom Cart stores.

• Google Tag Manager is used by 45.3% of Custom Cart stores.
• Google Adsense is used by 41.5% of Custom Cart stores.
• Google Ads Pixel is used by 41.3% of Custom Cart stores.

Here are the top 10 third-party technologies, ordered by number of installs, across all Custom Cart stores.

Top Shipping Carriers Used By Custom Cart Stores

• USPS is used by 2.9% of Custom Cart stores.
• UPS is used by 2.4% of Custom Cart stores.
• Fedex is used by 1.6% of Custom Cart stores.

Here are the top 10 shipping carriers across all Custom Cart stores.

Custom Cart Store Top-level Domain Distribution

.com is the most popular top-level domain for Custom Cart stores. This is not surprising since alternate top-level domains have only been introduced somewhat recently and there is still a certain cachet associated with .com domains.

That said, you'll find stark regional differences in certain countries. In Australia, .com.au is the most common top-level domain with .com a close second. This is the exception however as .com domains dominate in virtually all other countries.

• 44.5% of Custom Cart stores have a .com domain.
• 5.2% of Custom Cart stores have a .de domain.
• 5.0% of Custom Cart stores have a .ru domain.

Top Custom Cart Stores

Here are the top stores, powered by Custom Cart, ordered by store rank.

New Custom Cart Stores

Here are the 5 highest-ranked stores added most recently.

Stores Switching to Custom Cart From Other Platforms

Over the last 90 days, Custom Cart has taken 16,626 merchants from competitive ecommerce platforms.

Here are the top stores that have switched to Custom Cart from competitive ecommerce platforms.

Stores Switching from Custom Cart To Other Platforms

Over the last 90 days, Custom Cart has lost 35,145 merchants to competitive platforms.

Here are the top Custom Cart stores that have recently changed to a competitive platform.

Get more insights on Custom Cart stores

Our search interface is easy to use and helps you find the Custom Cart stores that are relevant to you.

You can segment stores on a variety of dimensions:

• Social Media accounts
• Email address
• Phone numbers
• Country
• Third-party technologies
• Creation date
• Platform
• Top-level domains
• Domain status
• Domain type

Filter on stores with Facebook accounts.

For more insights on Custom Cart stores, create a free account and have a look for yourself.