3dcart Review
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- The Good
- Built-in blog
- Out-of-the-box features
- Unlimited storage
- The Bad
- Bland templates
- Complicated pricing tiers
- Unwieldy admin functions
3dcart offers a full set of web-building features along with a modern checkout platform for your customers. It recently updated its customer support model to better serve customers. 3dcart is e-commerce software with a range of features built directly into the platform. It can make starting and running your online store fast, easy and effortless.
- Prices and Packages
- Basic
- $29/month
- Plus
- $79/month
- Pro
- $299/month
- Enterprise
- Pricing negotiable
3dcart offers a 15-day free trial. 3dcart doesn’t require a setup fee or any transaction fees in addition to the monthly service fee. There may be a processing fee for your payment gateway to allow processing of credit cards, but such a fee will follow you regardless of your store’s software platform. Each price package has an associated number of staff users, from two users with the Basic plan to unlimited staff users with the enterprise-level pricing. Features increase as you progress up the price ladder.
- Storage
- Unlimited storage
- 4GB bandwidth limit
- 1,000 product limit on lower-tier plans
3dcart offers unlimited storage in all its plans, but it does put a limit on bandwidth usage. Because of the many product images and video uploads that are common with e-commerce websites, an unlimited amount of storage space is paramount. This means you don’t need to worry about running out of storage space, regardless of your service plan, but your page loading times may slow with large images or videos.
- Tools
- Email customization
- CRM for email list management
- App store
- HTML/CSS editor
Numerous reviews cite 3dcart’s e-commerce website builder as somewhat difficult to work with. Although it has drag-and-drop capabilities that make it easy to move elements around within a template, information and changes to the look of the theme can only be input from the admin panel. The learning curve is short, however, so this may not be a deal-breaker for beginners. You do have the option of editing your website with an HTML or CSS editor. If you want, you can integrate with third-party shippers such as Amazon and eBay.
- Shopping Features
- Accommodates digital and physical products
- One-page checkout
- Wish list and gift registry
- Abandoned cart notifications
3dcart lets customers create their own wish lists and gift registries. It allows you to offer gift certificates, discounts and coupons. You can also provide waiting lists and back orders on your most popular products. Shipping calculators can provide real-time quotes for your customers. Purchases are easily made via mobile devices, and customers can choose to check out as a guest or via PayPal. You can also utilize more than 100 payment gateways, so you can keep a processor you’ve been working with if it is on the list.
- Support
- Email, live chat, phone
Customer support has been a weak spot for 3dcart for some time, but as of May 2016, it has adopted a revised customer support model, and reports are that it is greatly improved. It offers personal support 24/7 year-round via email, live chat or by toll-free phone. You can contact 3dcart for questions or support via social media: Facebook, Google+, Twitter and Instagram. It also offers a support forum for discussion of customer issues.
3dcart: User Reviews
3dcart: Comments
3dcart is an all-in-one e-commerce platform that provides merchants with a feature-rich, easy-to-use platform for building, maintaining and managing an online store. When merchants create a 3dcart account, they have access to built-in social media integration, email marketing tools, a blog, order management software, merchant email, a point-of sale app that’s mobile compatible with iPad, and more. 3dcart is equally accommodating for large and small retailers, providing the tools needed to grow and expand online businesses.
3dcart is cloud-based and iPhone and iPad compatible. The starter plan is competitively priced with a low monthly fee and no transaction or setup fees. Merchants receive unlimited storage, so you don’t have to limit the number of images, videos or other content that you store in your website. There is a bandwidth limit of 4GB in some cases, however, so higher-quality images and videos may take longer to load. If you have a high-product business, you will probably need a higher-level plan to accommodate a product count over 1,000.
How Does 3dcart Work?
Many rate 3dcart as one of the more difficult web-building platforms to work with. Most also agree, however, that the full feature set makes up for a higher learning curve. You can drag and drop images to where you want them, but most other types of information are editable only in the admin panel.
If you want a blog to accompany your site, you can use the 3dcart built-in blog, or you can integrate WordPress into the site. This is a good way to keep customers informed about your business or any industry updates you want to publicize.
3dcart uses a content delivery network (CDN), which is a series of connected servers around the globe. This means that when customers access your website, the CDN directs them to the closest server, cutting down on load times for pages your customers wish to view.
What Makes 3dcart Stand Out?
With 3dcart, you gain access to free templates to help you design a great-looking e-commerce website for your business. You can manipulate the design features to create a site unique to your business, and you don’t need coding knowledge to do this. You can design your website from scratch using HTML or CSS without any training in coding techniques.
3dcart has its own Facebook store where you can promote and sell your products. 3dcart includes built-in SEO tools so you can get the maximum amount of promotion you need to drive traffic to your store. These built-in tools mean you won’t need to invest in extra SEO services.
Use of mobile devices to access e-commerce websites and services is a necessity in today’s market. 3dcart provides mobile store templates so you can attract smartphone customers. You can send coupons and promotions to customers through email. You can also make use of 3dcart’s free newsletter manager.
If you’re a QuickBooks fan, you can easily integrate your existing account into your 3dcart account to manage your reporting and statistics tools.
Common Reviews of 3dcart
Views on 3dcart vary around the internet. Some love it and will use no other platform, while others describe it as “disorganized” and “confusing.”
One thing that is rarely disputed is the security that 3dcart supplies. It is Level 1 PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliant. It also comes with FraudWatch to protect customers against fraudulent transactions. Every plan with 3dcart includes a free GeoTrust 128-bit SharedSSL, but you only gain access to that SSL certificate if you use 3dcart’s specific checkout domain.
3dcart is not perfect, but it isn’t terrible either. The plans are competitively priced and reasonable, and a wide range of features is already built-in. The recent restructuring of the customer support team has apparently begun to show results. There is also some mention of 3dcart’s policy of no full or partial refunds, causing some contention with a few customers. The best suggestion is to be certain you read the fine print before signing up for any service.
Is 3dcart for Me?
3dcart is an affordable and reliable e-commerce website building platform. It offers features such as unlimited storage, a Facebook store and a built-in blog generator at no extra charge. With the tools provided and with very little knowledge of website building or coding, you can make a good looking, SEO and customer-friendly e-commerce website for your business or services. Distinctive features will appeal to enterprise business owners. If you have a large volume of high-quality images or video content, the limited bandwidth with 3dcart can slow down your site, which can drive away some customers. If bandwidth isn’t an issue, then 3dcart may be worth a test drive for your business.
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