3dcart Review - Good Shopping Cart For Your Online Store?

3dcart Shopping Cart Review

In 2001, the 3dcart ecommerce solution was developed by an FAU graduate, Gonzalo Gil. Over the years, it grew to be one of the dominant solutions future store owners turn to. Today, their software is used by over 15,000 customers. The 3dcart platform follows six basic core values; innovation, service, simplicity, trust, happiness, and prosperity. These values define the idea of their shopping cart and service provided.

**If interested, you can sign up for a 3dcart free trial on the bottom of this review.**

3dcart Review: Getting Started and Store Configuration

As with all other shopping carts, the first step is to create a free trail. 3dcart requires your name, email address, and phone number when signing up for their 15 day free trail. The store is set up within a couple of seconds and you are greeted with six step store launch wizard. This setup wizard guides you through several important steps such as adding store info, products, shipping info, payments, and choosing a template.

Adding Products

Adding inventory to your store can be done by importing product files or creating individual products through your dashboard. Once you start adding new products, the wizard has a bunch of tabs such as product information, images, options, related products, discount, META tags, and more.

When creating new products, you can even add custom fields for Google Shopping. However, if you were to complete all the tabs they have available, it can be time consuming. Overall, adding inventory to your store is a simple process.

Themes and Design

3dcart has over 70 free templates that can be used on your online store. All templates can be edited using their drag-n-drop editor or by HTML and CSS. For the ones that do not know, HTML editing requires coding knowledge and CSS is used to edit the style and color of your store. Their drag-n-drop editor is simple and requires no experience. The editor can be used to rearrange the basic layout of your store.

Premium templates are also available on their “themes and styles” page. They have a ton of premium templates starting at $99. However, there is not an option to upload your own template and design – most likely due to compatibility issues.

Overall, the whole process was simple to me but it can get tricky for advanced designing. However, if you are familiar with HTML and CSS, you should not have any problems.

Domain and Configuration

To configure a custom domain, your DNS settings have to be changed to the name servers 3dcart provides you with. It’s a very easy process and can be done within minutes.

If you do not want to buy a custom domain or simply do not want one, you can have their default store URL that looks a bit messy (http://13109693410.3dcart.net/). I would definitely recommend that you purchase your own custom domain. Custom domains are easier to remember and a million times better for SEO purpose.

You can purchase a domain with any domain registrar or web hosting provider.

Configuring Shipping, Tax, and Checkout

There are several options to use when configuring shipping rates (free shipping, flat-based, real-time). All of this can be updated using their “shipping settings” page. Additionally, you can add insurance and handling rates. The 3dcart software is integrated with several carriers including UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL, and Canada Post.

Their “tax manager” allows a store owner to configure sales tax in the United States, Canada, and Europe. It’s a traditional tax configuration process that involves setting up a country, state, and tax rate. Additionally, you can charge tax rates to specific zip codes.

3dcart is fully integrated with tons of payment gateways including PayPal, Checkout by Amazon, Authorize.Net, and Stripe. Additionally, you can setup offline payment methods such as checks and money orders. Payment methods can be set up to activate once the specific order amount is reached. The “online payment methods” page is where you can add custom confirmation messages.

Page Creation

The “site content” is where new pages can be created. Most of the common pages are already created for you – such as contact us, about us, blog. Once new pages are created, their simple WYSIWYG editor allows you to add content to individual pages.

Personally, I do not like the process because it lacks a good design and can be a bit difficult for beginners.

3dcart Review: Quick Feature Overview

3dcart shopping cart has all the features one needs to build and run a successful ecommerce store. Not all shopping carts are BigCommerce, but 3dcart can be used as a perfect alternative.

Here is a quick feature overview:

• Over 70 free templates
• Drag-n-drop store editor
• Easily edit images using Picnik
• Unlimited categories, sub-categories, and product images
• Product reviews
• Ship to multiple locations
• Unlimited advanced product options (color, size, shape)
• Wholesale discounts
• Coupons, gift certificates, wish lists, and gift registry
• Customers can place backorders
• Upselling
• Fully integrated blog
• Advanced SEO tools
• Social sharing buttons and Facebook store
• Affiliate program
• Newsletter manager
• Single page checkout
• Phone and mail orders
• Tracking and reporting tools
• Tons of payment methods
• PCI Compliant and 99% uptime guarantee

For a complete feature list, please visit 3dcart using the link on the bottom of this 3dcart review.

3dcart Review: Apps and Extras

Their ecommerce software has an extensive third-party plugin page. The plugins section consists of additional features in categories such as fulfillment, order management, shipping, security & privacy, statistics, and email. Store owners can use the plugins page to integrate with additional tools such as Doba, Fulfillment by Amazon, Google Analytics, and others.

3dcart Review: Store Marketing and SEO

3dcart has a complete set of marketing and SEO tools. Their software goes above and beyond by offering an affiliate program and a fully integrated blow.

Discounts and Coupons

As with all other shopping cart software, 3dcart allows store owners to configure discounts and coupons. Store owners can use their promotion manager or individually edit products to create discounts and promotions.

Cross Selling and Upselling

When creating products, you can add related and upselling items. Related and upselling items are shown to customers when they are viewing other products. This is a very good tactic used by most online businesses to increase sales and promote different products.

Email Marketing

3dcart comes with a fully functional newsletter that allows for an easy customer signup. This tool allows you to manage your subscribers and send newsletters using email marketing.

Affiliate Program

As mentioned before, 3dcart has an affiliate program. The program can be enabled or disabled. Additionally, you can set the affiliate commission and allow the program to auto approve affiliate. This is generally used to increase store sales and gain more traffic.

Make an Offer

This is an incredible tool that allows customers to make offers for the products before purchasing.

Social Commerce

This is the place to configure your blog, Facebook store, social widgets & bookmarks. All of these configurations are easy to setup and most of them can increase sales. The blog is great for SEO.

SEO

3dcart has the advanced SEO tools that will optimize your store on search engines. You have full control over titles, descriptions, keywords, and META tags. Additionally, you can control 301 and WWW redirects.

Tracking and Reporting Tools

Their ecommerce software has a bunch of sales reporting tools. These reports can show daily sales, top products, best customers, and other statistics.

3dcart Review: Technical Support and Assistance

Their technical support is available 24/7 and can be reached by phone, live chat, and email. In addition to live support, 3dcart has helpful resources consisting of videos, tutorials, FAQs, and forums.

Personally speaking, 3dcart has an outstanding customer support that can help you with common and more technical issues. Below, I have included their average response stats, along with a customer satisfaction chart that shows how satisfied their clients were after talking to technical support.

3dcart Review: Plan Pricing

3dcart has five plans to choose from ranging from $19.99 to $129.99 per month with a 15% discount for annual prepayments. Here is a look at their plans:

Mini Plan – starting at $19.99/mo.

• 100 products
• 2 GB of bandwidth
• No transaction fees

Starter Plan – starting at $35.99/mo.

• 500 products
• 4 GB bandwidth
• No transaction fees
• Free domain registration

Professional Plan – starting at $65.99/mo.

• 1,000 products
• 8 GB bandwidth
• No transaction fees
• Free domain registration and live chat plugin

Professional+ Plan – starting at $99.99/mo.

• 5,000 products
• 25 GB of bandwidth
• No transaction fees
• Free domain registration, live chat plugin, QuickBooks plugin, and 3dcart Guru

Power Plan – starting at $129.99/mo.

• Unlimited products
• 45 GB of bandwidth
• No transaction fees
• Free domain registration, live chat plugin, QuickBooks plugin, and 3dcart Guru

3dcart Review: The Good and the Bad

My 3dcart review showed that their shopping cart did a good job of staying on the good side but it does have minor setbacks.

Pros

• Plans starting as low as $19.99/mo.
• 15% discount for annual prepayments
• No transaction fees
• Advanced marketing features (blog, affiliate program, gift registry)

Cons

• Limited bandwidth on all of their plans
• Some design functions can get a bit complicated for beginners

3dcart Review: Conclusion

No matter how you look at it, 3dcart is one of the few shopping carts that offers useful features and low plan pricing. Personally, I’ve had success attracting customer with their outstanding marketing tools.

Of course it is not the best shopping cart yet, but if it had unlimited bandwidth, it would come awfully close to the top. If you are looking for one of the best alternatives to big name ecommerce solutions, going with 3dcart would be an excellent choice for your online business.

What do you think about 3dcart? Do you have any experience working with 3dcart? Share your input in the comments below.