Cart of the Week: 3dCart

Practical Ecommerce counts over 300 shopping cart systems. In this ongoing “Cart of the Week” feature, we profile a specific cart, asking its owners and users about its strengths and weaknesses.

Here, we profile 3dCart, a Margate, Fla.-based hosted cart with prices ranging from $19.99 to $99.99 per month. We asked 3dCart founder Gil Gonzalo to explain the cart’s benefits. We then asked Bo Corsillo, vice president of Frik-n-Frak.com, a 3dCart store, for his views on the cart. Frick-n-Frak is an online retailer of puzzles and games in North Carolina.

Practical Ecommerce: Please provide some general background on the cart.

Gil Gonzalo

Gil Gonzalo: 3dCart is a hosted ecommerce solution for small to large businesses. We just went live with version 3.0 and currently service over 5,000 merchants.

PEC: What are the cart’s biggest strengths?

Gonzalo: The first strength is that users with little or no programming knowledge can be up and running within minutes while also providing the robust features that webmasters need. This level of flexibility makes online selling accessible to everyone.

Second is our dedication to our customers. Our staff has years of ecommerce experience, and when customers have a question, they can pick up the phone and speak with an expert. Also, since we’re PCI compliant, we give our merchants the peace of mind they need.

Third, we have built our shopping cart from the ground up with search engine optimization in mind. We provide full control over the meta information of every page, and the shopping cart will generate any information you leave out based upon your product information. The cart optimizes itself.

PEC: What are some of its weaknesses?

Gonzalo: For security reasons, we do not allow storing sensitive customer information such as credit cards, which means we do not support recurring transactions.

PEC: What plans do you have for future cart development?

Gonzalo: We are currently working on multiple partnerships that will expand the range and flexibility of our cart. Among those is an integration with Authorize.Net to utilize its customer profile system, allowing for a secure, encrypted recurring transaction solution.

PEC: How does 3dCart improve a merchant’s business?

Gonzalo: With its ease of use and robust features such as mailing list management, affiliate programs, and rewards systems, we provide everything a merchant needs in one package. And since it’s a hosted solution, we take care of all upgrades, server management and security.

PEC: Any other thoughts for our readers?

Gonzalo: We provide a 30-day trial of everything we have to offer, with no credit card required. The cart speaks for itself.

The View of a Customer

Bo Corsillo, vice president of Frik-n-Frak.com, a 3dCart store, offers his views on the cart.

PeC: What are 3dCart’s biggest strengths?

Bo Corsillo

Bo Corsillo: The 3dCart service has many wonderful features. Without going into a full-fledged feature list, I suppose it comes down to flexibility, power, ease of use, and exceptional customer support.

PEC: What are some things it could improve?

Corsillo: With all of the tools 3dCart provides, it’s easy to become a bit overwhelmed at times. Although we merchants have training videos, tutorials, help files, a searchable knowledge base, online documentation, user forums, and even phone and online support chat at our disposal, the sheer volume of great tools can be a bit of a challenge to absorb. I would love to see a cool tip of the month or something in 3dCart’s newsletters.

PEC: How does 3dCart improve a merchant’s business?

Corsillo: The increased search engine rankings are due to the search-engine-friendly URLs, ease of order management, and powerful database import/export. I’ve never had a desire to be a web design or HTML guru, and 3dCart has allowed me to focus less on web stuff and more on taking care of my customers.

PEC: Do you plan to continue using 3dCart?

Corsillo: We certainly do. We’ve been with 3dCart since 2004 and continue to be very pleased with the service provided.

PEC: Any other thoughts on shopping carts for our readers?

Corsillo: As with anything, it’s important to do as much homework as possible. There are some very good service providers out there. Evaluate a bunch of them. Sign up for a bunch of free trials and demos.

After our research, we found that 3dCart offered a very powerful yet easy-to-use shopping cart. What continues to impress us over the years is that they are very responsive to our requests and genuinely interested in seeing our business succeed. It has been an enjoyable partnership.