Platforms & Apps

Cart of the Week: 3dCart

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

Here we profile 3dCart, a Margate, FL-based hosted cart, with prices ranging from $19.99 to $99.99 per month. We asked 3dCart representative Gil Gonzalo to explain the benefits of the cart. 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, based in North Carolina.

PeC: Please provide some general background on the cart.

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

PeC: What are the cart’s biggest strengths?

Gonzalo: “The first strength is the ability for users with little or no programming knowledge to 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 they [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 SEO 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 the storage of sensitive customer information such as credit cards, which means we do not support recurring transactions.”

PeC: What plans to you have for future cart development?

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

PeC: How specifically would using 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: “There are many wonderful features within the 3dCart service. 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 specifically would using 3dCart improve a merchant’s business?

Corsillo: “The increased search engine rankings due to the HTML 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, very good service providers out there. Evaluate a bunch of them. Sign up for a bunch of free trials and demos. After our own research, we found that 3dCart offered a very powerful yet easy to use shopping cart service. What continues to impress us over the years is that they are very responsive to our requests, and they are genuinely interested in seeing our business succeed. It has been an enjoyable partnership.”

Brendan Gibbons
Brendan Gibbons
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