3dcart Review

Excellent functionality is key to a successful online business, and 3dcart truly delivers where it counts. They offer an incredibly easy-to-use dashboard so you can hit the ground running. Plus, if you run into any issues, they have numerous ways for you to get by without requiring the help of their support teams, such as their extensive knowledge base and their video tutorials. When it comes to features, 3dcart surprises us again by offering tons of amazing options so you can optimize every inch of your website, from the design all the way to email marketing. If excellent functionality is what you’re after, 3dcart is for you.

Ease of Use

3dcart is quite an easy eCommerce solution to get started with, even if you’re a beginner. Upon entering the backend dashboard for the first time, you will be met with a setup wizard, which walks you through every step towards launching an online store. The backend itself is rather straightforward to understand. It looks just like most eCommerce dashboards with simple navigation buttons on the left. After setting up an account, you will receive a call from an account manager within an hour or so, who will help you set up your website if you need any initial assistance. Overall, 3dcart is quite easy to use, even for people who have never worked on building websites in the past.

Functionality

If there’s one thing 3dcart does right besides providing outstanding support, it’s definitely delivering a ton of high-quality features. From the moment you install a theme on your site, your online store will be fully responsive, making it look great on all devices. In addition, targeted email marketing is available so you can optimize your newsletters and email sales pitches. Easily create gift cards, set up an affiliate program, give bonus points, and so much more. Combine this with a ton of design tools, SEO optimization options, order management features, and more, and you’ll be on your way towards creating a stunning, high-performance website in no time.

Just like with their themes, you’ll find plenty of options when browsing their plugins. 3dcart has hundreds of plugins to choose from, spanning dozens of categories. Chances are, you’ll have an easy time finding the plugins you need to make your online store look and function exactly as you’ve always dreamed of. However, there is one downside to the plugins available at 3dcart - they tend to get a little pricey. Not all plugins cost something, and not all plugins are expensive, but some can get as steep as $60/month. If you need a couple of these expensive plugins to run your site smoothly, you’ll be looking at some pretty steep monthly bills. However, if you put the price aside and focus solely on the plugins themselves, you’ll most likely be satisfied. There are many great plugins worthy of your online business at 3dcart, so that shouldn’t be an issue.

There are tons of themes to choose from at 3dcart, but keep in mind that they aren’t all free to use. Some of their themes are free, but most of the quality options require you to purchase them. One of the downsides is that their premium themes are a little expensive compared to other eCommerce solutions. For instance, you will often find themes over $200, while other eCommerce platforms usually average out at about $150. This is unfortunate since their free themes aren’t all that good, and if you’re serious about launching an eCommerce business, you’ll want to enjoy the higher quality offered by their premium themes. One positive thing about the themes available at 3dcart is that you have quite many choices, with over 100 different themes to choose from.

While uptime isn’t quite as high as the industry average, it remains a decent uptime guarantee that shouldn’t be much of an issue for most small-to-medium merchants. Incident frequency isn’t too bad, with just about a dozen incidents per month. The good thing about 3dcart is its incident status page that allows you to keep track of any issues and what they are doing to resolve them. Users can even subscribe to their status page to receive updates whenever maintenance or incidents occur. 3dcart really shines when it comes to website loading speed. They perform slightly above average when it comes to speed, and most of their websites are fully optimized to load quickly. Users can easily resolve the few areas that 3dcart doesn’t optimize. Overall, the performance at 3dcart is good, and you shouldn’t be disappointed.

Uptime

The uptime at 3dcart is slightly below average with a guarantee of 99.94%. While this still may seem like a great number, the average in the industry is 99.9%, so you would have better consistency when choosing another eCommerce platform. Having a consistent uptime that is average for the industry is of utmost importance if you want to make sure that your website performs best. With a lower uptime, you risk having your site crash on a more regular basis, which could result in lost sales and lower customer retention.

Incident Frequency

3dcart has an incident status page, which allows you to track service outages and major issues on their platform. In the past month, there were 10 issues in total and 3 total service outages. Most of the incidents get resolved very quickly within hours of occurring. However, 3dcart seems to have a slightly higher amount of incidents when compared to similar eCommerce platforms. You can subscribe to updates regarding 3dcart outages and incidents so you can always be made aware of the latest maintenance updates and other related issues.

Speed

We tested numerous websites running on the 3dcart platform to assess the average loading time speed. Our results were quite impressive, with most sites being very optimized for speed. In fact, most of the site pages we tested loaded in under 2 seconds, with some of them loading in as little as 1.5 seconds. However, there is still some room for improvement with a few basic optimizations. For instance, the sites we tested didn’t appear to be using a content delivery network (CDN), and they weren’t using cookie-free domains. Additionally, fewer HTTP requests could have been made to speed things up a little, and JavaScript/CSS files could have been minified a little more. Overall, 3dcart offers excellent speed and is slightly above average.

Overall, the support team at 3dcart has always been able to impress us. We made multiple attempts to contact them via all of their support channels, and we never ran into any issues. There are some complaints online concerning longer waiting times with live chat, but our tests always went smoothly, and we were always connected within minutes. All of their support channels were rapid at responding, and they were always accommodating. We never really had to escalate any of our issues to higher support levels than live chat. This shows us that we’re dealing with experts who know the eCommerce platform, and they definitely display a great sense of reliability. Combine this with their extensive knowledge base, their video tutorials, and their eCommerce University, and you shouldn’t ever have to deal with issues for very long.

Support Availability

Excellent support availability makes 3dcart one of the most reliable eCommerce solutions on the internet. They offer 24/7 support all year round via numerous support channels, so you’ll easily be able to contact them at all times. This is way above average because most eCommerce solutions only provide business hour support with emergency support available for higher-paid plans. In addition, 3dcart provides full support via live chat, phone, or support tickets, allowing you to choose the best way to contact them according to your needs. Along with providing excellent support, you can always browse their knowledge base, watch tutorial videos, browse their user manuals or visit their eCommerce University.

Speed of Response

Speed of response varies according to the support channel that you choose. From our experience, all of the support channels went smoothly, but waiting times were a little longer than average for their live chat support. Phone support was quick to respond, and their ticketing system responded quickly as well. We browsed the internet, searching for user reviews so we could compare what others were saying. It seems as though phone support is definitely the way to go if you need assistance from 3dcart. This is the fastest way to get answers and other channels, most notably live chat, seem to be a little slower than average.

Friendliness & Helpfulness

The friendly support staff is definitely enjoyable and makes dealing with issues so much easier. The support team we contacted via phone always seemed to be in a great mood, and they were beneficial at resolving issues. However, the live chat support could not deal with complex problems, and we were encouraged to contact the tech team via telephone. The ticket support team was also unable to deal with larger issues. However, both live chat and the ticketing system responded to basic inquiries, and they always seem friendly about it. Overall, we definitely recommend contacting 3dcart via phone if possible.

Telephone Support

The phone support team provides excellent help for resolving all sorts of inquiries. Along with having a rapid response rating, their phone support is clearly made up of experts who know what they're talking about. The friendly team is available 24/7 and was always capable of responding to our issues with ease. Unfortunately, they list just one toll-free phone number on their website. We could not locate an international number, so it seems all calls, national and international, get routed to the same team. Nonetheless, the wait time was never too long, and we never had any issues when trying to resolve issues by phone.

Live Chat Support

We have mixed feelings when it comes to the live chat team at 3dcart. For our tests, everything went smoothly, and we never waited very long, but online user reviews often state that the waiting periods can be long, up to 1 hour long. So it must depend on the time of day and the support team working when you choose to contact them. When attempting to contact them, they quickly provided us with answers to basic questions, but they had us contact the phone support team when issues were too difficult for them to handle. Overall, our experience showed great results, and we were satisfied by their live chat support.

Email Support

Email support at 3dcart is under the form of a support ticket system. Every time we attempted to contact them, this system went well, and we never had any issues using the form itself. You can set up email notifications to get notified by email when a response is available for your support ticket. On average, 3dcart responds to ticket inquiries within a couple of hours, which is great, especially when compared to other similar platforms, which can take a whole day to respond. They were always accommodating, and we never had to escalate any of our inquiries.

When it comes to pricing, 3dcart truly excels at delivering competitive prices. By the time you reach the 2nd pricing plan, you have absolutely no transaction fees or limitations, making it very affordable for most business owners. Their pricing plans are cheap, and you can even save big by getting a discount for the first year. They have no hidden fees, and you’ll always pay exactly what they mention on their pricing page. Unless you plan on spending a ton of money on premium themes and plugins, 3dcart is easily one of the best options you can consider if you’re looking for affordable pricing plans.

Plans Pricing

3dcart has some of the most competitive fees in the industry. They make it easy for new merchants to set up an online store without spending on their budget toward the eCommerce website builder. In fact, when compared to other similar platforms, 3dcart is among the cheapest solutions available. They offer four main pricing plans starting with “Startup Store, " limiting you to 100 products. The next package, “Basic Store”, has no limits on products, bandwidth and charges no transaction fees, making it one of the top options worth considering. Next, there’s the “Plus Store” package, which allows you to have up to 5 staff members, and finally, the “Pro Store” package allows you to have up to 15 staff members.

Transaction Fees

3dcart does not list any transaction fees, which may seem incredibly useful for businesses that sell tons of products daily. However, transaction fees can quickly add up and end up costing a merchant ton of money in the long run. Therefore, while 3dcart does not have any actual transaction fees, they limit the number of products you can sell to 100 when choosing the cheapest pricing plan available. However, the 2nd pricing plan and higher have no limits as far as products or bandwidth are concerned, making them truly free of any transaction fees.

Other Fees

We looked all over their platform, searching for additional fees, and couldn’t find anything they could charge us. In fact, we even surfed the internet looking for complaints against 3dcart for odd charges or weird fees, and we still couldn’t find anything. However, 3dcart is an honest website builder that makes it simple for you to understand what and when you will be charged for their services. So don’t expect to pay more unless you choose to install third-party plugins or unless you wish to spend money towards premium themes.

3dcart was founded in 1997 by Gonzalo Gil, who aimed to create an easy-to-use eCommerce solution that would allow business owners to thrive in a competitive market. With over 20 years in business, 3dcart is now one of the leading options for choosing an eCommerce platform for your business. Having started from scratch, 3dcart is now a pioneer in the industry who helped create the entire website builder market.

They are listed as an Inc. 5000 company, and they are a Visa PCI Certified provider. 3dcart has come a long way in the past two decades, and this shows through their excellent reliability and their team of experts who are ready to assist at any given moment. In addition, they place a strong emphasis on improving their current features and implementing the latest SEO techniques. This makes 3dcart an excellent choice if you take search engine optimization very seriously.

3dcart has its headquarters in Florida, USA, and they provide local phone numbers and national and international support lines for all of their customers. Their team constantly works hard toward developing new features that could revolutionize the way online merchants do business. This makes 3dcart an excellent choice for new businesses that expect to be dealing with major growth down the line. They are trusted eCommerce platforms with decades of experience, which shows that they are going anywhere.

Along with a huge emphasis on feature development and innovations, 3dcart already delivers amazing website-building tools. You will rapidly be able to set up online stores even if you’re never built a website in your life. Their simple to use dashboard and their outstanding support team makes 3dcart one of the premier eCommerce solutions online.

When it truly comes down to it, 3dcart is one of the top-rated eCommerce platforms on the internet. They offer amazing support 24/7 for all pricing plans, allowing you to get quality expert-level support at all times. With their awesome support comes an extensive knowledge base packed with useful information, video tutorials, and more. 3dcart also delivers amazing marketing and SEO tools, so you can make the most out of your online store and attract the most amount of visitors possible. To make it even more interesting, 3dcart has an easy-to-use dashboard that should take just a matter of minutes to get used to using. So whether you’re a new merchant looking for a simple backend or even if you’re an advanced coder looking for customizability, 3dcart really delivers. Their themes may be lacking, but their plugins make up for it, but at a high cost. Overall, 3dcart is one of the great merchant website builders that you’ll certainly want to consider when comparing eCommerce solutions for your online business.