BigCommerce vs. 3DCart: eCommerce Shopping Cart Comparison
Although it’s only been around for just over a year now, BigCommerce has established itself as the big name in ecommerce shopping cart solutions. BigCommerce’s quick rise, which has been made possible by aggressive feature development and marketing, has led some of its longer-established competition to respond. One of the companies now in direct competition with BigCommerce is 3DCart, which offers a lot of similar features. It can be hard to determine which provider would be the most beneficial to your business, so for your consideration, here are some of the ways in which BigCommerce and 3DCart differ.
The Basics
As is the case with most shopping cart providers, 3DCart offers a variety of pricing options (after a $99 US setup fee) which should make it accessible to smaller and larger businesses alike. Their services range from the $19.99 per month Mini package, which allows for up to 50 different products, 1GB of bandwidth per month, and 1GB of storage space, to their Premium package at $199.99 per month, which allows for an unlimited number of products and storage space as well as 60GB of bandwidth and a number of extra service and usability features.
BigCommerce also lets users choose from several different pricing plans, which all include a $49.95 setup fee. Their low-end package is the Bronze option which, at $24.95 per month includes 100 product slots, 2GB of bandwidth, and 200MB of storage, while their most expensive offering, at $299.95 per month, is the Diamond package, which places no limit on product numbers and allows 45GB of bandwidth and 3GB of storage space.
The Features
BigCommerce is known as one of the leaders among shopping cart providers in terms of the breadth of features it offers. In addition to industry standards compliance in payment options (PayPal, Google Checkout), BigCommerce makes it relatively easy for users with merchant accounts to set up their stores to receive direct credit card payments. They also have some nice statistics tracking and inventory management features, although many of their competitors have caught up in the last little while in this area. BigCommerce still stays ahead of the pack when it comes to shipping options, though, as they offer integration with services like Australia Post and the UK’s Royal Mail, while most providers still offer only North America-based options.
3DCart is one of the few services that is just about equal with BigCommerce in these areas. They also offer a number of payment options that are overlooked by most other providers, although their shipping options are at this point still limited to the USPS, FedEx, UPS, and Canada Post. Users who expect to receive direct credit card payments may be especially interested in 3DCart thanks to the addition of the McAfee Secure service for PCI compliance. This does a lot to simplify the process of staying up to date with records necessary to work with credit card payments.
Ease of Use
BigCommerce and 3DCart are also quite evenly matched with respect to ease of use. BigCommerce currently offers a greater number of quality pre-designed templates, while 3DCart makes it a bit easier for users to switch between templates, allowing multiple templates to be saved at once and rotated according to a seasonal schedule. Both services offer decent storefront editing facilities, although neither are nearly as good as Shopify in this respect.
Conclusion
For many users, deciding between BigCommerce and 3DCart is really a matter at looking at individual features and seeing what’s on offer that you really intend to use, although even this can be challenging in this case because BigCommerce and 3DCart are so similar. Non-US users may have a slightly easier time with BigCommerce thanks to its extended shipping options. On the other hand, smaller businesses may appreciate the value presented by 3DCart’s Mini option, which represents a very good value for money thanks to its generous bandwidth and image storage space.