Review: 3DCart Offers Social Media Integration

Small businesses or entrepreneurs often look to a hosted ecommerce software platform to launch an online Web store. The benefit of using a hosted ecommerce solution is that you can set up your store and shopping cart, plus use a number of tools for inventory management or customer marketing -- all from within a single Web-based control panel.

3DCart Version 3.2 is an ecommerce software solution that offers all the basic tools and customization options you would expect when using a hosted ecommerce provider. One thing we liked about 3DCart is that it offers a few extra features, like marketing and social commerce tools that are not industry-standard features found in most hosted ecommerce software platforms.

Getting Started: Create a 3DCart Account

Setting up a store using 3DCart is a simple process. You can create your store, upload products and be open for business pretty much right away. It is advisable to have files ready to use, such as your business logo, product catalog, images and other assets that you will need to customize your Web store.

3DCart offers a free 15-day trial, so you can create a free account and try the service to see if it will meet your needs. Once you have provided provide a name, email address and phone number you are forwarded to a screen to setup your store. After you create a new store you can use the account and then upgrade to a paid subscription (see full plans and pricing here) if you decide to continue using 3DCart as your ecommerce software.

Next: Design, Set Up and Customize Your New Store

3DCart offers a built-in wizard that will help you get all the required information into the system, and then it will guide you through the creation and customization of your Web shop. If you prefer to skip the wizard, you can access all of your store management options through the "Online Store Manager," which is your administration dashboard. This is the Web-based interface that lets you manage your orders, products and marketing -- and it lets you access additional tools for store management tasks.

To launch your store, you will first need to customize the following six options:

Design allows you to create or choose templates and create a store logo. Using the Web-based control panel allows you to design a storefront without needing to know any code at all. You can also choose to include features such as product reviews, or "email-a-friend" links.Store Set-up is where you provide information such as your store name, and a description of your business. If you didn't create a logo in the Design phase, you can upload one you already have during this step.Add Categories lets you establish categories to organize your products in the Web storeAdd Products is the tool you use to upload your product catalog or to enter products individually. 3DCart offers a number of options for managing your products. For example you can choose which items to display on your main page, create bundles of products, offer per item discounts, and customize the product description, title, meta tags, and more.Payment Methods lets you choose which types of payments customers may use by selecting your payment gateway. 3DCart supports all major payment gateways including Authorize.net, Verisign, PayPal, Google Checkout, and more.Shipping Options allows you to select a carrier for delivery. 3DCart offers integration with UPS, FedEx, Canada Post and USPS. When customers make a purchase from your Web store, they can obtain real-time shipping quotes and also get package tracking information.

These standard ecommerce software functions are all you are required to customize in order to launch an online store using 3DCart.

One thing that 3DCart does well is provide ample options to customize the store to suit your own business needs in terms of shipping, taxes and inventory management. Also, there is plenty of opportunity for merchants to add or edit keywords, meta tags, page titles and images for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes.

Another thing that we liked about 3DCart is that the Web-based interface used to manage your store and 3DCart account is laid out in such a way that it's easy for even a novice to figure out how to customize and open a store in a short amount of time.

The 3DCart ecommerce software platform also offers a number of additional features that small businesses and entrepreneurs will want to use to get the most out of what the platform has to offer and to tweak their online store.

Social and Mobile Commerce Features

With this new 3.2 version release, 3DCart provides mobile commerce, built-in marketing tools and social commerce integration.

The built-in social commerce features of 3DCart will help you move your Web store to a social setting. The ecommerce software platform allows you to easily integrate the Facebook Like Button (see Facebook Like Guide), add your store to your Facebook Fan Page within its own tab, and share products and news across multiple Social Bookmarking sites using the Add This widget.

3DCart also provides iPhone and smartphone templates which will optimize your Web store for visitors who are browsing -- and buying -- from their mobile devices.

Another feature worth mentioning is the built-in blog, which is helpful for SEO efforts. In just a couple of clicks you can create a store blog to post news, articles and other content. The blog interface lets you schedule posts and provides an RSS feed for syndication.

In addition to these features, you will also have access to online marketing tools, product reviews and store widgets. You also get an image editor to prep your product images, the "Newsletter SmartLists" to manage mailing list subscribers, and a CRM feature to track and manage customer communications and relations.

Pricing, Support and Availability

3DCart offers a number of pricing plans to suit any small business or entrepreneur. The "Mini" plan falls on the low-end of the scale, but it's a good choice for a part-time or casual seller looking to expand from eBay and online auction sites. It's designed for low-traffic stores, has a 50 product-listings cap and starts at $19.99 per month.

The mid-range "Professional" plan is designed for medium-traffic stores (around 8,000 visitors per month). It costs $65.99 per month and includes a LiveChat plug-in. The high-end small business "Premium" plan costs $199.99 per month, and it's designed to handle around 120,000 visitors per month. You also receive extra features in this plan, such as enhanced statistics, LiveChat and a QuickBooks plug-in. take a look at all the 3DCart subscription plans and pricing.

Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.

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