Best Ecommerce Shopping Cart Software for 2013

The best ecommerce software for 2013 is http://www.3dcart.com

Since 2010 I've been testing different shopping cart software services that offer an all-in-one package that includes hosting, web-design and web content management. There are probably 25 or more ecommerce software companies that offer a hosted or stand alone software solution.

Top 10 Ecommerce Shopping Carts

However, when you get down to which companies are really offering a complete package I think there is only about 10 ecommerce solutions that I would recommend. Each of them have their own advantage but only a handful are worth using. To learn more about each of the TOP 10 SHOPPING CARTS, go to http://www.TopShoppingCarts.com.

Top Shopping Carts reviews eCommerce platforms that provide a solution for individuals and businesses to sell products online. Our 2013 shopping cart reviews explain which shopping cart software is best for starting an online store. We've tested and proven each of top eCommerce shopping carts so we know you'll be satisfied with our top rated shopping carts.

3DCart Features

3d Cart is a good shopping cart for small businesses. Starting your store only takes a few minutes and you can sell products from your store on Facebook and all mobile devices. It’s easy to use but very powerful if you looking to expand.

3d Cart offers 24 hour premium technical support even during your trial period. They also provide over 60 minutes of free training to teach you how to build and market your online store. Get answers on the spot and enjoy exclusive deals to help you grow your online store. This 3d Cart Review was written based on 6 month trial period in which I both started an online store and successfully used 3dCart to sell my products online.

I use to recommend people to Volusion until I came across 3dCart and discovered that I had been pulling my hair out for nothing. Too many times I tried to customize my Volusion store and found that Volusion always had a reason why I could do something. Oddly enough 3 of the major functionality flaws that I had with Volusion were built in functions within 3dcart. Below in the advanced software review I will explain some of these amazing feature offered by the 3dCart software.

3d Cart Review, Opinions & Testimonial

This review goes through each aspect of 3dcart in great detail. The purpose of this review is to show you the power of 3dcart and demonstrate the software features that allow you to solve common ecommerce problems that occur with other shopping cart platforms like Volusion, Bigcommerce & Shopify.

Start Wizard

When you first login to your trial or have purchased 3dCart you will have the option to setup your store welcome message, company profile, select a template, choose categories, add products, setup shipping methods, add tax information if applicable, apply for payment methods and then publish your store. If you choose to go at your own pace you can always cancel the wizard and go direct to the section on the admin panel you want to setup or customize.

So, now you’ve loged in for the first time and your just getting started.
You’ll have a few options to choose from on the left had menu or to jump straight to your stats or live chat that will be found at the top of the page.

Processing Orders

On the menu you have an option for orders. As you might have guessed this is where you go to find current and past orders. On the order menu you can select from the following:

• New
• Processing
• Partial
• Shipped
• Cancel
• Hold
• Not Completed
• Unpaid
• Edit Status
• RMA Search
• Phone Order
• Export/Import

I recommend going through each order category at least once to get familar with the setting but you’ll probably spend most of your time on the New Orders and Shipped Orders window.
If you have a orders that you place by phone then just select the Phone Order category to take you to the window to enter an order manually. If the status of an order needs to be changed you can always use the edit status feature.

Adding Products

Now for the fun part! Adding products and options.

Before you add a product start by adding a category. This can be a general broad category or a very specific one. This is not set in stone, you can always change the categories later and even rearrange them so that one category is inside another also known as a child category. Once you’ve added a category then click on Add New on the product menu. Reminder! Once a product has been created you can view all your products by clicking on the View/Edit section.

Product Information

ID/Sku: This is the product code or unique number to represent the product.
MFG ID: Manufacturer Number or UPC
Name: This is the name that will be displayed on the product page.
Short Description: This will be below the product on category pages.
Manufaturer: Go to Settings > General > Manufacturers, add a Manufacturer.
Distributors: Settings > General > Distributors, add a Distributor
Categories: Click the Add button to add the pre determined category.
Pricing: You can add the cost, regular price, retail price & sale price.
Tax: Select whether the produt is Non-Taxable
Other Options: Also available – not for sale, hide, gift certificate, home special
Shipping Options: Specify the rate per item, weight, height, width, depth.
Free Shipping: Check the free shipping box if you want to offer it for free.

Description: Here is where you can put all important information about the product. Try to be descriptive and use lots of common keywords to describe the product in great detail. Don’t write a novel but at least 1 short pargraph talking about any unique features or specifications that the customer may want to know. Good content can bring in a lot of traffic from organic search results and alos inform the shopper to make a buying decision.

Keywords: Add the search phrases or keywords that you would use to find this page. Keywords could include product numbers, descriptive keywords and common search phrases.

Custom Fields: Add up to 13 custom fields that will be displayed below your product description. This could be things like the product return policy or warranty information.

Product Features: What are the top things the customer should know about the product. Product features will be added below description in a bullet format.

Opinion on Adding Products to 3dCart

After trying other shopping carts I can say with out a doubt that 3dcart is by far the easiest when it comes to creating products individually or in bulk using CSV or other bulk editing methods. Many stores sell a lot of the same types of products with similar options so instead of entering in each product separately from scratch you can simply duplicate an existing product and modify the product name and sku. This works great when you have a bunch of the same products with just different color or style options.

Bulk Editing Products with CSV Excel Spread Sheet File

If your not familiar with how to edit products in bulk I recommend learning. Say you have 100 products and the only difference between the products is price, product number and perhaps the color of an item. Then you can export your product information into an Excel Spread Sheet, and edit all of the product specifications at one time. This will require the knowledge of how to export correctly but I will discuss that later in the Import/ Export section. All you really need to know is that bulk edit can save you weeks. Not days or hours but weeks of time spent editing products one by one can now be done by the masses.

Options Template

I really like 3dcart’s ability to handle bulk editing imports and exports. Especially with their options template. If you have advanced options you set for a large number of products within a specific collection there is no need to edit each item by itself. Now you can simply use the options template and apply the option number to all the products you want to display that set of option. A really cool feature only offered by 3dcart.

Pricing & Plan Comparison

3dcart has 5 plans currently, all in which offer the option to purchase based on a monthly subscription or annual. Save 15% by paying for the whole year in advance.

Mini Plan

• $19.99 per month or $16.99 annually
• 2 GB Bandwidth
• Up to 100 Products

Note: This is a great plan if your just starting out and don’t have a lot of products but if your store gets a lot of traffic you may consider upgrading if your using a lot of bandwidth, they do charge for every GB of bandwidth you go over. This is a fairly common practice most shopping carts charge for overages. I think Shopify is the only one that doesn’t if you need a bandwidth cart.

Starter Plan

• $35.99 per month or $30.59 annually
• 4 GB Bandwidth
• Up to 500 Products

Sell More Tools – Basic, includes Includes: Autoresponder, Group Deals / 3dFeedback, Daily Deals / Make An Offer, Email Marketing – 2K/mo, Unlimited Staff Logins

Professional Plan

• $65.99 per month or $56.10 annually
• 8 GB Bandwidth
• Up to 1,000 Products

Sell More Tools – Pro, all same things as Basic plus Live Chat plugin and 5K per month for Email Marketing.

Professional +

• $99.99 per month or $84.99 annually
• 25 GB Bandwidth
• Up to 5,000 Products

Sell More Tools – Ultra, includes QuickBooks Plugin.

Power Plan

• $129.99 per month or $110.50 annually
• 45 GB Bandwidth
• Unlimited Products

Sell More Tools – Ultra, includes Enhanced Statistics and Tracking.