Ecwid vs 3dCart arguably earned its reputation in the eCommerce market. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses and aims to optimize online businesses in different aspects. Keep scrolling to get:
- A brief overview of Ecwid and 3dCart
- Breaking out key differences between the two platforms
- Worth advice for choosing the best solution for your business
Ecwid vs 3dCart: Overview
How does 3dCart work?
“Build an online store that ranks higher”
Founded in 1997 by CEO Gonzalo Gill, 3dCart is a complete and robust eCommerce platform catered to help online store owners thrive in the competitive eCommerce market. 3dCart fuels growth with built-in functionalities such as blog, SEO, and other features that go outside the realm of just a web-store.
What are the three “Ds” in 3dCart? Mr. Gil wanted to launch a solution which revolves around what he considered as the three primary pillars of eCommerce: merchants, customers, and search engines.
The search engines remain the top priority for the company after over 20 years in operation, for 3dCart claims itself as “the best eCommerce platform for SEO.” Of course, whether you can get the most out of this feature depends on your own knowledge and skill in the arena of search engines (read our 3dCart review).
Based in the U.S, 3dCart is especially favorable throughout the states with 93% of online stores are in this country (according to Builtwith)
How does Ecwid work?
“Sell anywhere”
Ecwid is initially a plug-in for websites integration founded by X-Cart CEO Ruslan Fazlyev since 2009. Released after years of experience working with store owners, Ruslan Fazlyev later developed Ecwid into a website builder with all the functionalities of an online store.
Ecwid, which is short or “eCommerce widget”, is designed to drive small business to success. It can be easily embedded into any web presence namely blog, social media, marketplaces. For this reason, users can market, merchandise and sell products and services from multiple online stores with mobile management apps (read our Ecwid review).
Though coming to the market 12 years later, Ecwid is so famous that it is ranked only second after WooCommerce as a plug-in.
Now, after an overview of Ecwid vs 3dCart, let’s put these two into a head-to-head competition!
Pricing and Support
First, to give you the most comprehensive comparison of the two platforms: Ecwid vs 3dCart, let’s take pricing and support into account:
1. Pricing
3dCart offers five monthly plans, as well as a 15 day Free Trial. These are as follows:
- Dropship Plan ($9.99/month): 100 products.
- Startup Plan ($19/month): unlimited products, 1 staff account, 2 email accounts.
- Basic Plan ($29/month): unlimited products, 2 staff account, 5 email accounts.
- Plus Plan ($79/month): unlimited products, 5 staff account, 10 email accounts.
- Pro Plan ($229/month): unlimited products, 15 staff account, 30 email accounts.
Mind that all plans including the following features:
- No transaction fees
- Domain Registration
- Shopping Cart
- Unlimited Orders
- Facebook Store
- Secure Web Hosting
- 50+ Mobile-Ready Themes
- Built-in Blog
- Unlimited Bandwidth
- 100+ Payment Providers
- API Access
Also, the add ons do get expensive, so it will cost more than you initially think. You had better consider carefully before choosing Plus or Pro plans.
Though, on average, 3dCart plan are cheaper than Shopify or BigCommerce, Ecwid has the competitive edge since it offers surprisingly affordable plans. First, instead of a 15 trial, Ecwid offers a free plan forever. No credit card needed. That said, this free deal is capped for only 10 products and limited features. The detailed pricing plans are as follows:
- Free Plan: 10 products, 2 products categories, one-page website, websites integration.
- Venture Plan ($15/month): 100 products, mobile inventory management apps, social media integration.
- Business Plan ($35/month): 2500 products, marketplace integration, 2 staff accounts, abandoned cart recovery…
- Unlimited Plan ($99/month): unlimited products, Additional POS options, unlimited staff accounts.
2. Support
With 3dCart, 24/7 support is available year-round. Based in the USA, the customer support team can be reached via phone, email, or live chat. Phone is the quickest, while the live chat can lead to hour-long waiting time. Also, despite the 24-hour commitment, the support team tends to be absent at certain times. If you are not in the US and cannot use your phone, submitting a ticket is quick and easy.
With Ecwid, you can only reach via email for a free plan and live chat and phone are for higher plan tiers.
Ease of use
With an intuitive approach, 3dCart represents a dynamic interface. With step-by-step instruction, users can keep track of their work. However, some people may find it hard to navigate around the dashboard for it uses technical language.
With a responsive design and an eye-catching dashboard, Ecwid has become one of the most favorable platforms of store owners.
Customization
1. Ecwid
Ecwid spares little room for users to customize at will. First, there is only one free theme and you can only change colors of that theme or else you buy third-party paid templates at the “App Market”. This is due to its sole intention which is integrating into existing websites, not creating it from scratch. Ecwid can efficiently integrate and adapt into another platform. It automatically scans, analyzes and fits your original font size and colors.
2. 3dCart
On the contrary, 3dCart offers a selection of 91 free templates. What’s more, you can change templates and it will reformat your content automatically. Depending on what plan you are using, you can get more and more flexibility. They also offer an app store with a substantial number of add-ons, even though the platform doesn’t offer as many add-ons as Shopify or BigCommerce, they still offer access to the most important tools such as Quickbooks (integratable with Amazon), Shipwire, and ShareASale..
Mobile management apps
So far, Ecwid vs 3dCart has been showing many outstanding features. What about inventory management on the go?
Most customers are on the move these days. But 3dCart does not offer any mobile apps. This shows how 3dCart falls behind its competitor regardless of being ahead of the game. Shopify, BigCommerce all provide iOS and Android app for store owners to efficiently boost sales.
On the other hand, Ecwid is more advanced on the tech front by adapting to the latest eCommerce trends and provide a mobile app (iOS and Android). Not only simple inventory management (product updates, orders tracking..), mobile app is supported with the ability to sync across all channels upon any changes in the dashboard.
Selling channels
3dCart has a powerful API for integrating through social sites, you can connect your store to places like Facebook, Amazon, Shopzilla. 3dCart makes it easy for retailers to sell on Facebook. You can avail of social bookmarking capabilities to promote your online store on other social media sites. For example, have your items pinned on Pinterest, enable your customers to share your product pages, and so on.
Here are the details of which channel to integrate on each plan:
Meanwhile, Ecwid, with the “sell anywhere” motto, affords integration into any websites such as Instagram, Facebook, eBay, Amazon, etc. You can manage all selling channels from your home dashboard. Mind that this integration feature is available for paid plans only.
SEO feature
When it comes to SEO features, unlike any other builder, make SEO functions visible throughout the site, like when adding products. With a clear motto as a platform for SEO, 3dCart provide a marketing checklist from beginner to advanced level. The checklist also comes with a detail instruction on how to do and why you should add this to boost SEO. Additionally, 3dCart provides optional managed SEO services with an additional fee to help you push your site to the top of search engine rankings.
On the other hand of the spectrum, Ecwid is considered by experts as not ideal for SEO promotion, for it is based on JS script due to the use of the AJAX.
Payment options
Regarding payment gateways, Both Ecwid and 3dCart provide loads of payment options with no transaction fee other than the charge per transaction for card processors. While there are bout 50 payment gateways you can connect to Ecwid, 3dCart offers over 160 payment options. Some of the payment gateways are country-specific, so the exact tax and fee will depend on your location.
More information of Ecwid are discussed below:
Ecwid vs 3dCart: Conclusion
All in all, I have walked you through a detail analysis of the two platform: Ecwid vs 3dCart. 3dCart is suitable for store owners with a scalable business with a optimal SEO benefits while Ecwid support beginners or new retailers to adapt to selling online businesses with a affordable package and a free plan.
Finally, when you find your existing website no more compatible for online business, Ecwid vs 3dCart could be one of the bright candidates for you. If that’s the case, LitExtension is happy to help you with the migration process. LitExtension is for all users and requires no technical and programming skills. Currently, we are supporting migration for over 80 carts including Ecwid migration, 3dCart migration, and more specifically Ecwid to 3dCart or 3dCart to Ecwid.
We take pride in our comprehensive migration service and reliability. You can easily transfer all your data namely products, customers, orders, variants, etc. LitExtension also provides you with additional options so that you can expand the migration possibility, such as:
Should you have any questions regarding 3dCart vs Ecwid migration, LitExtension support team is more than happy to help! You can also join our Facebook Community to get more eCommerce tips and news.