Hosted or self-hosted? User-friendly and intuitive or highly customizable and scalable? Which shopping carts are better? These questions often comes to mind of people who has just started with eCommerce. There is no fit-for-everyone solution since each and every business has its own needs and requirements. So, you need to think carefully which specific features you need and than go with one of the options. This review about Magento vs 3Dcart will point out two great solutions of each kind self-hosted Magento and hosted 3DCart.
So what is the general difference between hosted and self-hosted platforms and why exactly 3DCart and Magento are worth considering? This article will help you differentiate between 3DCart and Magento.
What is 3DCart and why use it?
3DCart is a hosted solution so it includes all the common benefits of these platforms:
- Reliable servers (99% up-time guarantee and daily data back-ups).
- Easy to use admin panel.
- Template system and user-friendly design editor.
So if you do not have a lot of programming experience but want to have a fancy design. Or you don’t want to search for appropriate hosting than a hosted shopping cart is a great option to start.
Apart from standard advantages 3DCart can offer you a set of unique features that will definitely bring you sales and profit. The core benefits of 3DCart include the following.
- 3DCart stores have powerful product management that will help you run your shop effectively. Add and manage any type of items (physical or virtual). Product review and comparisons, wish lists, multiple pricing levels, up-selling, image zoom and many other features will help you to make your store profitable.
- One of the best marketing and SEO set of features in the industry: discount and coupon codes system, search engine friendly URLs. Some of advanced options are opportunity to sell via Facebook/mobile devices and XML sitemap generator. In addition you can easily set up an affiliate program and blog to make a buzz around your store and products.
- Top level security (PCI compliance) and full 24/7/365 support. You can be sure that store won’t be hacked and you will always get an expert help in case of any issues.
What is Magento and why use it?
Magento cart is a licensed solution so it means that you will have to search hosting on your own. Main peculiarities of self-hosted solutions include:
- Generally require middle to high programming skills for customization and design.
- Have a huge community and big number of free/paid extensions to expend functionality.
- Usually do not have an official support. However, if it’s there than most likely it is paid.
So if you are not a newcomer in eCommerce or have enough PHP programming experience go for one of licensed solutions.
The platform is a known leader among open source carts and can offer unlimited customization options and full range of eCommerce features out-of-the-box.
- Magento store management will enable virtually unlimited options. You can easily run several stores via one admin panel, add unlimited number of any products (single, configurable, bundled, etc.), categories and images. Magento supports handful of languages, currencies and taxes options. Moreover, built-in content management system will help you manage your store pages easily.
- Your Magento store will also have a huge number of checkout (one-page, guest, etc.), payment (Amazon Payments, PayPal, Authorize.Net, etc.) and shipment (FedEX, DHL, UPS, etc.) options.
- Full range of business reports and integration with Google Analytics allows to keep an eye on the most important performance indexes.
Both platforms are definitely very beneficial and can be used for any size of business. However, Magento will require extensive programming on set up step while 3DCart will let you to jump straight into the business. On the other hand Magento has more customization possibilities which gives you virtually unlimited opportunities. Before making a final decision check both platforms on your own. 3DCart offers free trial period and Magento can be used for totally free with Community Edition.
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Source – http://www.shopping-cart-migration.com/blog/58-3dcart/6173-3dcart-and-magento-what-is-it-and-why-use-it
Cart2Cart is an online shopping cart migration service designed for straightforward and secure data migration from your current shopping cart to a desirable one. It allows to move store data automatically in only a few hours.
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