Shift4Shop

Pros

The program has just about everything we need and other stuff to grow into. The support people are great, they help us when needed and normally solve my issues and questions in a few hours or less.

Cons

They have changed over to a new platform last year but most of the knowledge base questions and answers are for the old platform. So the directions are misleading because stuff has moved around to different places on the site. They still allow use of the old platform and really should force customer's to use the new version and update the knowledgebase.

Pros

Shift4Shop (previously 3dcart) is a FREE website ecommerce platform. Unlike some of their competitors that charge you for every transaction, Shift4shop does not take a commission and they do not charge a monthly fee. It really is free, which is amazing. You do need to use their credit card processor, and the fee is 3%. But you will pay a CC processor no matter what, so ultimately the ecommerce website is still free.
They have templates that are ready to go and are pretty decent. Updates are done automatically, so you don't need to be a techy to keep up (this was a concern when we previously self hosted and did Woocommerce). Ultimately we are happy and would recommend Shift4shop.

Cons

You have no control over some things. One time the entire website went down. Customer service told me I didn't even have a domain with them - even though it had been working and taking orders until the day before. And their customer service is not good. They are out of the country and have no control. Every issue needs to go to a different department. Which is not a big deal for small things, but when your entire website won't work and you have customers emailing and calling (and ultimately ordering elsewhere) losing an entire day because of poor service is huge. Once their error was fixed, there was no apology or explanation. Before we launch any advertising campaigns or send emails to our customer database I always check the site, to make sure it's working. So the free price does with a tradeoff. I calculated what places like Shopify would take per transaction, vs what I lost in one of being down and I am still way, way ahead.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Shift4Shop

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Shift4Shop

Cons

Stupidest decision in Cost Cutting these morons ever made by discontinung Smartermail for customers. Now we have to find a 3rd party to get Orders/Communications via email at additional cost. Worse yet the damn HOOPS we have to go thru to set that up with the 3rd Party provider is ridiculous. Sometimes in business "Cutting Costs" is "Cutting Your Own Throat". If we could get off this platform I would do it in a minute and we'll NEVER recommend them to anyone.

Pros

Like the fact that its an entire platform like all the rest you pay for but its FREE!

Cons

Not found any as of yet any negative issues

Pros

For a small, growing business with an ever-expanding product base, 3dCart meets the need for scalability, ease of adding product details, behind the scenes product management and point of sale tracking, giving a really good all-in-one place to track and grow without the heavy investment of some other popular solutions.

Cons

The printed reports are good, comprehensive, and useful; the ability to integrate them easily with other software is somewhat lacking; it can be done, but with some of the accounting software we tried, it was a difficult porting process. Customer service was as helpful as they could be, but many of our shortcomings became wish list suggestions for their developers.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Shift4Shop

Reasons for Switching to Shift4Shop