Digital River vs. Shift4Shop

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Digital River
Score 3.0 out of 10
N/A
Digital River Global Commerce offers cloud commerce tools and services for selling digital and physical products across global online markets, handling taxes, regulations, payments, e-marketing and more.N/A
Shift4Shop
Score 1.9 out of 10
N/A
Shift4Shop (formerly 3dcart) is a customizable eCommerce platform designed to build an online store. Some features include Level 1 PCI security compliance, the same level used by banks and large financial institutions, along with search engine optimized templates and no transaction fees. The former 3dcart was acquired by Shift4 Payments in November, 2020.N/A
Pricing
Digital RiverShift4Shop
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Digital RiverShift4Shop
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsShift4Shop offers a free enterprise-grade plan for US customers who use their payment processing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Digital RiverShift4Shop
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Digital RiverShift4Shop
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
Digital River
5.6
3 Ratings
31% below category average
Shift4Shop
1.0
9 Ratings
154% below category average
Product catalog & listings2.03 Ratings1.09 Ratings
Product management2.03 Ratings1.09 Ratings
Bulk product upload10.02 Ratings1.07 Ratings
Branding5.03 Ratings1.08 Ratings
Mobile storefront5.03 Ratings1.09 Ratings
Product variations7.03 Ratings1.09 Ratings
Website integration5.03 Ratings1.09 Ratings
Visual customization5.03 Ratings1.09 Ratings
CMS9.52 Ratings1.08 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
Digital River
7.4
3 Ratings
2% below category average
Shift4Shop
1.4
9 Ratings
138% below category average
Abandoned cart recovery9.82 Ratings1.47 Ratings
Checkout user experience5.03 Ratings1.49 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
Digital River
5.0
3 Ratings
50% below category average
Shift4Shop
1.4
9 Ratings
142% below category average
eCommerce security5.03 Ratings1.49 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Digital River
6.9
3 Ratings
8% below category average
Shift4Shop
1.4
9 Ratings
137% below category average
Promotions & discounts9.82 Ratings1.09 Ratings
Personalized recommendations6.02 Ratings1.78 Ratings
SEO5.02 Ratings1.69 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
Digital River
8.2
2 Ratings
5% above category average
Shift4Shop
1.7
9 Ratings
129% below category average
Multi-site management2.01 Ratings1.04 Ratings
Order processing9.82 Ratings3.18 Ratings
Inventory management10.01 Ratings1.07 Ratings
Shipping10.01 Ratings2.48 Ratings
Custom functionality9.32 Ratings1.08 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Digital RiverShift4Shop
Small Businesses
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus
Score 8.9 out of 10
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Digital RiverShift4Shop
Likelihood to Recommend
3.0
(7 ratings)
1.0
(10 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.3
(4 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(1 ratings)
4.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
2.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
4.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
2.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
2.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Digital RiverShift4Shop
Likelihood to Recommend
Digital River
Well suited if you are wanting to implement a solution with minimal staff or resources to support a large project such as E-Commerce software delivery.
Read full review
Shift4
At this point I would recommend looking elsewhere - 8 years with a platform and finally have to switch due to the unreliability is not something a business likes to do! They should sell the platform to a company that actually cares about owning an ecommerce builder. Research Shift4 - the parent
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Pros
Digital River
  • Digital River's email marketing arm has always been top notch. They are very connected with their customers, quick to alert us to any problems they are experiencing and respond if we bring something to their attention.
  • The Global Commerce platform has grown leaps and bounds in the last few years. Its great having a cloud based ecommerce platform that can be accessed securely from any computer in the world.
  • Worldwide payments continues to be a Digital River strong point. They are continually investigating and and doing the work necessary to new countries and locales to their platform.
Read full review
Shift4
  • In my opinion, charge you too much for what it is worth
  • In my opinion, tech support is always blaming client and end up fixing it own issues
  • In my experience, make you believe client is important
Read full review
Cons
Digital River
  • Their flexibility and customizability are lacking. Changes to our cart or store require a lot of lead time discussions and development time.
  • They have many strange UI implementations for things. One search bar is a wildcard match, while another is a string match. One setting might break your product, or be editable once, but you cannot change it after that one time.
Read full review
Shift4
  • Page structure is all over the place. It can be difficult to find where to go to make page edits.
  • Base platform isn't very robust and requires multiple add-ons in order to add CRM, Taxes, and other capabilities
  • Reporting isn't very strong, necessitating outside analytics
  • File system is also pretty wonky and feels very primitive
  • Customer service and technical help leaves MUCH to be desired.
  • Not as many supported add-ons/plug-ins as other platforms, and many of them cost additional fees. Many of them also don't seamlessly integrate, meaning you'll need to dev the integration yourself.
  • In general, what you see in the WYSIWYG is not what you get.
  • Order System is not very intuitive for the modern era
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Likelihood to Renew
Digital River
N/A I wasn't the person that implemented or recommended Digital River. But from an eCommerce standpoint I liked the organization overall and would recommend it.
Read full review
Shift4
Not applicable - as a franchisee, the franchiser took over the web site and shopping cart capabilities, so I no longer need the tool. But I would recommend it.
Read full review
Usability
Digital River
No answers on this topic
Shift4
If you are looking for ultra basic interface ...
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Digital River
No answers on this topic
Shift4
regular updates braking our site
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Support Rating
Digital River
No answers on this topic
Shift4
You always manage to fins someone, but, in my experience, resolving issues are not an easy task. Why do we pay for a service , and then spend time trouble shooting constantly with them ?? In my experience, they eliminate features , send you an email what you can use instead, with instructions most people cant do without an IT guy . It feel more like an open source than a true integrated service.
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Implementation Rating
Digital River
No answers on this topic
Shift4
Initially it was difficult to manage the UI to the client, and then hard to change anything , unless you used the boring and too generic templates . Their template selection is very limited , that are basically all the same with different background images and colours . If you are unfortunate to have been a long-time client, you will have to completely rebuild your store, because old templates are not supported anymore
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Alternatives Considered
Digital River
We evaluated our ability to expand internationally with our current e-commerce platform and decided we could get to market faster with Digital River
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Shift4
We used them for 2 years and had minor problems up until the end. For the last 2 months, customers were unable to checkout, or connect to our payment processor. We put in like 3 to 5 hot tickets to get fixed and day after day nothing was fixed and support got ruder and ruder with us! We lost thousands of dollars online with this company and now they are chasing us for a renewal payment! Simply put, this is bad software with a poor customer care staff!
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Return on Investment
Digital River
  • Definitely positive impact in local markets
  • Positive impact in email marketing
  • Some positive experience with tailoring it for our business objectives
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Shift4
  • We have seen an increase in sales of 440% since starting with 3D cart.
  • We find that the 3D features of promotions, coupon codes, rewards points all make customers want to come to us or come back to us.
  • They made mobile conversion pretty easy, and our mobile traffic went from 33% to 54%.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Shift4Shop Screenshots

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