Shift4Shop vs. Shopify

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
Shopify
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Shopify is a commerce platform designed for both online stores and retail locations. Shopify offers a professional online storefront, a payment solution to accept credit cards, and the Shopify POS application to power retail sales.
$29
per month
Pricing
Shift4ShopShopify
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Shopify Lite
$9
per month
Basic Shopify
$29
per month
Shopify
$79
per month
Advanced Shopify
$299
per month
Shopify Plus
2,000
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Shift4ShopShopify
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
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
Shift4ShopShopify
Considered Both Products
Shift4Shop
Chose Shift4Shop
3dcart does not provide as much customization without having more knowledge of coding. The file structure takes some getting used to. Shopify is more of a jump start system. You can quickly get a Shopify website up and going in less than a day without any coding knowledge. BigCo…
Chose Shift4Shop
While Shopify is pretty slick in operation, Shopify's fees are way, way, way too expensive compared to 3Dcart.
Magento required a hefty redesign price Tag. BigCommerce seemed like overkill for our needs as an e-commerce company. Big Commerce has some very good material to help …
Chose Shift4Shop
Shopify used across different parts of our business and is well rated in terms of features, functionality and support.
Chose Shift4Shop
I found 3dcart to be the most cost effective and easiest to use for my smaller to medium sized business clients.
Shopify
Chose Shopify
Shopify is the most accessible website management tool to make custom edits to and is the quickest to learn. The file structure is easy to understand, but on Magento, it is very complicated. BigCommerce offers more default options than Shopify, but Shopify has more apps. 3D …
Chose Shopify
Shopify, although more expensive monthly, had an overall better system than 3dcart. It offers more SEO and customization. Also, Shopify is much more user-friendly. Shopify offers features like shopping cart abandonment recovery emails. Shopify's customer service excels over 3dca…
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Shift4ShopShopify
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
Shift4Shop
1.0
9 Ratings
154% below category average
Shopify
7.4
131 Ratings
4% below category average
Product catalog & listings1.09 Ratings8.6131 Ratings
Product management1.09 Ratings7.3129 Ratings
Bulk product upload1.07 Ratings7.6110 Ratings
Branding1.08 Ratings8.4130 Ratings
Mobile storefront1.09 Ratings7.5126 Ratings
Product variations1.09 Ratings6.4123 Ratings
Website integration1.09 Ratings9.2124 Ratings
Visual customization1.09 Ratings7.5129 Ratings
CMS1.08 Ratings4.4105 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
Shift4Shop
1.4
9 Ratings
138% below category average
Shopify
8.1
125 Ratings
7% above category average
Abandoned cart recovery1.47 Ratings7.6116 Ratings
Checkout user experience1.49 Ratings8.5123 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
Shift4Shop
1.4
9 Ratings
142% below category average
Shopify
9.0
127 Ratings
8% above category average
eCommerce security1.49 Ratings9.0127 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Shift4Shop
1.4
9 Ratings
137% below category average
Shopify
8.0
129 Ratings
7% above category average
Promotions & discounts1.09 Ratings7.2124 Ratings
Personalized recommendations1.78 Ratings8.432 Ratings
SEO1.69 Ratings8.5120 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
Shift4Shop
1.7
9 Ratings
128% below category average
Shopify
8.0
130 Ratings
2% above category average
Multi-site management1.04 Ratings6.719 Ratings
Order processing3.18 Ratings9.1128 Ratings
Inventory management1.07 Ratings8.8127 Ratings
Shipping2.48 Ratings8.2120 Ratings
Custom functionality1.08 Ratings7.2120 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Shift4ShopShopify
Small Businesses
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 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
Shift4ShopShopify
Likelihood to Recommend
1.0
(10 ratings)
9.0
(144 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
1.0
(1 ratings)
9.2
(15 ratings)
Usability
4.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Availability
2.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
4.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
2.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
2.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Shift4ShopShopify
Likelihood to Recommend
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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Shopify
Shopify is a great platform for small to medium-sized businesses looking to set up an online store. It's easy to use, offers a wide range of features and integrations, and is perfect for businesses in the retail and food industry. However, large enterprise businesses with complex and custom needs may find Shopify less suitable.
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Pros
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
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Shopify
  • It is definitely easy to set up and get going. This does not take a lot of work or effort on the user end, especially if using templates.
  • Low code platform. You can. make customizations without code.
  • The integrations are diverse and increase functionality.
Read full review
Cons
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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Shopify
  • The main drawback that I am facing in Shopify for a long time is that their sales analytics system is not up to mark. As I am using Shopify to run different stores for my organization it does not get updated after-sales and does not provide the right analytics about the product strength and number of sales.
  • Secondly, Shopify has different apps which are best to run the store on max strength but they are very much costly like inventory management, generating multiple discount codes, and more robust customizable editing.
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Likelihood to Renew
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.
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Shopify
Nothing we have used in the past or have seen thus far even comes close to offering what we get with Shopify Plus, especially for the price. You cannot even come close to getting what we are getting at the price we pay. We are beyond thrilled and Shopify Plus meets and exceeds all of our needs and expectations. We love it!
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Usability
Shift4
If you are looking for ultra basic interface ...
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Shopify
I think most people are able to suer Shopify that have used a computer. There are some features that take a bit longer to learn. If you are not a creative person it may be a bit more difficult to learn the website customization, but with a help guide or tutorial it will only take a few tries to understand how to work the interface
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Reliability and Availability
Shift4
regular updates braking our site
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Shopify
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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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Shopify
In terms of support I give Shopify a 9 out of 10 because they're always very friendly and thorough, and they personally can't solve my problem for me they always point me in the proper direction with the proper information I need to move forward
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Implementation Rating
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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Shopify
Just start now and make the switch, the sooner the better. You will love it and it is really a simple process
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Alternatives Considered
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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Shopify
The old platform that I used could not help us to meet our requirements. It was not helping us properly, then I got to know about Shopify and started using it. After 1 month [of] usage of Shopify we could understand that this is the best platform [for E-commerce] to make better sales and goodwill. Shopify helped us to get a proper idea of the analytics of the website. Shopify [supports] most of the [applications] and helps us to make better results.
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Return on Investment
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%.
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Shopify
  • It got the store up quickly so the client could start selling. She was previously selling products on Etsy and Facebook and wanted to consolidate everything onto one website, so the main thing Shopify solved was to reduce the store owner's time in managing all her products on multiple sites. Also, we had previously built a website on Wix with all the custom functionality and branding she needed - a truly great, high-end website - but it performed so slowly that it was unusable. So the speed at which Shopify can be set up and then works on the page is appreciable.
  • The website was manageable by the client - she could figure the system out herself after a while so she saved money on costs for hiring developers. She did have to hire developers to customize some of the plug-ins but costs are all relative; it wasn't a high investment compared to building a full e-commerce website. With the complexity and size of her product base and the functionality and branding she wanted to have in a website, and the potential of her business, she would have needed to invest well over $10,000 to get to where she really needs to be. In the end she kept the budget under $5000.00.
  • Costs kept climbing with plug-ins having to be added with everything. My client became more involved in building the website and began to try multiple plugins, and she did not have the skill base to evaluate the plugins functionalities so she chose plugins that did not do everything she needed, and then ended up paying the plugin developers to customize the plugins. So on one hand, it's pretty amazing to be able to bring up an e-commerce website as quickly as a week or so, but on the other hand if you need anything customized or deeper functionality in regards to product searching and filtering on the web page, and management on the backend, it quickly goes beyond the skills of the average person to manage, and above their expected budget as well. In the end my client really did not get anything close to the functionality for the website we had originally envisioned.
  • Shopify was the easiest way we could find to bring the client's products to a global market. We evaluated several other platforms and the functionality simple did not seem to be adequate, so Shopify seemed like the only solution that could do enough of what we needed and still stay within this client's budget. Really the problem in this project was not platform per se but that the budget wasn't large enough. Shopify managed to provide a solution for an ecommerce store with thousands of products on a tiny budget, so in the sense of pure functionality it provided the best value of all the platforms we evaluated. The solution still isn't big enough for this client's business though so, without having insights into this client's post-build sales results, my guess is that because her new website did not make her products easier to sort through, and she likely didn't have much more budget left to invest in SEO and other marketing of the website, her sales probably didn't increase substantially as a result of having built the website. So I think this project all in all did not likely have a high ROI.
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ScreenShots

Shift4Shop Screenshots

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