Icertis vs. Shopify vs. Volusion

Icertis is well suited for organizations that have a large number of contracts to manage and need a centralized platform to manage them. It is particularly useful for organizations that need to track and manage contract expiration dates, renewals, and other important dates. It is also well suited for organizations that need to comply with regulatory requirements and need a platform to help with compliance.In terms of scenarios where Icertis may be less appropriate, it may not be the best fit for organizations with a small number of contracts to manage. It may also not be the best fit for organizations that need a high degree of customization, as the platform does have some limitations in terms of customization options. Additionally, Icertis may not be the best fit for organizations that want a platform that is focused on specific industries, such as construction or real estate, as it's more generic in nature.It's worth noting that Icertis is a powerful and flexible tool, and its suitability for a particular organization depends on the specific needs and requirements of that organization.

Incentivized

Shopify allowed us to handle matrix items and combined listings. Both of which we could not do on our previous platform. There was some customization involved but overall, it did what we needed it to. The one downside was that if we want to change anything we would have to reload the entire set of matrix items manually.

Incentivized

Volusion is a good company if you're starting out. The problem is that, if you want more complexity out of the program, you're kind of stuck. Also the regular time out errors and slow downs can be very frustrating. Packages that miss overnight deadlines because your system stops working can cost you customers. In today's highly competitive market, that's just something that's hard to put up with. If you have a lower volume of business you might be able to work around these issues.

Incentivized

• Contract Creation and Management: Icertis excels at streamlining the contract creation process. It allows users to easily create and manage contracts using pre-approved templates, which can be customized as needed. The platform also includes built-in e-signature capabilities, making it easy for all parties to sign and execute contracts electronically. This has greatly reduced the time and resources needed for contract management, and has enabled our organization to be more efficient in the contract creation process.
• Contract Compliance: Icertis helps organizations stay compliant with regulatory requirements by providing real-time tracking and alerts for contract expiration dates, renewal dates, and other important dates. This feature has been particularly useful for our organization, allowing us to avoid costly contract renewals and stay compliant with legal requirements.
• Analytics and Reporting: Icertis provides powerful analytics and reporting capabilities that allow organizations to gain valuable insights into their contract portfolio. These analytics and reports can be used to identify trends, track performance, and make more informed business decisions. This has been particularly beneficial for our organization, allowing us to better understand the performance of our contracts and make more strategic decisions.

Incentivized

• It's base security and integration with trusted security partners (such as NoFraud) is a game-changer when it comes to reliability and a "hands off approach" for our IT department. The up-time is also very good.
• It offers a wide range of verified plugins that are (for the most part) easy to install and use for any specific scenario you're looking for.
• It's Analytics area in the admin is actually nice and offers a wide variety of reports that you can run.

Incentivized

• Templates are pre-built for a good end user experience. I've gone through the process of building custom sites as well as tweaking both free and paid templates that Volusion's design team provides.
• Their support team didn't use to be as helpful, but in recent years have answered nearly all questions I've had. Their support section within the database provides detailed walkthrus as well.
• Order processing is easy once you've been trained on the system. We got to a point where nearly the entire process was automated from initial purchase through shipping.

Incentivized

• Some features are unnecessarily limiting. For example, the inability to delete records or change fields later if it turns out there has been a mistake in how the contract was entered or the term was described. The Icertis form fields are NOT the contract record that is required to be kept. If someone makes an error, they should be able to fix it. The contract itself doesn't change, and that is the business record.
• Too much is built on the assumption that the person requesting the contract is the one with the control or ownership of the contract. It would be better if the person to whom the contract is submitted for review was the owner in the system.
• Not all requests will in fact end with a contract. Sometimes requests are started and the project is abandoned or put on hold for a period of time. More status fields that reflect the reality of contracting would be helpful.

Incentivized

• I would love it if Shopify built an in house app which helped us post UGCs and social proof from platforms such as Instagram, Youtube etc. more seamlessly on our website. Right now, we are able to do it through third party apps but the look and feel is just okay.

Incentivized

• API calls use the previous call as a reference, even if you weren't the one we made the previous call. Can lead to data gaps, so you often have to set a manual date range to look back to make sure you aren't missing any data.
• Not as customizable as most ecommerce platforms
• Not as many integration options as most platforms

Incentivized

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!

Incentivized

When you spend so much time with a product like this and not only have you witnessed its growth, but you almost feel like you are next those that make the decisions of building features a certain way, you can't help but want to stay and be a part of their continued growth. It's simply a great product. Can it improve? By all means! But it will only improve because of users and avid resellers like me.

Some functionality could be achieved with less clicking, the change management could be done a bit a better for deployments

Incentivized

It is fairly easy to use Shopify regardless of what task you are attempting to perform. Most things are customizable to a degree without requiring coding ability. I have very limited coding experience and have still been able to navigate my way around changing features of the website that require edits to the code with the use of AI and trial-and-error. This previously wasn't possible with the WooCommerce platform.

Incentivized

I know what to do to add a new product, promotion or do an analysis of sales.

Incentivized

Shopify support is always available when you need them.

Incentivized

Shopify website speed is quite impressive. Even if we integrate couple apps, it does not hamper the site speed.

Incentivized

super dependent on how much money you want to pay. The general regular support can usually take around one to two weeks to get an answer and sometimes that issue is fixed but the underlying issue is not addressed even if you call out that it is a repeated issue. It appears that sometimes support is not really trained in how your instance is set up so there can be a bit of back and forth just to be able to get the appropriate support.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

You have to wait on hold for at least 45 minutes every call—the tech support person never knows the answer right away so they put you on 10 minute holds only to come back and say they're still looking for answers. The chat function could take days to get a response. Our "Dedicated Account Manager" never checks in or answers, nor are they ever in the office when we call. It's like they try to be as unavailable as possible until you forget why you even called in the first place. Insane.

Incentivized

Shopify offered us several trainings to setup a Shopify store, how to build a brand, SEO, product photography etc. All this content have been super helpful in our journey.

Incentivized

Just start now and make the switch, the sooner the better. You will love it and it is really a simple process

Incentivized

It is best to use the built-in features and recommended services for the most turn-key experience (ie. Skipjack for payment processing so that it can all be done from the Volusion backend).

In our organization, we chose Icertis over Ariba Contracts because of its comprehensive feature set and its advanced contract analytics capabilities. We found that Icertis provided us with more flexibility and customization options, which was important for our organization's specific needs. Additionally, the AI-driven contract insights provided by Icertis have been extremely helpful in helping us optimize business decisions and realize the full potential of our contracts.Another important factor is that Icertis is industry agnostic, while Ariba Contracts has a stronger presence in specific industries. Icertis is more suitable for a wider range of organizations and that's why in our fictional organization we selected it.Overall, both Icertis and Ariba Contracts are powerful contract management software solutions, but Icertis's advanced contract analytics and its flexibility and industry agnostic approach make it a better fit for our fictional organization.

Incentivized

Big Commerce and SAP Hybris are two other platforms we've investigated and Shopify is by far easiest to use and customize. While it doesn't do everything out of the box, the apps do fill in many gaps. The cost however, is probably the biggest selling point against these other two options.

Incentivized

While k-eCommerce was very glamorous to us because it integrates with our main workflow, it just didn't have some of the marketing features that are so integral to the way we do business online. The set-up costs were also way too high. Volusion is so affordable and feature heavy, it makes it very difficult for any shopping cart provider to compete. You can find others who are competitively priced and have similar features, but they simply aren't as robust (at least for the way we use it)

Shopify has basic to high-end plans. The plans grow with the brand`s growth and I love that about Shopify.

Incentivized

• Since implementing the platform, we have seen a significant reduction in the time and resources spent on contract management. This has allowed us to reallocate these resources to other areas of the business, resulting in increased revenue.
• Additionally, Icertis has helped us to improve our entitlement and obligations management, allowing us to better track and manage our contract expiration dates, renewals, and other important dates. This has helped us to avoid costly contract renewals and stay compliant with regulatory requirements, thereby protecting us against noncompliance and penalties.
• The platform's built-in analytics and reporting capabilities have also been valuable in helping us to gain valuable insights into our contract portfolio, allowing us to make more informed business decisions. Additionally, the platform's contract intelligence has helped us to shorten our sales cycles, which has enabled us to close more deals in less time.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Honestly, when you're in the dashboard, the UX is simply horrendous. I mean, everything that should be 1-2 clicks away is 4-6 clicks away, and each pages takes at least four seconds to load. You just find yourself wasting a lot of time waiting for things to load. This should be more simple.