LinkedIn Publishing Platform vs. Volusion

The platform is a great tool for someone trying to find a job. I have personally used the platform to help me get my current position and will use it again once I am back in the job market. There are some people out there who claim the platform is useless. In my opinion, if you see the LinkedIn platform as useless then you don't really understand how helpful it can be in the digital age of 2017.

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

• I like how it lets you publish long form content.
• I love how it lets me copy and paste words and links from my Wordpress website, and it all comes over without me having to reinsert the links.

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

• Ability to post on a mirror account
• Notifications on a campaign could be to a phone instead of email
• More robust data analytics

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

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.

You can use your own profile and it is intuitive, easy to manage with good headings and tools.

Incentivized

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

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

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).

The problem with Facebook for Business is that it is on Facebook. Facebook is a great way for a company to brand themselves. However a companies content is surround by other content that is often not professional. For example, if someone follows my company on Facebook and scrolls down their timeline and sees my post, it is intertwined in their feed with their Facebook friends. This could lead to your content being mixed in with others. With Linkedin, it is solely supposed to be used for professionals. People are not supposed to (even though some do) post things that may be deemed offensive. That is not the case with Facebook.

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)

• I think it raises the awareness of my SuperStar Careers brand. When I talk to people offline, they often tell me they read my articles and can give specific examples.
• I've had a few prospects reach out to me. In the past 2 years, I'd guess I've had up to 10 people reach out to me for a assistance.

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.