Network Solutions vs. Shopify

My experience with using Network Solutions hasn't been great. At best, it has almost feature parity with its competitors at a higher price. But when you tack on all the minor annoyances of being given interstitial ads for their other products or discount offers when logging in or performing a transfer, the all too common bugs where a feature doesn't work, and in my experience support takes at least a half-hour to understand your problem before even attempting to fail at a resolution. It just isn't worth it in my opinion. Go with a service with better support, features, security, and lower price.

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

• Network solutions supports TXT, MX, and CNAME records.
• DNS changes propagate fairly quickly.
• Network Solutions has a web management portal for maintenance of your account.

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

• Support for Free Open Source 3rd party products you have to pay for the help
• Calling Network Solutions during busy periods can lead to an overflow center which isn't as helpful as the domestic support centers
• Pricing could be more competitive on domain name registration
• Email boxes could have a larger capacity without having to pay for more space

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

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

The backend for managing your domain is very easy to work thru once you learn where everything is and what it is for if you want to do it yourself. The company has toll free phone support 24/7 that can also make changes for you if you are away from your desktop or have an emergency situation where you can't make the change yourself. This is peace of mind knowing that there is help out there should you need it. You don't have to learn the backend if you want to have the Network Solutions customer support team help you. They are secure and won't make changes for anyone who calls, they authenticate you for your protection every time

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

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

For the most part I've had excellent interactions with the customer support team I've dealt with at Network Solutions. When I've needed help with something like Wordpress, it hasn't always worked out so well but you can pay their techs for 1 on 1 help with these offerings, you just won't have the support for free. I've often been talked to on upsells for services that I particularly didn't need and found the offers to be annoying when the agents kept pushing me on an upsell instead of addressing my issue. It's hit or miss on that, perhaps it depends on the department you speak with.

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

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

Based on my experience to date, I would rate Network Solutions easily at the bottom of the list. I have not previously and would not select Network Solutions, but have worked with it as related to sites and clients previously set up there.

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

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

Incentivized

• Huge time sink for routine activities.
• Higher direct costs than competitors with similar or better features.
• Poor service leading to even more expense of time on the user's side.

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