Pegboard is an Australian company and its CMS product is aimed primarily at SMBs and agencies.
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Squarespace
Score 8.4 out of 10
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Squarespace is a CMS platform that allows users to create a DIY blog, eCommerce store, and/or portfolio (visual art or music). Some Squarespace website and shop templates are industry or use case-specific, such as menu builders for restaurant sites.
$25
per month
Volusion
Score 4.8 out of 10
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Volusion is a cloud-based ecommerce solution from the company of the same name in Austin, TX. It features an intuitive dashboard, built-in marketing and promos, SEO, templates, and tools to customize look and appearance.
Volusion provided the best overall list of features, performance history, and bang for the buck. By not being the new kid on the block, they have worked out a lot the bugs and kinks that plague many ecommerce platforms. They've also refined a system that is very user-friendly …
The Pegboard CMS is ideal for a sophisticated website that needs to be unique in design and that offers the highest level of functionality and a superior user experience. It is suitable for websites ranging from simple blogs, through to corporate and fully-featured eCommerce websites that have the ability to utilise intelligent eMarketing to subscribers
Squarespace is one of the best solutions out there for building a website or web experience that looks good, has great functionality and is cost-effective, even for smaller businesses. Although most people in marketing will find most of the elements intuitive, if the creator is struggling with any of the functionality, there are many, many support options and other users who can offer assistance.
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.
The Pegboard platform does not limit the design and feel of a website. As web designers and developers we have the ability to design a unique looking website through the construction of HTML template pages which are then integrated with the Pegboard CMS.
The Pegboard platform provides a large range of modules for integration by designers into a website. The modules that are used depend on the requirements of the website - there is no limit to the number of modules that can be used.
The online CMS management console is easy to use. A client can manage their website content with as little as a half day training session.
The Pegboard CMS is a high-end web platform that provides the opportunity to integrate a company’s back-end systems like CRM, accounting and inventory software with their website - providing a business administration efficiencies.
The Pegboard CMS provides all of the modules that other CMS provide and include: News, RSS feeds, advanced forms, SEO, blog, banner ads, document management, SMS enablement, image galleries, jobs, membership, broadcasting, polls, event management, forums, product catalogue, eCommerce, e-Marketing, social media
The CMS provides the ability to tailor content for certain users - ie. specific information for members, limited information for the general public. There is no limit to the number of types of users.
Pegboard's partner program provides access to a network of other developers and programmers that can be called upon to provide their expertise in their area of specialty.
Stupid simple to use. I know very creative people who cannot code and this is probably the easiest ever platform for them!
Pretty website templates and great functionality with showing off portfolios.
They've already figured out what are the problems that non-coding people have when creating websites and they've figured out a simple solution for all of it.
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.
The Pegboard platform is a high-end CMS solution and so requires a high level of knowledge of HTML and CSS. It is not suitable for graphic designers with a limited knowledge of these web languages.
As a partner I have access to the Pegboard developers helpline - phone or online ticket system. At times I have found that their assistance has been a little on the slow side. This could be improved. I also feel that they expect a higher level of programming ability than we as a partner may necessarily have.
We have used the Pegboard Build department to assist us with the development of some aspects of our client’s websites. This build service could improve their communication with partners so that outcomes could be achieved more easily.
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.
The Pegboard platform offers our company the ability to offer a greater level of design than any other platform. And this, combined with the superior functionality that the platform offers, enables us to provide a web solution to companies requiring a high-end website for their business. Without the Pegboard platform we would not be able to provide a top-end solution to those clients that require it.
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.
It's simple to use for someone who is really good with computers as well as those who are not. I've been using my personal squarespace for years and have also helped clients build a starting page which they are later able to manage theirselves.
Help is available directly from the back end and uses full sentence searching to find answers to questions others may have asked before. With a ton of articles and support questions documents, it is very likely that your question has been answered. If not each page has the ability to open a direct email to support. Each case has a number and can be followed. Responses are often quick and have links and directions clearly stated
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.
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).
Pegboard provides a superior ability to customise the design of a website and offers a greater level of functionality. The other web platforms reviewed all use their own design templates that can then be customised. We have recommended these other 2 platforms to some clients that are happy with an existing template design and therefore benefit from some potential lower cost. These other platforms do provide a lesser level of functionality.
Squarespace was quicker to set up and more accessible to manipulate the theme, pictures, and content. The page layouts are more versatile and fluid. With WordPress, more time-consuming efforts go into making a template work the way you want it to (because of the lack of the drag-and-drop grids that Squarespace has).
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)
Mosaic Studios is a relatively new partner of the Pegboard platform. The platform has enabled us to provide a sophisticated web solution to a number of our clients - helping us to provide a more complete service. Without the ability to offer this high-end web solution we could have potentially lost a number of clients.
Pegboard has broadening the web solutions that we can recommend to clients - and therefore the platform helps us to attract new clients and to retain existing clients.
The cost is reasonably decent. My client says they spent about $20 a month or $240 a year. I asked her if she could add Google AdSense to her blog one day, and they believe they can. They said a custom site would cost them $3000-10,000 depending on who does it. And I agreed, but I found the website they created was on the lower end of that range.
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.
