Titan CMS vs. Volusion

Titan CMS is a good full featured CMS if users are fairly tech savvy. It is under active development and has added significant features through the years.

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

• Utilizing a Filter to determine what shows on a page saves countless hours of configuring content that should be displayed on a page - it's been a lifesaver how easy it is to set up too.
• Smart Search takes the search box and makes it magical. Common misspellings and alternate names can still send a user to the proper page!
• Data nodes and filters can also be configured to Find a Dealer, Doctor, Location etc. It puts the power into a users hands and makes is easy to use.

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

• I would love to see a "View this Page" button after a page has been updated/published. Every time I publish a new page, I have to open a new browser window, navigate to a different tab, copy the page url "example/example/example" and paste it after "www.mywebsite.com" in order to preview the new page/content.
• If Titan and WordPress were in a beauty competition, there is no way that Titan would win. Titan's dashboard, buttons, etc are dated and bland, and is in dire need of a refresh.
• A drag and drop to upload feature would be very helpful.
• Creating forms is very cumbersome and the pop-up window in which the form is created needs to be revamped. The font-size is much too small and it is not as customizable as it could be.

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

Titan CMS had a great support system and they helped make my experience go smooth. They offer courses to help people get acquainted, offer support over the phone and are more than willing to make your experience a great one. Once I was familiar with Titan I always found myself wanting to learn more and do more to improve upon the website. Titan makes CMS fun and exciting!

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.

Everything we've needed to accomplish, Titan CMS has been able to accomplish. From multiple levels of user rights, document rights, tagging pages and documents to make filters do the work of content displayed on a page - it's all easy to set up too. Creating a content rich product detail page template and customizing a ecommerce cart to work for those using a dealer network - needing a request for quote, to go to dealers instead of a self checkout.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

I understand that our Web Development Team is very busy, however, sometimes there is a delay in response and a followup email is needed to determine the progress of the issue/question

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 was customized to include screen shots of our site and how users can access the content that only pertains to them as well as advanced training sessions for admin duties and everything that goes along with it. Training is in small groups and can be private (your company only) if you like too.

Incentivized

Talk to your project manager for Titan early on in development about minimalizing customizations. It seems obvious, but many times they do what you ask in the respect of "This is how we do it now, make that happen in Titan" vs. think of how Titan can deliver the same results within the confines of the base software. It's not a fault, just human nature.

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).

Clients have access to the online and PDF documentation, also tips and how-tos for the most current versions of Titan CMS in the market. Check out our full documentation library! unlimited Dev/ QA/ Server install. Load balancing, and cluster support included. Upgrade options included free of cost along with unlimited CPUs per server.

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)

• Positive ROI by allowing content contributors embedded within departments with the department domain knowledge to update the site directly. More efficient and less centralized spending.
• Requirement for investment in training users of CMS cuts into ROI. Would recommend a two-step workflow where department content contributors enter information into CMS and then approval step is done by webmaster team to ensure content meets standard formatting guidelines. This workflow functionality exists in the Titan CMS.
• Positive ROI experienced during projects such as moving to a responsive design because much of the content can migrate untouched. Also positive when updating graphics in template to give site new look.

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.