Volusion vs. WebWave

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

Well suited: Small businesses and entrepreneurs: WebWave is an excellent option for small businesses and entrepreneurs who need a professional-looking website without spending a lot of time and money. It's easy to use, customizable, and offers fast load times and responsive design. Less appropriate: Large e-commerce websites: If you're looking to create a large e-commerce website with a vast number of products and advanced features, WebWave may not be the best option. Its e-commerce functionality is limited compared to other website builders, and it may not be able to accommodate the needs of a large-scale online store. Also, if you need much coding, you would rather have it with something that is wordpress-based.

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

• WebWave's site builder is the platform's truly innovative feature. I've never come across another service that deploys a layer-based approach in web design, as most of them usually deploy a grid-based system. This is an incredible alteration that ensures WebWave behaves much like a traditional graphic design tool, thereby resulting in an experience that is a lot more intuitive and instinctive. I believe this has the potential to radically change the way people approach no-code web design.
• WebWave provides automatic, daily backups and a free SSL certificate for every website. This results in excellent security.
• WebWave's support team is first-class! I had some teething-issues in the beginning, but the support team quickly got me back on track.
• WebWave's community/forum is an excellent place to vote and request new features. This proves the development team is committed to making WebWave better by listening to their users.

• 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

• Some scope for improvement in UX (colors are not very appealing). It is simple to use but design is a little dated. Especially in the builder section, I'd like to see modern design for buttons and maybe gradients also: as this is where visual motivation is also important
• Some edits take effect only after pressing OK. That should be eliminated as it's an unnecessary addition. It's also kind of annoying to do that again and again, which can add up to a lot as we do so many small tweaks while building the website.
• Few things (maybe glitches) in design. The rectangle below the footer was uneditable for me. I spent quite some time trying to figure it out so I'm convinced it's a glitch.
• Website speed should be increased.

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.

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

Incentivized

Very easy to use, intuitive, has many options and plug-ins, and is cheap.

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

1. The support person does not seem to understand the issues, and seems like they go off to talk to somebody and revert back every 5 to 10 minutes. It takes up a lot of time. 2. There is a lack of reading material to address simple issues like changing the website name in the dashboard, pasting a code, etc.

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).

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)

WordPress is a more flexible and adaptive content management system than Webwave. In addition to the functionalities that are already built-in, I am unable to add any customizable plugins or add-ons. However, in the majority of cases, the inherent features of Webwave are sufficient for developing a website that serves its intended purpose. Webwave also makes it possible for you to add animations and the appearance of each of your design elements, whereas WordPress builders require additional plugins in order for users to access most of such capabilities. Webwave has several essential design features available internally, thus saving money and time.

• 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.

• saved 30 hours per year per site (previously I had to manually run updates and check if everything is fine)
• earns money for me without a touch (thanks to automatic billing of my customers for hosting and support) - additional (ca.) 120 USD per year per site
• no negatives so far