Volusion vs. Local by WP Engine

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

It's great for quickly cloning an environment down from WP Engine and/or Flywheel servers but can also just be used as a way to setup local environments on your own with manual syncing. If you need to spin up local environments that are not WordPress based then this tool isn't ideal. It can be used for it but it's not design for that.

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

• Easily clone installs from WP Engine to local envrionments
• 1 click setup of Local WordPress sites for new or existing builds
• Can optionally push back to WP Engine with ease
• Easily change PHP versions
• Integrates with IDE for error reporting

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

• Interface for syncing files could be improved
• Would be nice if there was an easy way to use media from WP Engine host to save on space for larger sites
• 1 click login doesn't always work as expected if SSL in place.

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.

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

Incentivized

Super easy to use the only thing that might need some improvement is the interface for syncing files. It's intuitive for push/pulling down from WP Engine and Flywheel environments but can sometimes disconnect and require re authentication. Also currently sometimes it can be difficult to tell proper account name you are pulling from bug that's a known bug that's being worked on

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).

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)

While Docker is powerful, setup is more complicated and is less consistent. Local minimizes friction and does what it needs to do with out extra complication that can sometimes come with using Docker or other platforms.

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.

• Save hours of onboarding time for development
• Consistent environments across the time minimize unexpected issues
• Integrated error reporting makes it easy to track down issues

Incentivized