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.
We selected Volusion originally because of the price point, but we had NO IDEA how much we would be spending in excess to actually get the functionality that was sold to us by their salesmen and women. We are switching to BigCommerce this spring.
I've also used Shopify as a base platform, as well as Magento. Both are better. My company has looked into moving there twice since I've been here, and the only thing stopping them is the complications of making such a move. I think Shopify offers similar value for the money …
Again, we work with all of these platforms, not just Volusion. However, we do make recommendations for Volusion based on the size of client and the need for additional customization and tuning. For clients who lack major development resources in house to maintain a platform …
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 …
I would say overall Volusion offers very similar solutions to these other platforms. One of the main reasons I went with it over others was my experience working on Volusion stores for years before we opened our own stores and took on new clients. I'm comfortable with the …
We use Shopify and while the monthly fee is slightly higher than Volusion, working within Shopify and the visual results you get...it's not even close. Volusion seems very outdated and overcomplicated, but looking for positives with Volusion, again, I'm paying an additional $40 …
Verified User
Director
Chose Volusion
We use Yahoo for our wholesale division and I found it to be very difficult to use and their customer support was terrible.
In comparison, we selected Volusion for our retail web store because it was much more intuitive, gave us more design options and the customer support was …
I've used Magento and Zen Cart. I think that Volusion is better for the nontechnical people and it comes with a lot that Magento would make you buy or code an extension for.
Verified User
Director
Chose Volusion
Volusion blew Miva out of the water. Magento allows for more customization without having to use 'partners' which helps keeps the cost down but requires a great deal more technical knowledge to create and maintain.
Volusion makes the creation of a store a simple process even for a beginner. More importantly, for advanced users it allows to work fast, efficiently, and with efficacy due to its bulk import/export functionality. Shopify is aesthetically pleasing and Magento is an open source …
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 …
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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)
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.