Volusion Review from the Perspective of a Digital Marketing and Volusion Expert
March 21, 2014

Volusion Review from the Perspective of a Digital Marketing and Volusion Expert

Jose Miguel Vera | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review

Overall Satisfaction

We've been working with Volusion since its inception. It is the E-commerce platform of choice for our entire organization. We have worked with Big Commerce, Zen Cart, Shopify, Magento, you name it... but to this day absolutely Nothing compares to the basics Volusion lays out as an out of the box E-commerce platform.
  • Import/Export functionality - changes in bulk are a breeze in Volusion through this functionality. The past part of it is that you can choose what fields and what rows to touch when uploading a product feed. Makes changes in bulk yet never put your database at risk; that's what makes this functionality great.
  • Genius photo attribution logic - Volusion developed a very straight forward yet genius logic when it comes to uploading photos in bulk. Whether you need a swatch functionality in your photos when picking different options or whether you need to make a mass change of photos throughout the store, there is a very specific logic Volusion follows that makes it all fairly easy.
  • Extensive API - Volusion's API has allowed us to create functionality that even Volusion through was impossible. We have been able to push Volusion in terms of usability and functionality and they have welcomed our feedback with open arms. I cannot begin to tell you how many times we have heard "that's impossible in Volusion" and yet it still stands today.
  • Bulk import for products and child products with conditional options is impossible with Volusion. While it's perfectly possible to import mass products in bulk, it is impossible to import a mass feed with parent to child relationships already established. Volusion has the need to creating the relationships first - by doing this, it creates its own SKUs for EVERY possible variation of the product (depending on the options attributed to it). This leaves you with hundreds if not thousands of superfluous products, and the ones that are actually legitimate, with a need to change the SKU names either manually or through an intricate bulk process. Too many unnecessary steps.
  • Lack of a CMS or WordPress Compatibility - Volusion being a hosted solution, it is impossible for us to install a WordPress blog within the "www" of the store. This would be a HUGE boost from a marketing standpoint and for stores that are strong on content. I myself, while I prefer Volusion over any other platform, have chosen to spend the resources on Magento development just because I needed a WordPress blog under a subdirectory of the store. You have to bear in mind that E-commerce is only getting more competitive at this point - without content a store's success will be seldom, especially starting ones with no authority or visibility. Giving users the ability to have not only a great store but a great content platform MUST be the future of Volusion.
  • Responsive Design - I'm not even going write anything else on this, I'm sure you know :)
  • Volusion custom programming has now become a great source of revenue for us.
  • Volusion has welcomed us into their "experts" circle, so we've had the opportunity to work with some of their most coveted clientele.
  • Shopify,Bigcommerce,Magento
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 solution (more freedom), but Volusion's core E-commerce, product management, and order/customer management functionalities simply Never fail, not matter what. All the while you are 10,000 SKUs while changing 3,000 of them.
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.
  • How many SKUs do you have?
  • Do you have options?
  • Are they conditional options?
  • What is the product exactly?
  • Are you currently running on another store? <- If the answer is yes I would need to look at the data feed.
  • Do you have an internal warehouse database that you need to connect to?
  • Do you work out of an RMS or POS system under a brick and mortar store?
  • What will be the marketing strategy be? Is it content heavy?
Volusion can be appropriate to anything and everything. However, if content and aesthetics are a big factor, then that Might just be a problem.