There are abundant options available when it comes to e-commerce platforms. Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Wix, Squarespace are just a few fishes in the pond. One of the most lucrative e-commerce platforms is Volusion.
Read Also: WooCommerce vs Shopify in 2021: Who Comes Out On Top?
One of the best hosted solutions to pick with a full toolkit of features one would need to set up an online store, add products, update storks, sell, and more.
After using Volusion and analyzing the websites that are already on Volusion (30K businesses are using Volusion), I have drawn a list of features, pros and cons, pricing and plans, and an overall Volusion review that should clear some if not all doubts you have with it.
There are tonnes of Volusion reviews online but hopefully, you’ll find this more informative.
What is Volusion?
Volusion was introduced back in 1999 which makes it one of the oldest e-commerce website builders to use.
Volusion recently got a major upgrade from V1 to V2 that revamped its user experience (UX) aspect.
It is a go-to solution for entry-level to mid-range e-commerce sellers with a simplified list of features ranging from inventory, marketing, and business among others.
Volusion is a cloud-based e-commerce platform that brings a broad spectrum of technical tools.
According to Volusion wiki, it was started by Kevin Sproles in 1999 at the age of 16 years building custom-made websites for the clients.
Now, it handles everything from sales to support, customer management, inventory management, and almost everything to keep an online business afloat and running.
It competes with some of the bigwigs including Shopify, BigCommerce, and others that have lured businesses thanks to an abundant list of features, tools, customizations, and other options.
But hey, Volusion isn’t that behind as it already has 30,000+ businesses built on this platform marking more than 185 million orders generating more than $28 billion in sales as per the last count.
What are the Volusion Website Examples?
There are more than 30K businesses powered by Volusion. Some of the popular examples include ‘Get Rugged’, ‘Jon Hart Design’, ‘Pepper Place’, ‘ Saw House’, ‘WholeSaleFashionSquare’ among others.
What are the alternatives to Volusion?
There are plenty of alternatives to Volusion that you can use depending upon the features and tools you need.
The list is huge but to name a few, choose from Shopify, BigCommerce, 3Dcart, Magento, Wix, SquareSpace, and others.
Is Volusion Safe?
Volusion was established in 1999 and has its intuitive security features making it great for both Volusion online store owners and customers.
It has an SSL certificate and allows integrating third-party apps and secure payment options to make a customer’s journey without any worries.
What are the charges involved in Volusion?
Technically, there are several charges that Volusion levies on users. Firstly, monthly pricing of hosting Volusion sites which of course, there are different plans and tiers available.
Plus, there are credit card fees that credit card companies charge on processing payments, and finally, there are add-on fees such as bandwidth fees and others.
What can I sell on Volusion?
There’s no specific category of things you can sell on Volusion and the ones you can avoid. You cannot sell digital products so you need to keep that in mind.
You can sell almost any physical product on this e-commerce platform adding product videos and suggested products to gain higher traffic and conversion rate.
Volusion Features
- Ease of Use
There’s a mixed response when they tried Volusion. It is super easy to use since it doesn’t require any technical skills to get it.
However, if you decide to design a site on Volusion V2, it will be a strenuous task. You are required to juggle between the front end and back end to get the design elements right.
One such example is how you need to click on a blue button discreetly to edit text boxes and so on. Overall, if you aren’t looking to design the website out of the scope of what the Volusion free templates or paid ones allow, it will be a joy ride.
- Themes
Talking about Volusion templates or themes, there are a total of 11 free themes that you can use.
To unlock the full potential of a Volusion template, you can go for 34 paid themes available on Volusion V2.
Available at $180 each, this isn’t that expensive since bigwigs like Shopify, BigCommerce, and others offer premium templates fetching up to $235.
- Excellent Customer Support
The Volusion e-commerce platform offers outstanding customer support via phone, email, chat, and system ticket system throughout the day, 24 hours, and 7 days a week.
Volusion customer service is responsive and would give users whenever they come up with certain issues with their e-commerce website.
Although it isn’t as efficient as Shopify, it is still a great feature to have on-board to fix issues. For minor issues, there are tonnes of material available online.
- Abundant payment options
Talking about Volusion e-commerce review and skipping its payment options is not an option.
Volusion has an abundant range of payment gateways that e-commerce website owners can set up to accept payments.
PayPal and Stripe are two biggest and there are others as well including digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Amazon Pay to name a few.
Integrating other payment options simply requires Zapier where you can click and add any payment app you want without any hassle.
One of the best things about Volusion is that there are no transaction fees attached to it. Whatever users buy, they are charged exactly the price tag the product has but the credit card companies will levy charges on each payment.
There are also shipping charges that are forwarded to the customer which is pretty common compared to any other competitors.
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Excellent e-commerce tools: Inventory, Mobile Apps
Volusion websites have an upper hand when it comes to the inventory. You can add product videos which are a great feature for Volusion online stores selling clothes and others.
There’s a suggested products feature that gives users the ability to tag suggested products visitors can have a look at. On the other hand, Shopify requires a third-party integration to get it done.
Furthermore, adding products, updating stocks, prices and others is available on just a click. Volusion has an efficient mobile app that lets you do everything when it comes to inventory and more right from your phone.
Next up, Volusion offers more than 1,000 apps that users can integrate with their Volusion websites through Zapier.
It includes Google Shopping, Pinterest, Google Tracking, MailChimp, Postage Printing, and others.
Volusion Pros
- Efficient Mobile app
- There’s no transaction fee
- It has great analytics tools
- Excellent customer support
- Recurring/subscription payments included
Volusion Cons
- There’s no blogging option
- Limited designing tools & features
- You cannot sell digital products
- Slower load times
Volusion Pricing & Plans
When talking about the plans available on Volusion, it offers four pricing plans to choose to range between $29/mo to $299/mo.
- Personal Plan
First up, the Personal plan is available at $29/mo. It includes online sales per year up to $50K, a 0% transaction fee, a single staff account, 100 products, online customer support among others.
The bandwidth is unlimited on all plans along with features like a secure checkout, free and responsive themes, drag and drop tools, social media integrations, easily manage inventory, etc.
- Professional Plan:
Second is the Professional Plan starting at $79/mo. It has all the features of the Personal Plan and takes it to the next level.
It allows online sales per year of $100K, 0% transaction fee, 5 staff accounts, 5000 product inventory, online plus phone customer support.
Other features include Abandoned Cart Reports, Phone Orders and CRM, Import and Export, and finally, rating and reviews.
- Business Plan
The third one is the Business Plan at $299/mo. It has all the features of the Professional Plan and takes it even further with online sales per year of up to $500K, Unlimited products and bandwidth, Priority customer support, 15 staff accounts, and features listed above.
Plus, you get Amazon and eBay Integrations, Customer Loyalty Plan, Dedicated Success Team, Third-party shipping calculated rates and payment gateways, API access, and others.
- Prime Plan
Unlike other plans listed above, Prime Plan is based on online sales.
It doesn’t cap on online sales per year plus has unlimited staff accounts, products, and bandwidth.
Customer support on Prime Plan is on VIP and it has all the features that were included in the Business Plan and counting.
Volusion’s strong suit is that all its tools and features are focused on data, crunching numbers, and an excellent lineup of analytics tools to scale your business.
Certainly, it isn’t the best e-commerce platform since there are a tonne of options available but it does make its mark.
It has excellent payment gateway options, native features including suggested products, product videos, and so on. It has excellent pricing plans with no transaction fees which is again a bountiful trait.
On the other hand, it has a lack of designing tools and capability so you can’t expect to build an all-around online store.
You still need integrations for adding a blog via subdomain, buy an SSL certificate separately, need AngularJS knowledge for better SEO among others.
Overall, the platform offers great business scalability, data and analytics, impressive customization control, an abundant number of apps, and more to go buy.
