Volusion Review

Intro

Founded in 1999 and based in Austin, Texas, Volusion is one of the most established eCommerce builders on the market. In addition to its easy-to-use platform, the company offers account holders access to web development, design and marketing professionals who can assist with the creation and promotion of their new online store.  Volusion’s platform includes free hosting, order management services, seamless dropshipping integrations and 24/7, US-based customer service.

 

With prices starting at $25/month, the platform has a wide range of features suited to small and medium-sized businesses, entrepreneurs and drop-shippers. Users can try the eCommerce platform with a 14-day free trial and WebCreate readers can also receive a 15% discount on their first month by entering the code ‘WEBCREATE15’ when purchasing their chosen plan.

 

In mid-2018, Volusion released its new eCommerce solution – V2, designed to make the website setup process so simple and intuitive that users can create their new online store in a matter of minutes.

 

Templates

Volusion has 52 total templates (14 free and 38 premium templates), and all of its premium templates cost $180. Each of its premium themes looks professional and have a noticeable amount of more detail than Volusion’s free templates.

In respect to its free templates, all 11 themes are practical, modern and clean-looking. They are also highly customizable with a large portion of the templates offered as responsive templates.

The Editor

At first glance, the platform looks vastly different from other popular eCommerce builders. Its setup is similar to a traditional website, and its tabs are various portions of its Editor.

 

If customization is what you fancy, all of Volusion’s templates offer partial access to your site’s code, which can be found in Design > File Editor. There are some sections such as the root, users cannot edit.

 

Volusion doesn’t allow users to upload their own templates but users can edit HTML and CSS code from Design > Themes. If you’re already in your Template’s Editor section — this is the simplest way to edit site code.

Once you click on the Advanced Editing tab located in the top left-hand corner, you can begin to make your site come even more to life.

 

Orders

From ‘Orders,’ users can make a ton of customizations to their products and ensure all of your store’s settings are up-to-date. Below are some additional benefits of the ‘Orders’ section.

 

Process Orders: Manage and process all orders in your eCommerce store.
Phone Orders: Enables store owners to process phone orders.
Recurring Billing: Manage recurring billings for customers.
Returns/RMAs: Create a return protocol and manage returns.

Point of Sale: Process in-person sales.
Abandoned/Live Carts: You can view all carts with products that haven’t checked out and send follow-up emails.

 

Customers

CRM System: This is where you connect with customers with Volusion’s built-in CRM management tool. You can create customized emails and organize customer service requests.

Accounts: Manage, create and delete customer accounts.

Customer Reviews: Manage customer reviews.

 

Administrators: Add and remove site administrators.
Admin History: View who has logged into your account.
Knowledge Base: Get answers to all of your questions in the form of video and blogs written by the Volusion team.

 

Inventory

Categories: This section helps you organize products and website content. There, you can drag and drop items to move, reorder or create subcategories.

Products: To access this portion of your site, simply head to Inventory > Products. Here, you can edit the product navigation menu, add new products and show hidden categories and menus.

 

Once you make edits, view your products on your homepage and it will look something like what you see below:

Product Options: Implement setting such as product descriptions, price differences and recurring price differences.

Import/Export: Perform a standard import or export. This includes everything from customer lists to products.
Vendors: Order products from third-party vendors and rebuild inventory.
Purchase Orders: If you’re using a vendor you can create purchase orders in this section.
Receiving: This feature lets you capture debt amounts entered in the payments section.
Product Key Distribution: Keep your secure products safe and guarded by a unique product key given by you or the product’s original manufacturer. This is perfect for downloadable products such as software.
Warehouses: Keep tabs on all of your store’s warehouses.

 

Marketing

Social: Create the option for customers to share your products on Facebook & Twitter with prepopulated messages.
Google Customer Reviews: This allows users to enable and disable customer reviews.
Facebook Store: Here, you can add a CTA to your company Facebook page, which lets customers shop directly from the page. You can choose up to 25 products to display, and design your own store, add custom text and HTML code.

 

Sell on Google: This Google integration gives users the option to sell with Google Shopping or via PPC activity.

Sell on eBay: Sell and manage products, manage inventory between eBay and Volusion without leaving the platform.
Sell on Amazon: Similarly to Sell on eBay and Google, users can manage inventory and make sales.
Deal of the Day: Create a deal that will be made available for each customer on a daily basis.
Coupons/Discounts: Custom coupons and discount codes.
Nav Menu Promotions: Manage all of the promotions in your navigation window under one roof. This includes mailing list signups and adding logos.
MyRewards: Assign customers redeemable points that can be traded for cash or actual products.
Gift Certificates: Enable and disable customizable gift certificates.
SEO: See SEO section.
Affiliates: Track and manage all affiliate marketers in your network.
In-stock Requests: An in-stock request informs buyers when an out-of-stock product is back in stock.

 

Design

Themes: From the themes tab, users can edit themes using Volusion’s Advanced Editing tool to modify HTML and CSS code.
Logos: Upload a single logo, create a text-based logo or try Logojoy (for free) to update old logo designs.
Site Content: Edit all site content.
Navigation Menu: Access and make edits to all of the navigation menus on your site.
File Editor: Add and remove important files.
Product Display Settings: Manage product display settings

Homepage Slideshow: Change slideshow options and the layout of your homepage slideshow.

reCAPTCHA: Users can enable and disable this feature which confirms that someone is, in fact, a person and not a robot. This is especially important on eCommerce sites where money and sensitive information are being constantly exchanged.

 

Reports

Reporting: Generate reports on orders, order status, profit and sales.ROI Tracking: This standout feature lets users create campaigns and track referrals from ads, newsletters and unique URLs based on a number of parameters.

Affiliate Stats: At a glance, gain insight on Affiliates, earnings and more.
Search Terms: This is yet another unique feature that lets you peek into the minds of customers by showing a list of all the terms they search on your eCommerce site. You can then build your product list accordingly.

 

Settings

Company: Here, resides important company info like company name, address, organization type, email and more.
Shipping: Manage all aspects of shipping such as cost, shipping location and lastly, which countries your eCommerce store ships to.
Tax: Set tax rates based on state and local laws.
Payment: Enable payment options and manage settings. With Volusion, store owners can accept payments via a variety of methods including Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, cash and credit card.
Currency: Control your store’s primary currency and the other currencies accepted through your site and see real-time exchange rates, etc.
IP Firewall: Add extra security to your site by purchasing a firewall.
Config Variables: Choose which variables are hidden and shown on your site.

Custom Fields: This feature enables you to add custom fields to your site. For example, you can add custom fields in the checkout section, which merchants typically use for agreeing to terms and other factors.

Maintenance: Under maintenance, you can manage things such as 301 redirects, photo cache, search index and more.

Volusion Mobile App

Available in U.S., Canadian and Australian app stores, Volusion’s free mobile app lets you monitor and manage your store on the go.

You can manage the following elements of your website via Volusion’s Mobile App:

• Orders
• Products
• Customers
• View low inventory
• Announcements
• And visit the help center

Volusion Apps & Integrations

App	Specs
Apple Pay, Google Pay & PayPal	Accept payments on your Volusion website via Apple Pay, Google Pay & PayPal.
ShipStation	Through ShipStation, you can print hundreds of labels in one batch — with no manual data entry.
MailChimp	Collect email addresses through your Volusion-built online store and create email campaigns to increase sales.
Justuno	This is a free app built to help convert traffic, acquire new email subscribers and social followers.
Sellerexpress	With a free thirty-day trial, Sellerexpress helps retailers increase profits and sales through optimized selling on third-party apps such as Amazon, Rakuten UK and eBay.
LiveChat	The LiveChat offers customer service management for eCommerce sites and starts at $16/m.
SkuVault	This is a cloud-based inventory and warehouse management system and is offered free of service.
Solid Commerce	This is a platform that lets users put bulk listings on their site, manage inventory and is offered free of charge.
FedEx	With FedEx, Volusion customers can save a significant amount on shipping with the use of a promotion code.
Famebit	This feature lets you find and interact with YouTube influencers for endorsements, etc — free of charge.
LegalZoom	eCommerce store owners can handle common legal matters. Fees will vary based on services rendered.
Zapier	Seamlessly integrate with thousands of apps such as Facebook, Instagram & Hubspot.

Support

Volusion has two options for contacting customer support, through its LiveChat and phone support, both of which are offered 24/7.

 

One of the greatest features of Volusion is that you can schedule a call at your convenience and you’re assigned a personal eCommerce Advisor who assists you throughout the process of getting your site up and running.

 

You’ll be given his/her direct line and email to have your questions about the platform answered or technical issues resolved, quickly.

 

Lastly, users can visit Volusion’s Help Center to search and read from a range of help articles.

Hosting/Domain

Volusion’s domain names are through Domain.com, which also offers email hosting, SSL certificates and domain registration.

 

Each domain name does vary in price, but typically start at $3.99 and can go as much as $4,888.00 — it really just depends on what you’re looking for.

 

Regarding top-level domains, there’s no shortage to choose from. We’ve included just a few of the site’s tens of dozens of options.

 

Top-Level Domain	Price
.com	$9.99
.net	$11.99
.org	$14.99
.online	$5.99
.site	$5.99
.store	$14.99
.website	$5.99
.tech	$6.99
.space	$2.99
.club	$13.99
.me	$9.99

SEO

Users can access their SEO tools by heading to Marketing > SEO in your main dashboard. This lets you make near-endless optimizations to your site’s SEO, which is one of the biggest pluses of the platform.

 

Under this section, there are a ton of tools for optimization, of each individual page of your site you can make optimizations to:

• Meta Tag Titles
• Meta Tag Descriptions
• Meta Tag Keywords
• Meta Tag Overrides
• Custom HTML
• Add Globally Appended Meta Tags
• Enable Search Engine Friendly URLs
• Edit Robot Preferences and Sitemap

Pricing/Plans

Volusion offers 3 types of plans, each with a different price point ranging from $29 a month for the personal plan to $299 a month for the business plan. All of Volusion’s plans include free, responsive themes, a powerful drag & drop editor, unlimited product inventory, $100 in ad credits, unlimited file storage, a free SSL certificate, secure checkout, built-in SEO tools and 24/7 customer support. Volusion does not charge store owners any transaction fees.

 

The Professional plan, at $79 a month, also includes abandoned cart details and priority phone support. The Business plan offers the same added features as the Professional plan, plus a dedicated account manager and free one-on-one website setup.

 

Users can also take advantage of a free 14-day trial to test out the platform before purchasing a plan. Volusion also has a special offer for WebCreate readers – get 15% off your first month by entering the code ‘WEBCREATE15’ when purchasing your chosen plan.

 

Plan	Personal	Professional	Business	Prime
Price	$29/mo	$79/mo	$299/mo	Custom
Specs	Unlimited products Unlimited file storage Secure checkout Online support	All the features of the Personal plan, plus: Abandoned cart details Priority phone support	All the features of the Professional plan, plus: Dedicated account manager Free one-on-one setup	All the features of the Professional plan, plus: VIP Support Executive Slack Support

 

Integrations

Feature	Yes/No	Details
Google Shopping	Yes	Direct integration available for pro, premium, gold, and platinum monthly hosting plans.
eBay	Yes	Users can integrate PayPal Express Checkout to increase conversions.
Amazon	Yes	Sell directly on eBay.
Etsy	No
Google Analytics	Yes	Volusion offers easy integration with Google Analytics.
Social Media Profile	Yes
Social Media Share Buttons	Yes	Add a Facebook share button to your site for easy social sharing.
MailBox	Yes	You can set up a mailbox in Volusion’s platform.
CRM	Yes	Manage sales and ticketing through LiveChat and REJOINER.
MailChimp	Yes	Connect with MailChimp to send marketing emails.
Chat	Yes	LiveChat is a tool for customer service.
3rd Party Reviews	Yes	Through Yotpo, you can enable third-party reviews.
Tracking Tools for Shipping	Yes	Use FedEx and ShipStation to track customer packages.
Music	Yes	Users can add a personalized soundtrack or sell downloadable music files through their online eCommerce marketplace.
Video	Yes	Volusion integrates with YouTube through Inventory > Products. There you can choose a product and add a YouTube link.
PayPal & PayPal Marketing Solutions	No	Users can integrate PayPal Express Checkout to increase conversions.

Future Considerations

Although you have tons of SEO optimization options, there’s a limited amount of apps and integrations compatible with the platform.

 

This could in the future, lead to limitations. It is also important to not Volusion’s caps on bandwidth and understand there is a fee for overages, which will vary based on usage.

 

If you want to move content to another platform, you can export important data if you’d like but should be aware that the eCommerce platform you move to, should also have import/export capabilities if you wish to properly upload store information, customer lists, etc.

 

You should also consider blog integration. As it stands, there’s no blogging platform — which is important for businesses to drive traffic from social to the web and hopefully a conversion in the end.