Volusion review: Exploring features and performance

Our Verdict

Our Verdict

Volusion is an e-commerce platform that allows businesses to create and manage online stores. It provides tools for building an online store, managing products, processing payments, and tracking orders. Volusion also offers features for marketing, SEO optimization, and customer management. The platform is designed to be user-friendly and customizable, making it suitable for businesses of all sizes looking to sell products online.

Pros

• Very user-friendly
• Robust store capabilities
• Thoughtfully crafted templates

Cons

• SSL is not included by default
• Unexpected additional expenses
• Limited features outside of basic selling functionality

4.6

Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.

Starting price

$29/month

Firewall

Yes

Free plan

14-day free trial

Established in 1999, Volusion has maintained a strong presence in the market, serving approximately 30,000 online stores. The platform has evolved over time, focusing on refining its e-commerce software services to prioritize features essential for selling products. While its non-sales-related features are somewhat limited, Volusion excels in providing purpose-built e-commerce tools. It offers user-friendly interfaces and professional store designs, eliminating the need for complex storefront setups.

Who can benefit from using Volusion?

While Volusion theoretically caters to a wide range of users, it has carved out a niche as an e-commerce solution for mid-sized businesses. Its comprehensive package includes almost everything necessary to launch and manage an online store, with the flexibility to customize to individual preferences.

Volusion's features

Volusion excels in offering meticulously designed features that are focused on optimizing your online store and emphasizing sales performance.

Themes

Volusion's themes are exceptional, offering a selection of just over 300 designs that strike a balance between variety and manageability. Each theme is carefully crafted to ensure your store is visually appealing and optimized for success. While some themes are free, others come at a cost, providing a good mix of options. Overall, Volusion templates not only offer pleasing aesthetics but also simplify the process of building your site.

SEO

Volusion's SEO capabilities play a crucial role in improving your search engine rankings. While there's no guaranteed formula for SEO success, Volusion provides optimization suggestions and sets you up for success in the ever-evolving realm of SEO.

Email marketing

Integrating Volusion with Mailchimp can simplify the process of building and managing a customer base. Although you'll need to set it up, Mailchimp and Volusion are designed to seamlessly work together. This integration allows you to utilize customer and shopping history data for sending post-order emails, promotions, and other targeted communications.

Speed

Page loading speed is crucial for retaining customers and achieving higher rankings. If your pages load slowly, Google may penalize your site in its algorithm, leading to customer drop-off. In the e-commerce realm, patience is a rare commodity.

Fortunately, Volusion is optimized for speed. Its websites are hosted on servers built to manage heavy traffic and load swiftly, ensuring a seamless user experience.

Customer management

The Volusion customer dashboard simplifies tasks like monitoring customer history and managing contact information. It also includes built-in analytics, allowing you to track key metrics and gain insights into shopper behavior, which can be valuable for marketing and customer management purposes.

Mobile responsiveness

Every theme, site element, and aspect of Volusion is crafted to be responsive on both mobile and desktop platforms. This versatility across different devices is crucial for retaining customers. With Volusion, you don't have to worry about ensuring your site is mobile-friendly, which is a significant advantage.

Inventory management

Certainly, a critical aspect of any e-commerce website is the ease of adding and managing products.

Volusion simplifies the process of adding a new item for sale. It begins with entering basic information and uploading a picture. Then, Volusion guides you through writing a description, making the process easy to follow.

Onboarding

Getting set up ensures that you're not on your own if you're unsure about your direction. From the moment you sign up, Volusion poses helpful, guiding questions to determine the kind of website you require and the products or services you offer.

Volusion's ease of use

Volusion features a sleek design and clear categories, making it easy to learn and navigate. Getting started feels manageable, and the dashboard is designed to be user-friendly. Setting up, adding products, and creating pages are all straightforward processes, so you shouldn't encounter many difficulties. Additionally, Volusion's responsive support team quickly addresses any issues that may arise. With Volusion, you can focus on selling without needing to worry about coding or web development.

Volusion's pricing

While Volusion e-commerce doesn't offer free plans, its pricing is quite reasonable. The basic tier starts at $26 per month and includes 1 GB storage, up to 100 products, and online support. As you move up the tiers, you can list more products, with the highest tier allowing unlimited listings for $269 per month. Additionally, all plans come with a dedicated account manager, priority support, and 35 GB of bandwidth. There's also a free two-week trial to help you determine if Volusion is right for you before you make a commitment.

Volusion's support

Volusion stands out for its 24/7 support, which is available at all pricing tiers. The basic tier includes quick online support, while higher tiers offer additional support options like phone support, priority support, and, at the highest level, a dedicated account manager.

Even if you don't opt for the personalized support, Volusion's support team is still responsive and helpful. In addition to chat and phone support, Volusion provides a variety of resources, including how-to guides and blog posts on various topics.

Benefits of Volusion

Volusion brings over 20 years of experience to the table, and they've used that time to evolve and create a robust system. From the start, you can expect excellent support and access to numerous resources. 

One standout feature is the fast-loading pages, which sets Volusion apart from many other e-commerce platforms. Additionally, Volusion offers ease of use, a professional appearance, and built-in SEO benefits. These features combine to make setting up your online store easier and more successful, without requiring you to navigate the complex world of web development on your own.

Volusion is a super selling-focused system

Volusion is known for its straightforward and deliberate approach, with a strong focus on e-commerce. Unlike platforms that aim to be all-encompassing, Volusion's integrations and add-ons are primarily geared toward e-commerce functions. This means that if you're seeking a more comprehensive solution, Volusion may not meet all your needs.

However, for selling-focused plug-ins, Volusion offers a library of over 1,000 apps covering various aspects such as accounting and customer service. It's worth noting that to accept credit card payments, you'll need to install Volusion merchant services separately, as this feature is not included by default.

Despite these considerations, Volusion excels as a top-tier e-commerce platform. Its selling features are well-designed, easy to use, and effective in creating a reliable online store. While it may not offer the breadth of features required by larger corporations, Volusion has proven itself as a reliable choice for smaller and medium-sized businesses. Its intuitive interface, clean design, and strong e-commerce capabilities make it a solid option for launching and maintaining online stores.