Category Archives: Shopping Cart Solutions

Volusion Review

Volusion is a leader in e-commerce software solutions providing businesses, small and large, with an all-in-one e-commerce software platform that will cater to just about any online store.

Their e-commerce solution handles all the essential features such as checkout, payment processing, and order management.

Features

Essentially, the Quick Start menu is designed to get your store branded, personalised and populated with products in as little time as possible. Within the options of Quick Start, you can choose your store design, by browsing through some of Volusion’s free templates, add branding via text or a logo, and then fill out a very short product form, which helps you get your inventory out on to your virtual store front.

Volusion operates an “in-house” credit card processing service called Volusion Merchant Service. For this payment medium, there’s a transaction fee involved. However, Volusion does not charge any transaction fees if you use your own payment gateway.

Volusion provides support for more than 50 payment gateways. Depending on the payment methods that customers prefer, you can set up your online business to accept credit cards or electronic payments from trusted companies such as PayPal, Stripe.

Volusion has a wide variety of apps designed to enhance your online store and these are available from the company’s own app store. Popular apps available through the store include Paypal Express,  designed to increase conversions with the security of Paypal, ShipStation, to create automated shipping labels, and Facebook Chat by Powr, an app to enable you to assist customers using the Facebook social media platform.

Attracting more shoppers to your webshop will be much easier when using the built-in marketing functions that Volusion offers. The platform comes with a slew of tools to help you promote your webshop such as social media integration, coupon creation, loyalty program, in-house email marketing, SEO hub and many more.

Ease of Use

Volusion was designed with the intention of helping store owners create an online hub to market and sell their products quickly and easily. The majority of Volusion’s features are centered around the idea of helping business owners track inventory and profit efficiently while making the user experience informative and intuitive for their shoppers.

Entrepreneurs can easily customize their online storefront with Volusion’s revamped site builder, which provides easy access to product display settings, navigation menus, and more. The drag-and-drop platform is tied in with users’ store management systems, allowing business owners to easily switch between design tools and the features covering order processing, customer relationship management, inventory tracking, marketing, design, and analytics.

Pricing

Volusion provide plenty in terms of features, but pricing will always be a big question when deciding on the best ecommerce platform. Currently, Volusion offer five different price plans, starting from $15.00, going up to $195.27 per month.

The five price plans make it appealing for both new merchants, and ecommerce veteran to jump on board the Volusion bandwagon. Each price plan offers something a little bit extra, and you are free to upgrade or downgrade at any point in your store’s life.

How Does Volusion Compare With Shopify and BigCommerce?

Volusion is certainly not the only player in the online e-commerce field. Established names such as Shopify and BigCommerce are hot on their tail. When it comes to which service you should choose for your online store, there are positive and negative factors for each.

If you are interested in the widest selection of mobile-responsive themes or apps then you may choose Shopify over the rest. Meanwhile, if you wish to sell unlimited products without shelling out for a premium plan then you might choose BigCommerce.

However, Volusion comes with benefits including a budget-friendly way to recover abandoned shopping carts and also includes many useful marketing tools for free.

What about Pricing Comparison?

With the lowest monthly fee at just $15.00, Volusion trumps Shopify‘s starter fee of $15.56. Additionally, you will find that Shopify impose a 2% transaction fee on every item sold, whereas Volusion imposes no such fees. This renders Volusion’s Mini Package a better deal. Additionally, BigCommerce’s lowest deal is $24.95, putting Volusion in a very good position when it comes to price plans

Final Verdict

Volusion have been around for a long time,and their professionalism across the board is definitely clear to see. They know exactly what functions are needed to run a successful online store, and it’s hard to argue with the way in which their CMS implements these functions.

Whether you want to sell physical products, virtual goods or a subscription service, Volusion offers an all-in-one shopping cart that will cater to just about any online retail store. While this platform has a few drawbacks, the features it offers, in general, are impressive.

If you’re apprehensive about settling for this e-commerce platform, it’s highly suggested that you give their free trial a run before making up your mind.

>> Click Here to Visit Volusion Official Website

Bigcommerce Review

Bigcommerce is a solid cart with an impressive following of retailers. Almost 100.000 merchants in a wide assortment of niches have found success with Bigcommerce. Check out our full review to get the whole picture

Bigcommerce features

As discussed above the exact features you get with Bigcommerce depend on the plan you opt for, but basic features include:

  • the ability to sell a wide range of either physical or digital goods, in categories of your choosing and using shipping rates of your choosing
  • integration with Paypal and a wide range of payment gateways
  • full content management (CMS) functionality
  • good search engine optimisation (SEO) options – it’s very easy to add appropriate keywords to your products and site pages
  • integration with several e-newsletter services: Constant Contact, iContact, Mailchimp and Interspire
  • integration with Alibaba.com
  • automated reminder emails to people who abandoned their carts at checkout
  • discount coupons and gift vouchers as standard
  • the ability to tweak CSS and HTML as desired.

Web Design

Bigcommerce has hundreds of templates to choose from including many new additions. They can be used as they are, or can be modified via the WSYWIG editor, or for those that like to customize code-level, a full HTML editor. And Bigcommerce can also connect you with plenty of third-party designers that can make you a custom design for your eCommerce store. Check out the Bigcommerce design and developer network for more info. Needless to say, if you want a truly beautiful and unique site, consider options beyond just free templates.

Payment Processing

Depending on your plan, Bigcommerce offers easy integration with over 40 payment processors. This includes commonly trusted gateways like PayPal Express Checkout, authorize.net, Square, and Stripe. Paypal in particular has seen some advancements within Bigcommerce, including a more seamless payment experience.

Bigcommerce Pricing (updated Jan 2015)

Bigcommerce offers three plans plus enterprise solutions. If you pay for a year at a time you get a 10% discount.

The Silver Plan – $29.95/month

Limits:

  • 1.5% transaction fee depending on the payment gateway you choose
  • 3 Gb Storage
  • No Abandoned Cart Saver
  • No Loyalty Programs and customer segmentation
  • No eBay or Google Merchant integration

The Gold Plan – $79.95/month

This is the plan most people start with – you can always upgrade or downgrade later if you find you do not need everything included. Includes Unlimited storage and bandwidth, abandoned cart saver, customer loyalty groups and integration with eBay, Amazon and Google Merchant center.

The Platinum Plan – $199.95/month

This plan is the best if you are moving from another shopping cart to Bigcommerce because it includes data migration and expert setup & migration (which you would pay more than $600 for on the Gold or Silver plans). The Platinum Plan is also the only plan that allows for Google Trusted Store Datafeed Automation necessary to maintain Google Trusted Store certification.

Bigcommerce support

Bigcommerce support is pretty comprehensive. 24-hour phone support is available, along with live chat and email support (it is not clear what hours the live chat and email support is available however).

There is also a good range of video and text resources available, and a community forum.

Notable Stores Using Bigcommerce in 2015

Collette Dinnigan – International Fashion House – http://shop.collettedinnigan.com.au

Mason Jars – Full site built using Bigcommerce including blog and static pages – http://masonjars.com

Hoka One One – Leading long distance running shoe brand – http://shop.hokaoneone.com.au/

Fugoo – Not the poison fish. Simple marketing site built with Bigcommerce – http://www.fugoo.com/

Conclusion

In short, Bigcommerce is not without its wrinkles, but it has earned its position as a top contender in the crowded Shopping Cart scene. It has done so with its jam-packed feature list, solid SEO, and ease of use. The monthly price point is commensurate with their place in the market; it is very reasonable for the new/small online retailer, yet it is scalable enough to serve any growing business. And the recent plunge in per-swipe transaction fees in the Standard Plan is a particular advantage for startups seeking a powerful shopping cart that won’t undermine them right out of the gate. Bigcommerce absolutely earns every star that we can give it. I would recommend it for most businesses types, with only a few reservations in specific cases.

>> Click here to visit Bigcommerce website for more information