Are you looking to build yourself an online store? Shopify and Volusion are two popular website building tools you’ll most likely have come across.
Shopify and Volusion work in a similar way by providing hosted solutions that allow you to create a digital storefront.
Both are also dedicated ecommerce platforms; this means you won’t have to pay for hosting or install any software to use them as sellers can run their store remotely via web browser.
Furthermore, you’ll have to pay a monthly fee to use any of these SaaS (software as a service) products. This grants you access to all the tools you’ll need to build and operate your store.
However, there are still some significant differences between Shopify and Volusion that could determine which is better suited to your business.
Pricing
Cost is an important factor for most business owners and as such, you’d like to know whether building an online store is affordable. Fortunately, Shopify and Volusion both feature varied price plans to suit all budgets.
For starters, you could try out the 14-day free trial offers available on both platforms. This way, you get to sample each one firsthand before committing to a paid plan.
Shopify offers the following pricing plans:
· Basic Shopify at 29USD per month
· Shopify at 79USD per month
· Advanced Shopify 299USD per month
Volusion offers the following monthly price plans:
· Personal at 29USD per month
· Professional at 79USD per month
· Business at 299USD per month
While Shopify and Volusion pricing plans are similar, you could save some cash by opting for Shopify’s yearly plan if these seem too expensive.
Ease of Use
Volusion and Shopify both come with handy online selling tools; but are they user-friendly?
We discovered that Shopify is more practical than Volusion. Thanks to its straightforward store design approach, Shopify sellers can edit and perform other basic functions effortlessly.
Volusion on the other hand, requires too much effort. The platform’s editing interface is divided between the backend and storefront and as such, sellers are constantly switching views back and forth – all without any keyboard shortcuts.
Designs and Templates
Modern day eCommerce website builders have finally that a messy digital shop keeps customers away just like with brick-and-mortar stores. That’s why they’ve improved the quality of their design features.
Shopify and Volusion can both boast of extensive and professional-looking template collections. They are also quite responsive which means that your store will resize itself automatically to suit the viewer’s mobile, desktop, or tablet device.
While the Shopify and Volusion themes both offer high quality standards for online store design, there are some significant differences in the finer details.
Shopify users can choose from over 50 premium and 10 free themes that are suitable for almost any type of online business. The paid Shopify themes cost between 140USD to 180USD.
Volusion comes with 34 paid themes and 11 free template options with each one costing 180USD. This makes them more expensive than Shopify and with fewer choices.
Also, Volusion stores offer less design flexibility which means you can’t manage your website from your smartphone.
However, like Shopify, all of Volusion’s themes are there to improve your store’s performance by offering industry-specific features.
Customer Support
Shopify provides you with complete Customer Support services once you sign up for any of the paid plans. You’ll find an extensive Help Center that comes with video tutorials, a community forum, 24/7 phone, email, and live chat support.
Volusion also offers excellent Customer Support options. These include phone and live chat services for premium customers. Unfortunately, these support features are not available on its lower priced plans. Volusion’s free plan doesn’t include live customer support.
Editor
Shopify and Volusion feature similar editing or content management systems. Volusion’s editor boasts of a well-designed and user-friendly control panel so anyone can easily locate anything without having to browse through multiple options. You are guaranteed to discover multiple adjustable settings to suit your Volusion store design needs.
Moreover, Volusion integrates seamlessly with most sites. By installing the latest Volusion add-on on your website’s backend, you can avoid having to learn and adapt to an entirely new system.
Shopify on the other hand, comes with a flexible drag-and-drop website editor which offers increased customizability than Volusion. Although Shopify’s editor is easy to use, its structure is more complicated.
Still, Shopify is ideal for both professional and beginner designer needs thanks to the platform’s practical application and visually appealing process.
Ecommerce
Shopify provides you with all the eCommerce tools and support features you’ll need to scale your online business for long term growth. With the Shopify platform’s flexible and comprehensive solutions, your side-gig could easily develop into a business enterprise.
Volusion also lets you set up and manage your business with handy eCommerce tools required for selling online. Inventory management, product variants & options, shipping, POS, and multiple payment integrations are some of the Volusion eCommerce store benefits.
Business owners can use both Shopify and Volusion online store eCommerce solutions to manage sales and inventory even while on the go.
Apps and Widgets
With an impressive collection of over 5,000 software integrations, the Shopify App Market dominates this section of our Shopify vs. Volusion comparison. Here, you can expect to find all the inventory management, product shipping, and customer support tools you’ll need to boost your online store’s operations.
Shopify users can quickly browse the app market by category or collection to find what they’re looking for. There’s also a section for trending apps and top choice apps made by Shopify’s in-house developers or from third parties.
And while Volusion features a remarkable app store, it simply cannot compete with Shopify in terms of quantity or quality. Moreover, Volusion’s apps are not accessible on its free plan.
SEO
Shopify’s Search Engine Optimization options are generally strong. Shopify also offers an abundance of adjustable SEO components including URL’s, page titles, headers, Meta data, etc.
Shopify provides a standalone, internal emailing system complete with a countless number of marketing apps. On Shopify, you are assured of improved SEO store practices.
In contrast, Volusion’s SEO marketing options are more limited than with Shopify. Most of them perform reasonably well - especially for the paid plans.
Overall, both Shopify and Volusion website SEO tools will help optimize your store to rank better during local search results thus allowing more people to go online and find your accurate product information.
Blogging
Blogging is an effective approach to building an online audience and generating increased sales traffic for businesses. As such both Shopify and Volusion come with in-built blogging engines.
Setting up your Shopify site’s blog will help you build product reputation and online community trust around your brand.
The Volusion store also represents a great option for publishing relevant posts to engage website visitors. Volusion essentially operates as a widget that you can integrate with your existing blogs or website transforming it into a fully functional eCommerce store.
Conclusion
Here ends our Volusion vs Shopify comparison where we attempted to clear user concerns over which platform is better suited for business.
Ultimately, we strongly recommend using Shopify if you don’t mind building your online business site from scratch.
Volusion is also a user-friendly product that enables you create and effectively manage functional online stores. However, it simply does not offer the same comprehensive service as with Shopify.