Volusion vs Shopify: What’s The Difference & Which Is Best?

As an entrepreneur or business executive, choosing the right eCommerce platform to power your business is critical to your success. If you’re looking to move forward with a hosted eCommerce platform, Shopify and Volusion are two great options for you to get started with your online store initiative.

Volusion vs. Shopify: which one is the best for your business? We understand it could be overwhelming to choose the right platform, especially when you don’t know a lot about the pros and cons of each platform. This is why we decided to create this blog post and make it easier for you to make the right decision. 

Let’s make an objective comparison of Volusion and Shopify to find out which one is ideal for you to flourish in the eCommerce marketplace. While both platforms exist for similar reasons, we can evaluate them based on their functionalities, features, and tools. Let’s get started!

What Is Volusion?

First introduced in 2004, Volusion is eCommerce software that enables businesses to create and manage their online stores. Volusion offers everything small and large businesses need to create an eCommerce website with great ease. You don’t have to be a web programmer to build a website using Volusion.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Volusion

Just like any other website building platform, Volusion comes up with some pros and cons. Let’s take a quick look at them: 

Pros 

• Extensive marketing tools 
• Great onboarding process 
• A variety of payment gateways 
• Advanced data analytics and reporting features 
• Simple interface 

Cons 

• No support for digital products 
• No built-in blogging feature
• Lack of cross-selling features 
• Slow SaaS platform 
• A few application options 
• Free templates are not attractive 

Overall, Volusion is a good platform. Currently, more than 30,000 businesses are using Volusion software. However, make sure to check out its disadvantages before choosing it for your business. 

What Is Shopify?

Like Volusion, Shopify is a subscription-based eCommerce platform that allows you to develop, customize and grow a business. Shopify is more than just a tool for building an online store. 

Whether you’re looking to build a simple store or want to develop a unique shopping experience, Shopify is a perfect solution for almost every eCommerce business. 

With Shopify, you can build an eCommerce website and sell in multiple places: mobile, web, brick-and-mortar locations, social media, and other online marketplaces.  

What Are Pros and Cons of Shopify

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of Shopify to help you better understand the platform:  

Pros

• Lightning-fast load time 
• Robust sales features 
• Large app store 
• Dedicated, 24/7 customer support 
• Quick and easy setup 
• Mobile-ready and customizable 
• Powerful SEO and marketing tools 
• Integration with dozens of payment gateways 

Cons

• Slightly more expensive than other platforms 
• Difficult to switch themes 

Which Is Easier to Use: Volusion or Shopify?

Ease of use is surely one of the decisive factors when it comes to selecting an eCommerce platform. You don’t want to spend a lot of time making necessary changes or customizing your online store. Do you? So, what platform is easier to use? 

Well, both platforms don’t require any coding or technical knowledge to build or run a store. If you examine Shopify, we come across a clearly visible “undo” button and simple editing tools. On the other hand, Volusion makes things a little complicated and tricky for users. 

Winner: 

Shopify is the winner of its simple editing interface and visual cues when it comes to ease of use. 

Which Platform Has Better Scalability: Volusion or Shopify?

Here is another critical component of eCommerce platforms: the ease of scalability. Since your business is going to grow, you need a flexible and easy-to-scale system that grows with you.

Shopify and Volusion offer unlimited bandwidth and products. Therefore, it would be fair to say that both platforms are excellent when it comes to scalability. Nonetheless, Shopify enables you to improve your store’s performance with its social media integrations and large app store. 

Winner:

Shopify again wins the race with a small margin. 

Related: How to Scale an eCommerce Business (5 Tactics)

Better Extensibility: Volusion or Shopify?

While scalability refers to the ability of your eCommerce site to accommodate growth, extensibility means how easily you can add something to your online store. 

Winner: 

Shopify clearly leads the chart regarding integrations and adding more features to a store. 

Better Customer Support: Volusion or Shopify?

Both Shopify and Volusion offer customer support. However, the support Shopify provides to its customers is unmatchable. 24/7 live chat, email, and social media support make it super easy for you to get your problems fixed quickly. 

Shopify’s Plus plan allows businesses to have their own dedicated support agent. On the other hand, Volusion offers phone support from 7 am to 10 pm – no email support. 

Winner:

It’s an easy decision: the winner in this category is Shopify. 

Who Has Better Apps/Add-ons?

Apps and add-ons help you add some extra functionalities to your existing stores. You probably know that Shopify is popular for its large collection of third-party apps: you can find more than 200 apps in the Shopify app store. You will find an app to meet your emerging eCommerce needs. Volusion, on the other hand, has some incredible built-in features and a small collection of apps. 

Winner: 

With over 2,000 apps to choose from, once again Shopify wins the race. 

Who Has the Best Store Themes? Volusion or Shopify?

Ecommerce store builders are now focusing on design elements. Shopify and Volusion offer great-looking themes, but we can talk about the finer details to find out who’s the winner. Shopify offers 50+ premium and ten free themes.

All of its templates are mobile-ready and suitable for all sorts of businesses. If we talk about Volusion, it has 11 free templates and 34 premium designs each costing $180. It is way more expensive than Shopify. Besides, you can’t manage your store from your smartphone. However, all of the Volusion themes are mobile-friendly and offer industry-specific features. 

Winner:

Shopify is the winner because of three reasons: affordability, ability to make changes on the go, and freedom to choose from more premium templates.

Does Volusion or Shopify Have Better Sales Tools?

Volusion couldn’t win a battle so far. Can it beat Shopify in terms of sales tools? Let’s find out!

Business owners like Volusion for its amazing analytics features. While Volusion lacks some features like 24/7 support and customization or blogging, it attracts people with its analytics. You can adjust your sales strategy with all the real-time data Volusion generates.

Shopify comes with a variety of sales features as you can find plenty of apps to enhance your eCommerce strategy. 

Winner:

The winner is Shopify again for its multiple sales channels and apps.

Does Volusion or Shopify Have Better Marketing Tools?

Creating a business website is one thing; growing as a business online is another. To win more customers and grow, you need robust marketing features.

Starting with Shopify, which has beaten Volusion in all categories, it offers effective marketing tools, including an integrated coupon engine and ListShopify. Besides, third-party apps help you level up your marketing game.

Talking about Volusion, the platform offers a limited collection of apps, making it difficult for its customers to launch comprehensive marketing campaigns. 

Winner:

Our winner for marketing features and tools is also Shopify.

Best SEO: Volusion or Shopify?

SEO plays a key role in the success of an online business. Without a clear SEO strategy and strong tools, you can’t beat your competitors. So, let’s see what Shopify and Volusion have to offer in the SEO field. 

Both platforms offer incredible SEO support. However, Shopify stands out for its ease of integration. With Volusion, users find it slightly difficult to edit SEO functionalities. 

Winner

Shopify once again outsmarted its competitor in this category. 

Related: Six Ways To Increase Organic Traffic To Your Shopify Store

Which Is Better for International Expansion: Volusion or Shopify?

Shopify’s ability to integrate with many payment gateways makes it a perfect platform to sell internationally and establish a growing presence. Volusion also supports your efforts to build an international presence. 

Winner:

The winner is Shopify because of its diverse range of payment gateways and ease of expanding internationally. 

Better Security Features: Volusion or Shopify?

Talking about security and reliability, both Volusion and Shopify meet users’ expectations. While Shopify and Volusion stores are Level 1 PCI DSS compliant, it’s hard to choose a winner here.

Winner:

Draw. 

Best Payment Processor and Fees: Volusion or Shopify?

While “Shopify Payments” is available for integration across 11 countries, Volusion Payments only works in the United States. However, Shopify charges a transaction fee for payment gateways except for their own in-house system. The good thing about Volusion is that it doesn’t charge a transaction fee for external payment gateways. 

Winner:

Volusion is going to win for the first time in this competition. Why? Because it is cheaper with its in-house payment system called “Volusion Payment”. 

Best ROI: Volusion or Shopify?

ROI depends on how a business utilizes these platforms. However, Shopify surely leads the race regarding customization and marketing tools. Volusion also performs well when it comes to data analysis and stats.

However, Shopify beats the competitors with its exceptional flexibility and ease of customization. Businesses generate more revenue when they have the freedom to extend the functionality of their online store with ease. 

Winner:

So, the winner is Shopify. 

Final Words

So, what platform will you use to build and maintain your eCommerce business? We’ve compared both platforms against multiple factors. Shopify completely outsmarts Volusion except in one category: payment processor and fees. 

Overall, Shopify wins when building a strong and scalable online presence. This is why most eCommerce businesses use Shopify all across the globe. When compared to all the available eCommerce platforms, one area where Shopify is unbeaten is with amazing add-on apps.

Shopify offers many apps that you can install on your store to extend the functionality. Volusion, on the other hand, is one hundred times less customizable.

If you’re still not sure what system will work for your business, contact us, and we would love to schedule a call to assist you further! 

Sources:

Six Ways To Increase Organic Traffic To Your Shopify Store | forbes.com

Volusion History | 15+ Years of eCommerce Business Software | volusion.com

Which E-Commerce Platform Is The Best Choice For Your Online Store? | forbes.com