This is a guest post from my daughter, Nikki Purvy who uses Volusion for her online fashion boutique.
Celebrating 1 Year with Volusion
Today I celebrate the first birthday of my online boutique Estava Morioka, that I built using the shopping cart software Volusion. When I first began my online e-commerce business exactly one year ago, I knew nothing about e-commerce, web design, or SEO. All, I knew is that I was going to run an online boutique selling women’s dresses. 
I figured since I had the vision, the passion, a plan, and a little bit of money, I could do it. Why, you ask, would I start a business in a field that I know nothing about? Well, I'm one of those people that thinks if I know someone that can do a task that I can’t do, then chances are I’m smarter than them and therefore, I can do it too. It’s a very arrogant/crazy/foolish way of thinking but unfortunately, this is how my brain works.
Shopify versus Volusion
But I digress…So at the time when I started my business a year ago, I knew nothing about SEO, e-commerce, or web design. I delved right into setting up my online boutique using a shopping cart software called “Shopify”. For the beginner e-commerce retailer, this software is perfect. It's very intuitive, very easy, and inexpensive. It only took me 3 full days to set up my store from start to finish. Now keep in mind that as a side affect of my self diagnosed ADHD, I frequently go into hyerfocus when I work on a task for 16,18,20 hours straight . So those 3 days were 3 consecutive 18 hour days (mind you, I was vacationing in Vegas at the time, so you can only imagine how severe my hyperfocus gets). Shopify was also perfect for me at the time because it only cost 30 bucks per month.
Around month 2, I started to run into problems. I realized that Shopify did not offer user-friendly SEO capabilities, I couldn’t get live rate quotes from shipping carriers (UPS, Fedex, USPS, etc), and I didn’t really have that much design flexibility (their templates were terrible and at the time I was totally HTLM and CSS illiterate). Keep in mind this was a whole year ago and from my understanding Shopify has made some major upgrades to their software since then.
But looking back, Shopify was more for websites that want to “Shopify” its current non-shopping site, hence the name. For instance, Shopify is a perfect solution for a rockband who wants to add a subdomain to their existing fanclub website selling t-shirts to hardcore fans, or for a popular blogger who wants to sell hats with their logo to members of their cult following. Now that I see it for what it was, it makes sense for them not to offer user-friendly SEO capabilities for a shopping site that they assume will not be the main attraction. Maybe they figure that you have already “SEO-ed” your main domain so you don’t need to do it here at your Shopify site. I’m sure that I could have gone directly into the HTML code and “SEO-ed” everything there but the portal to get there was not easily locatable.
So around month 2 I went researching my next shopping cart software. I was growing up. I needed software for big girls.
Volusion was the answer to all my prayers
Then, I found Volusion. (angels singing in the background)
Volusion was the answer to all my prayers. Â It was my Savior. It was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Now, wait. It wasn’t easy at first.
#1 Volusion was more expensive…$99 per month vs Shopify’s $30
#2 At first, it was not intuitive at all!!!
And #3 – the customer service was great but if you try calling during normal business hours, you would be on perma-hold for AT LEAST an hour. No exaggeration.
The Low-Down of Why Volusion Is an Amazing Shopping Cart Software
Although, It sounds bad, I will address each and get to the low-down of why Volusion is an amazing shopping cart software.
#1 – $99 is not a lot of money when you compare it to the costs of a brick and mortar business. And besides, Volusion is well worth it. AND plus, they have cheaper packages than $99.
#2 – SEO, HTML, and CSS are not intuitive languages by nature (they are logical but intuitive they are not). So, any software that properly translates these languages to something that everybody can understand will inherently have an element of “WTF-edness” to it. Besides, now that I am moderately fluent in HTML and CSS and a baby wizard at SEO, Volusion is 100% intuitive to me.
And #3 – There isn't really an excuse for hour-long perma-holds. No wait actually, it reminds me of a logic riddle that we worked on in my mentally gifted program in grade school… A man comes to a new town and needs a hair cut. There are only 2 barbers on town, barber #1 has a clean shop and an amazing hair cut and barber #2 has a dirty shop with hair all over the floor and a terrible hair cut. The man decides to go to barber #2 for his cut. YOU figure out why.  This is very similar to Volusion and their jammed up phone lines. Clearly they have superior service. Everyone wants it.
Here Are Some Other Really Cool Features About Volusion
–Â Â Â Â Â Â You can SEO every page and every image on the site including adding meta info.
–      It acts like a watered down version of Google analytics. When a customer makes a purchase, they provide you with the referring site info. (an amazing feature!)
–Â Â Â Â Â Â Great order management
–      Amazing shipping management – You can link your Fedex or UPS account right to the site and print your shipping labels directly from your site, leaving little to no room for shipping typo errors (I am a professional typo-ist). And your customers get live shipping quotes fed directly from Fedex to the checkout page.
–      The freedom and ability to change anything on the site. I update my main page frequently with the use of very little HTML and CSS and a lot of my own logic (something that basicblogtips owner gave to me when she birthed me).
–      They just added a feature where you can add Youtube videos of the products on the product pages. I love it! Click the link to this orange cocktail dress and scroll down to see what I mean.  It's really cool!
–      You can manage affiliates using their internet marketing tools. Yup, this is exactly what it sounds like.
–      You can manage abandoned carts. You can send reminder emails to logged in customers if they abandon their shopping carts.
–Â Â Â Â Â Â You can manage facebook and twitter directly from the backend of the site (Although, I would never do this. No reason)
–      Great product presentation – Product pics allow customers to roll over them and magnify the pic. Click the link to this cocktail dress and roll over the pic to see what I mean.
– Â Â Â You can update different elements of your site from the backend AND the front end.
And the best part about Volusion is the customer service. It's actually pretty outstanding. Although I have to wait an hour to speak to someone, as soon as someone gets on the phone their expertise and friendliness helps me to quickly forget the fact that I spent the better part of the last 60 minutes wishing that I chose to sit and watch the grass growing channel rather than call Volusion and listen to Kenny G on Muzak.
Very nice and detailed article about Volusion Shopping Cart Software, I suggest you to write about other shopping cart softwares like Ablecommerce, Bigcommerce and ZNode.
Thanks
Thanks Mark! I will check out those software programs as well
Fantastic write up about Volusion Nikki and I can’t believe that it has been already a year that has gone by since I first saw you around. Man that is scary fast, lol.
Anyway, congrats to a wonderful achievement. Running an eCommerce site in a highly competitive niche, starting from no knowledge about all that tech mambo jumbo, is really commendable. The passion, combined with the drive and willing to succeed were essential ingredients to make it all happen. Keep it up..
Thanks DiTesco! Time really does fly. It feels like it was only yesterday! Again, thanks for the encouraging words!
volusion and shopify are really easy for beginners to figure out how to use.
I built one of my sites using volusion. have you heard of Magento? that is another site that makes building websites and shopping carts simple, even for those who have never done it before.
Hi! I have not heard of Magento. I will check it out tho
Hmm, I’m sold. If I could right now I would start my online business with Volusion. I just need to do more research and prepare for my webpage design. I love the features Volusion offers, and I think they are going to explode in the future, in a great way. Thanks Nikki! 🙂
No Problem Jasmine! Also, other commenters recommended Magento, Zen-Cart, Ablecommerce, Bigcommerce and ZNode. You may want to compare those as well. Good Luck!
Volusion really seems to be an amazing shopping cart software. I have tried many other shopping cart softwares like Magento, Zen-Cart but this one is a whole lot easier than those. BTW, I think the link to your ecommerce site is not working, you may want to check that out.
Thanks Shiva! the link is fixed now! thanks for the comment
Wow, can we raise the font on this post/comments please, what is it on; 2??
Hi Dennis, I’m not sure what happened and why the font looks small to you. I haven’t changed a thing and it looks fine on my end. I can read small fonts and there’s no way I would have one anywhere on my blog.
Maybe there was some sort of server glitch…
Hey Ileane, I dunno what happened but hopefully it will unglitch soon.I always liked your larger font before.
Congrats to Estava Morioka! I also use the online shopping cart software Volusion bcoz it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Thanks a lot 🙂
Hey Nikki,
I’ve been doing some thought about Shopify and other shopping cart websites. Have thought of Volusion before but never actually thought that the SEO part is what makes it stand out! I think that will be on top of my list right now. Still need to do more research though but this article has made it a lot clear to me. Thx!
Hey Nikki,
I like Kenny G! Sounds like Volusion really has it going on. I’m more familiar with a couple of the other ecommerce platforms but you’ve convinced me to take a look at Volusion as an alternative I can recommend to clients.
While I don’t have a clue about the riddle, I can’t think of any reason anyone should have to wait an hour for customer service. It sure helps that they bring it when they come!
The answer to the riddle is because no one goes there, hence it always stays clean. lol
I was just looking such kind of article on shopping cart software which can enhance my knowledge and somewhat I was wanting some encouragement from others that I can start online trading, Nikki’s article really encouraging for me and newer’s. Like Volusion I will have request to the blog writer to reveal somewhat detail on other shopping cart software and their comparison. Hopping that will be really helpful.
Thanks for opening the door.
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Great article, I am in the middle of looking at transitioning my site to a new ecommerce platform. I have looked at many and it is always hard to identify which one will be right for your service. I am also trying to find a single admin interface that can manage product inventory for multiple ecommerce site.
Never heard of Volusion before but it sounds well-worth it’s money.
Even enable you to manage affiliates, that is great.
And your shop looks great!
I’m not looking to buy any dresses ( you probably wont have my size anyway haha) but the structure of the site is really good. magnifying the pictures like amazon is also really nice.
ps. I am jealous of your hyperfocus! I have a friend who has it as well. That is so great. I’m more like the dog in UP “Squirrel!”
I have tried many other shopping cart softwares like Magento, Zen-Cart but this one is a whole lot easier than those.
I must say that I like how your brain works. Not arrogance but confident. I heard a lot of good things about Volusion. Glad that you talked about Volusion’s customer service support. This is one of the most important factors to consider before investing into any type of ecommerce software. Poor customer support almost always means poor product quality.
Hi,
Great review! I am currently transitioning from zencart to volusion. I have to say volusion has its bad sides that could really frustrate the most calm person but in comparison with zencart where I have become a zencart guru and read every tutorial, blog anything you can think of, and still my store wasn’t easy to navigate and user-friendly as I wanted it to be. So I decided to switch over to volusion.
Volusion cons are that they really don’t have anyone that you can talk to after 5 pm – I mean you would think if they are that big that they would have someone 24/7 like gatorhost – hosting company but their services is beyond your imagination!
Volusion is quick to charge you fees – first I had the free trial – and once you sign up then you realize well I can’t do anyting with free trial – not even set up your email so I switched to the $19 store – again I wasn’t able to load my inventory because it only allows you to import 100 products and I had 12000!!!….so okay, 8 days before the billing cycle ended for my $19 store I went ahead and called them. They walked me through how to convert from $19 store to gold which was $99. He convinced me that once I switch I Will get the prorate and my cost once I sign up will be $80. I’m like great! Once I paid and was looking at the invoice I Was pretty furious! Total was $120. To keep this story short, the next thing I was canceling my volusion account all together – it was beyond my imagination – I have to say their service is pretty bad – and the tone in which they speak to you sounds very patronizing – THAT I did not like.
However, I have decided to start again with gold store with a different email all from scratch – right now I am waiting for 48 hours to pass so I can get my admin access and start working on my store. We’ll see what happens. I read some pretty bad reviews but all of the ecommerce reviews store point to volusion….not sure at this point what to think….
I also prefer Volution to Shopify – really appreciate their strong support.