Volusion vs Shopify – Differences and similarities

This article features the differences and similarities between Volusion and Shopify. They are two popular hosted eCommerce platforms offering a 14-day free trial to let you decide if the eCommerce website builder is the best choice for you.

Shopify offers a broader range of eCommerce solutions. Pricing ranges from $5/month to get a simple store to share products on social media from $2,000+ for high-volume businesses.

Compared to Shopify, Volusion showcases no checkout redirects and transparent transaction fees. Pricing range from $35 to $299, but they also offer a prime plan according to your specific need.

Both Shopify and Volusion have app stores, but the Shopify platform has more apps than Volusion. One of the main differences between Volusion and Shopify is that Shopify seems to focus on direct sales, whereas Volusion focuses more on analytics tools.

What is Volusion?

Volusion is an eCommerce website builder that powers almost 40,000 online stores to date. It was created in 1999 to help midsized businesses sell worldwide with easy online website building.

It is an all-inclusive website builder and provides everything you need to start and run your online store. You can completely control and customize your website according to your needs.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is an easy-to-use online store builder that helps brand-new business owners or small business owners go online with their products. Since the global pandemic, more people have started their online businesses using Shopify.

The website-building process of this tool is so easy that even a complete beginner can make a fantastic website. Shopify works on a monthly subscription basis. Shopify is trusted by almost 1,700,000 businesses worldwide.

Volusion vs Shopify – Main differences and similarities

Volusion and Shopify are both online store-building websites that power more than thousands of websites to date. Both companies offer web designing, web marketing, and product inventory services to new, small and mid-sized businesses.

The main differences between these companies are reflected in their pricing, features, ease of use, and many other things that we’ll break down for you.

1. Volusion Site Builder vs Shopify Website Builder

Volusion and Shopify website builders are all-in-one eCommerce solutions designed to help you create any type of online store:

dropshipping site
drop servicing website
reseller store
membership website

They have many built-in features regarding web design, content upload, POS, and more.

Volusion Site Builder

Mobile friendly themes
Customizable layouts
Product display options
Logo & favicon upload
Product display options
Category pages
Search tools
Slideshow feature
HTML and CSS editor
In-House design services
Intuitive order system
Comprehensive payment processing

Shopify Website Builder

Drag-and-drop store builder
Fully responsive themes
Custom Shopify payments
100+ third-party payment gateways
Comprehensive dashboard
SEO features
Shopify Mobile app
Easy inventory management
Shipping solutions and automatic tracking
Easy branding with logo and favicon

2. Volusion vs Shopify – Ease of Use

Volusion and Shopify offer easy-to-use features, but the real question is, how easy?

Shopify has a straightforward setup that helps you build your online store within a few hours. It also gives an undo option which is extremely important if you’re new to your business. The Shopify app store lets you quickly connect different apps to your website with a few clicks. The multitude of apps, plugins, addons, and templates make it easy to customize a Shopify store without coding.

On the other hand, the editing interface of Volusion is split between the storefront and the backend. Storefront refers to the final website that your customers see. They do not provide keyboard shortcuts, so you have to click through the entire process. It takes much time to understand how Volusion site builder works.

Shopify would be the best choice if you are a complete beginner. However, you can also make an outsatnding website with Volusion.

3. Volusion vs Shopify – Sales Features

Volusion has outstanding analytic tools. The website designing process is quite tricky for beginners and consumes a lot of time in the process. This is because of the complicated features of the website builder. All-in-all, Volusion works best for people who are data-loving business owners and are not too stuck on the website design.

Shopify, having a massive app store, allows you to add even more features to your website design. This website builder also allows social media integration so that you can sell through more than ten social media channels. You can also improve your site’s performance with a range of shipping and marketing apps. Plus, if you’re someone who’s looking to scale your business easily, then Shopify is for you.

Shopify has the most complete selection of sales features on the market but Volusion seems to have a better analytics tool. Shopify has more features because of its app store.

4. Volusion vs Shopify – Blogging

All Shopify stores have a built-in blog, but Volusion does not offer a blogging option. This may make a huge difference for entrepreneurs who rely on free traffic. A blog is beneficial for brand awareness and getting free search engine traffic to your offers.

Although you can create your blog on a subdomain and link it to Volusion, it is one of the significant disadvantages of Volusion compared to Shopify.

5. Volusion vs Shopify – Pricing

Both Volusion and Shopify offer a wide range of subscription plans that anyone can use. The plans are suitable for small, medium, and large-sized companies. The costs vary according to your specific needs.

Volusion Pricing	Shopify Pricing
Free 14-day trial	Free 14-day trial
Personal – Costs $35 per month Upload up to 100 products. All necessary tools to sell online.	Starter plan – $5 per month Sell products through messaging apps and social.
Professional – Costs $79 per month Upload up to 5,000 products.	Basic plan – $29 per month Store creation, products upload, shipping, and payments processing
Business – Costs $299 per month Upload unlimited products.	Shopify – $79 per month
Prime – Custom price Based on gross merchandise volume.	Advanced Shopify – Costs $299 per month
	Shopify Plus – Starts at $2,000 per month Suitable for high-volume merchants and businesses.

Shopify basic plan vs Volusion Personnal

Volusion Personnal Plan

Shopify Basic Plan

Volusion and Shopify both give you budget-friendly pricing for your online store. You can get the 14-day free trial that helps you decide whether the pricing is worth it. The basic or starter plan provides everything to set up your eCommerce website. You get hosting and a free SSL certificate for a secure online shop.

Shopify seems to have cheaper pricing than Volusion, but there is a catch. The cost of additional apps can increase your monthly expenses. Ultimately, Volusion and Shopify are equally worthy of the investment, considering your needs and goals.

6. Volusion vs Shopify – Design

When it comes to the design of a website, one of the most important questions is how many templates do the website builder provide?

Shopify gives you ten free themes to choose from and 50+ premium themes that cost anywhere from$140 – $180. This website builder has themes for all industries other than DIY and art. So, you can simply design your website according to the industry and needs of your business.

On the other hand, Volusion gives you 11 free themes to choose from and 38 premium themes that cost $180 each. This website builder has themes suitable for all industries, including art and toys, books, and education.

Volusion has fewer theme options for website design than Shopify, and the provided themes cost more than Shopify. Shopify has many more options for design templates, which are affordable on average.

7. Volusion vs Shopify – SEO Capabilities

Search Engine Optimization is an important aspect of running a successful website. Both Volusion and Shopify allow you to perform basic on-page SEO functionality i.e., customizing title, URL, meta description, meta tags, etc. You can add Google Analytics and Facebook pixel codes to your website so that you can constantly measure the growth and success of your website.

Shopify built-in SEO features

Any Shopify online store has built-in SEO features to help you optimize website content. Shopify generates or adds automatically:

canonical tags
sitemap.xml for your website
robots.txt files
title tags

You can also optimize your content by editing:

title tags
meta descriptions,
URLs
alt text for images

Volusion built-in SEO features

Manage all of your metadata in a single place to keep your categories, products, and pages SEO-friendly. Offer features that facilitates sitemap Indexing. Let you improve SEO using an editable robots.txt file.

8. Volusion vs Shopify – Apps & Integrations

Apps & Integrations play an essential role in managing your store. Volusion provides just enough apps to cover all basic functionalities. But, Shopify has a complete app store containing thousands of apps and free add-ons.

The Shopify App Store includes paid and free eCommerce plugins helping you:

increase sales
improve marketing
elaborate a social media strategy
grow your business

Although Volusion offers fewer apps and plugins, choosing the right plan can get you mostly the same functionalities.

9. Volusion vs Shopify – Customer Support

Shopify provides 24/7 support via phone and lives chat. It has email and social media support services as well. You also get a dedicated support agent with the Plus Level price plan.

Volusion provides 24/7 Chat via the Merchant Center dashboard and email support for all plans. Business and prime members can get additional phone support from Monday to Friday, 8 am-7 pm Central.

10. Payments processing, credit card, and conversion fees for Shopify and Volusion

When you capture payment for orders, your payment processor applies a transaction fee. For example, Stripe pay-as-you-go pricing is 2.9% + 30¢ per successful card charge. You may be subject to a currency conversion fee if you process payments in multiple currencies.

The cheapest way to accept online payments is by :

using Shopify Payments since you do not need to set up third-party payment providers. It allows you to accept all standard payment methods when you launch your Shopify store.
getting Volusion Payments Powered by Stripe at no additional cost if you are in the US. People in Canada, Europe, Australia, and the US can also use Authorized.net, PayPayl, and NMI to process payments.

Any other third-party payment processor comes with additional fees if you can not use Shopify Payments or the Volusion in-house credit card processing solution.

Volusion pricing regarding payment processing seems more affordable than the Shopify one. But you need to carefully check what would be the best choice regarding your location and the order volume.

Volusion and Shopify – Pros and Cons

Let’s now look at the pros and cons of both website builders.

Volusion

Pros

You have various payment gateways to choose from.
Volusion has strong analytics and reporting features.
It provides an easy-to-use interface.
Customizable to suit a range of companies.
No transactional fees are to be paid.

Cons

Volusion does not support selling digital products.
You’ll have limited app options with this website builder.
It does not provide blogging functionality.

Shopify