These days, it's easier than ever to sell goods on the Internet. And to do just that, Volusion offers a complete e-commerce solution that builds a first-rate online catalog and shopping cart. It's among the best on the market and gives other like-minded companies — ShopSite for example — stiff competition.
As you would expect, the best e-commerce solutions combine ease of use — like not having to learn HTML — with comprehensive feature sets that let you build sites, manage and submit sales, handle credit cards and more. Volusion lets business owners quickly build professional-looking sites that customers can navigate and use easily, and it adds lots of extras for handling inventory, affiliate management, tracking customers and working with e-mail.
Like ShopSite, Volusion employs server-based software that you access through a Web browser, and you don't need to download or install a program on your computer to create and manage a store. Small business owners will have no problems using Volusion to build an e-commerce site by following a simple wizard that presents a variety of options through its on-screen forms.
Start It Up
The setup starts with a wizard asking you to enter business information (name, company, address, search engine tags and more), and then it walks you through an e-mail order notification process — i.e., whether you want to receive them and if so, where they should be sent. Next you define your preferred payment methods (currency, credit card gateways, etc).
The software then prompts you to select a look for your site from a gallery of seven layouts with numerous color combinations that add up to 65 possible variations. Here, the program lets you sort the professional-looking templates by popularity, user ratings and newness. After selecting a layout and color scheme, the program prompts you to "install" (upload) your Web page to Volusion's server. During this step, the program provides only brief instructions that may confuse novice users, unlike most programs with wizards that offer step-by-step instructions.
From here, the program creates an administrative page that lets you enter and define products, as well as customers, discounts, affiliates, security, order methods, vendors, shipping rates, taxes, Web site text and marketing.
The administrative page is also where you will make modifications to your site in the future and view ongoing statistics and reports.
Each menu on the administrative page offers an intuitive form-based screen to select and define options. Interestingly, the program requires you to click an "edit" button to modify a parameter on a secondary screen that you generally can't edit on the main screens.
Customizable and Flexible Features
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Click and Build — Volusion's administration screen makes it easy to select options.
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While the program helps you create an attractive, professional-looking site, you can also tap Volusion to build a custom site through one of several design packages that range between $695 and $3000, depending on the number of design elements you use. You may also add a Volusion shopping cart to your existing Web site or link "Add to Cart" buttons from an existing Web-based catalog to a Volusion store.
The system handles up to six product pricing levels and can assign minimum or maximum order quantities for products and assign lower pricing levels to key customers. You may display products in different layouts and the online catalog can display an unlimited number of photos per product.
Volusion makes it easy to upload digital pictures, and automatically resizes photos for use in different ways. For example, the program — by default — displays a small thumbnail image of a product on a catalog page, but lets customers click a button to see a larger version. Catalog pages can also display manufacturer's logos.
Inventory management features display quantities in stock and alert you to low inventory situations. Support for UPC barcode scanners makes it easy to receive and track new inventory.
The software supports some 50 major credit cards and electronic gateways and works with a merchant account to process credit cards and accept checks online. The system also supports PayPal payment services.
Room for Improvement
You can add cross-selling options that suggest related products and accessories to your customers. The system imports and exports data via CSV, tab delimited or MSACCESS format files, but the program could offer more detailed instructions on how to do this.
In fact, overall, the system could provide better help. Each page presents its own help screen that offers brief explanations about the various options, but there's no way to search for information. Nor are there instructions that tell you how to perform particular tasks.
Affiliates and E-mail
Affiliate management features let you track the sales and traffic generated by affiliates in up to five levels. You may set default payout rates for levels as well as change individual payout rates. Affiliates, in turn, have the option to log in and view statistics that include the number of click-throughs they have generated or the amount of money, if any, that they've made.
You can have the software send e-mails to customers using pre-designed e-mail templates, or those that you create using an HTML editor. An integrated tracking feature tracks the people who open the e-mail click on a link and ultimately purchase an item. A phone order system lets sales reps take orders from customers when they call. The system also supports coupons; gift certificates and quantity discounting. It can apply free shipping on orders over certain amounts, and it lets customers choose gift-wrapping and gift notes options.
History and Shipping
A recently added history feature remembers products that customers looked at and a wish list lets them retain the items that they want to keep in mind and purchase later. Volusion designed its shopping cart with "crash protection" so if customers don't complete a purchase for any reason, the items will still be in their carts when they return. You may also create sites that require customers to register — or even pay a fee — before being able to view products and shop.
The system prints packing-slips, receipts and invoices; automatically calculates UPS, FedEx, USPS, and DHL Worldwide shipping rates; lets customers track their packages from your Website; applies shipping and handling costs based on price, region and other methods and sends shipping confirmation e-mails. Security features include support for SSL and password protected administrative areas. The software even has customizable levels of access so that employees can only look at the customer data that is appropriate for the their roll in fulfilling the order.
Customers, on the other hand, get to view a professional e-commerce site that lets them learn about and search for products; browse through categories; sort products by popularity, price and manufacturer; fill their shopping carts and define payment, shipping and other options through intuitive drop-down boxes, radio buttons, check boxes.
Pricing
Volusion offers Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum plans that cost, respectively, $57, $77, $97, and $197 per month. The plans vary in the number of e-mail accounts and products that they support, beginning with 100 at the Bronze level up to an unlimited number for Platinum. The amount of storage space and bandwidth also varies within the plans. In each case, there's a $199 setup fee.
Volusion offers a 14-day trial account to help you decide if it's right for you. In any event, when you're ready to make that leap into the e-commerce business or want a change from your existing system, Volusion is definitely worth a look.
Over the last ten years, Wayne Kawamoto has written over 800 articles, columns and reviews about computers, new technologies, the Internet and small businesses. Wayne has also published three books about upgrading PCs, building office networks and effectively using and troubleshooting notebook computers. You may contact him through his Web site at www.waynewrite.com.
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