WooCommerce vs. Volusion

Many customers love to shop from home. Creating an accessible, modern web store is an ideal way to expand your business and generate more profits. Many ecommerce platforms exist, promising great sales, ease of use, and a fantastic user experience. It can be hard to decide which platform to use for your online shop, so we have compared two popular choices, WooCommerce and Volusion, to help you decide.

Ease of Installation

WooCommerce: If users are running a site powered by WordPress, they simply install the WooCommerce plugin, then use the installation wizard. Installation takes about 5 minutes. In this scenario, WooCommerce is ideal as it is simply extending a user’s existing CMS. If users are starting without a WordPress site, they’ll need to first install the CMS itself, either manually, or using a host with a one-click install option. Volusion: Because Volusion is hosted, it is very easy to set up through the web-based application. Users simply have to make an account and follow the instructions to get their store up and running.

Ease of Use

WooCommerce: Particularly for WordPress users, WooCommerce is an easy-to-use, intuitive ecommerce platform. The plugin is simple to install and to continue using. All of the information you need is at your fingertips, located in the WordPress dashboard. Creating products is a quick and simple process. Plugins and extensions add additional functionality that makes WooCommerce powerful. Volusion: Volusion’s admin interface is clean and modern. A step-by-step setup manual helps you get started. When you want to create products, simply follow the videos and tasks that tell you exactly what to do. You can find analytics easily and explore details about how your store is doing.

Search Engine Friendly

WooCommerce: WordPress is a finely tuned SEO tool, and that functionality comes with WooCommerce, too. With a simple plugin, you can create title and header tags, and metadata to optimize your store for search engine results and ranking. It’s easy to get your products and your company out there. To jump on every SEO opportunity, you will have to extend WooCommerce beyond its basic capacities, but there are countless plugins and extensions to enable this. Volusion: Built-in SEO tools make it easy for even the most novice users to optimize meta tags, keywords, URLs, and more. Integration with social media adds more opportunities for SEO linking. You can use the platform’s analysis tools to see what is working and what needs to be tweaked.

Integration Ecosystem

WooCommerce: WooCommerce works with web-based devices, and iPhone/iPad with popular integrations including FreshBooks, Stripe, PayPal, Amazon Payments, FedEx, USPS and UPS. WooCommerce integrates with a large number of services. Volusion: Volusion works with Windows, Android, iPhone/iPad, Mac, and web-based devices. It has numerous social media integrations and works with a small handful of systems and applications.

Cost to Maintain

WooCommerce: The WooCommerce plugin for WordPress is free. Commercial plugins and extensions, however, have to be paid for annually, so if you require further functionality, be prepared to pay for it each year. Paid themes and designs are optional, but some users prefer them to the free options. The cost of hosting and payment processing should also be considered. Volusion: The cost of Volusion varies depending on how much power you need. Less pricey packages start at $15/month, allowing for a smaller number of sales, less bandwidth, and fewer features. More expensive packages cost over $100/month with unlimited sales, a high amount of bandwidth, extra features and numerous sales tools.

Customizability

WooCommerce: WooCommerce is highly customizable and extendable. It will work for both novice users and power users. Plugins make it easy to adjust nearly every aspect of a store. Those with tech know-how can get into the code of the store itself. Volusion: Advanced users may feel held back by Volusion. Beginner users will likely find it challenging to tackle any coding on this platform, as the source code is notoriously messy. Much of the structure of the site has to stay the way it is, without true customization options. There is a small app store to add on features like shipping calculators and email marketing.

Hosted vs. Self-Hosted

WooCommerce: This ecommerce platform will require hosting, which adds to the overall cost but provides more control and customization. Volusion: Volusion is hosted, with strong security features enabled. You can use a custom domain with your Volusion account.

Target Market

WooCommerce: This ecommerce platform is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses, and can target any customer base with its customizability. Social integration comes easily with plugins and extensions. Volusion: Volusion can work for companies of nearly every size. Its integration makes it a good choice for targeting customers via social media. Like other ecommerce platforms, Volusion is easy to setup and use, but it lacks power when you want to stand out from the crowd or grow your business. WooCommerce benefits from the ease of using WordPress but also has the flexibility to support all your branding needs and you can add the functionality to elevate the experience of your customers.

	WooCommerce	Volusion
Easy of Installation	Practically installs itself, with a setup wizard handling most of the work. 5/5	Hosted ecommerce platform is simple to set up. 5/5
Ease of Use	Very easy to use for beginners, without holding advanced users back. 5/5	Easy to use with a modern, clean interface. 5/5
Search Engine Friendly	Extremely SEO-friendly! 5/5	Extremely SEO-friendly! 5/5
Integration Ecosystem	Easy integration with a vast variety of service providers, including several mailing systems. 4/5	Integrates with many social media platforms; available add-on apps are limited. 4/5
Cost to Maintain	Cost varies depending on what users want to spend; initial plugin is free. 3/5	Cost varies widely. 3/5
Customizability	Highly customizable, limited only by a users’ skills and budget. 5/5	Not particularly customizable but looks pleasing and functions well as a basic platform. 3/5
Hosted vs. Self-Hosted	Self-hosted — more work, but more freedom.	Hosted; allows for ease of use but less freedom.
Target Market	Subscription services, social media targeting, and other custom plugins work to target customers.	Scales for various business sizes.

Tags: Ecommerce • WooCommerce