BigCommerce vs Volusion

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Our analysts compared BigCommerce vs Volusion based on data from our 400+ point analysis of eCommerce Platforms, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Volusion Software Tool

Product Basics

BigCommerce is a powerful SaaS platform for designing and managing multiple eCommerce websites. It centralizes product information and helps you distribute catalogs across marketplaces, social media and business websites. You can manage inventory, orders and shipping from any device and set up unique automation to increase productivity and avoid errors.

What sets it apart is its open and headless architecture, which allows for customization and integration. It offers a storefront editor with customizable themes but doesn’t restrict you from using other editors.

During testing, I could use the platform’s backend for product management, order fulfillment and customer data handling while having complete freedom to design and develop custom storefronts.

Another area in which BigCommerce excels is international commerce. Its support for multiple currencies and integration of global payment methods and shipping options make expanding into new markets a breeze.

The platform's handling of international taxes and duties is also impressive, saving considerable time and effort. Additionally, it charges zero transaction fees, helping control costs for businesses with large sales volumes.

Lastly, BigCommerce helps you remain nimble due to its flexibility. It offers open access to its APIs, SDKs and data without any proprietary blockers or frictions. This allows you to connect the platform to any software and build the perfect tech stack for your evolving needs.

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Volusion helps businesses design secure storefronts, manage backend processes and analyze KPIs. It offers site builders, shopping carts, marketing tools, order routing, inventory management and reporting modules.

A CRM, content and CSS editor, tax rate calculator, website designing services, ROI tracker and Robots.txt are its other offerings. It provides a 14-day free trial.
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$35 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Product Insights

  • Market Leader: BigCommerce is one of the top-rated eCommerce platforms, according to our research. Our analysts rated it 97 rating, right alongside industry stalwarts like Shopify (100) and Adobe Commerce (96).
  • Efficient Marketing Across Channels: According to our data, the platform scores full marks (100) for its marketing and SEO optimization tools. You get every key marketing feature required in eCommerce platforms out of the box, including a channel manager, A/B tester, branded domain, custom email addresses, sitemap generation, Google Ads account, SEO product tags and more.
  • Organized Data For Easy Reporting: The platform offers 100% of key reporting requirements out of the box, including centralized data warehousing, a BI module and analytics tools. It helps you visualize data and understand how to grow your business online. Additionally, you get a customer data platform to create customer segments and design personalized shopping experiences for better conversion.
  • Streamlined Shipping Management: BigCommerce is one of the best solutions for handling shipping, with a perfect rating of 100 based on our data. It offers real-time shipping rates from popular carriers, multiple shipping rules based on customer segment or geography and a shipping status tracker. Additionally, it doesn’t charge for shipping like Shopify. However, unlike Shopify, the platform has no transaction charges, further lowering the TCO.
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  • Design Websites: Create multimedia homepages, categories and product pages with drag-and-drop tools and HTML/CSS editors. Provides search bars for easy navigation. Access mobile-optimized websites via any device. 
  • Ensure Uptime and Security: Host SSL-certified websites on Google Cloud and use firewall settings to filter traffic on websites. 
  • Efficient Inventory and Order Management: Automate purchase orders, track inventory in real time and route orders coming through multiple channels using a unified platform. 
  • Improve Marketing Efforts: Define rules to showcase specific content, products and pricing based on customers’ history, location, navigation and other metrics. Improve website visibility across search engines using SEO and sitemap indexing tools. 
  • Streamline Checkouts: Ensure a seamless transition to payment gateways without redirecting traffic to external sites. Provides flexible payment options, including credit cards, cash, wire payment, PayPal, Amazon Pay, ACH and money orders. 
  • Identify Opportunities: Track ROI based on ad campaigns, newsletters and affiliates. Generate daily reports by tracking personalized KPIs like purchases, return merchandise authorizations, CRM tickets and more. 
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  • Page Builder: You can create and edit web pages without coding. Or you can jump into built-in HTML, CSS and JavaScript for advanced customization. Plus, you can ensure your pages look great on mobile devices and use Stencil CLI for in-depth development.
  • PunchOut: BigCommerce makes it easy to create a unique checkout experience for customers. You can either use their server-to-server checkout API or the PunchOut2GO solution.
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  • Website Builder: Craft a niche website with designer templates, a custom domain, search functionality and more:
    • Designing: Choose from a set of mobile-friendly templates or access the CSS editor to design the website manually.
    • Custom Domain: Promote business brand and allow customers and search engines to access the website easily. Showcase branding across the site with built-in promotional tools.
    • Product Pages: Customize products, upload images, write product descriptions and add subcategories. Highlight discounted products on the homepage and use the content editor to create interactive slideshows and transitions. Employ SEO to improve search engine rankings.
    • Search Tab: Allow customers to search the inventory and streamline the navigation process with quick search and customizable filters.
    • Security: Operate securely with an SSL-certified website and a PCI DSS compliant payment processor that ensures 99.99% uptime for customers.
  • Product Sales: Boost online sales and streamline business operations:
    • Payment Processing: Accept credit cards, cash, wire payments and electronic checks, along with all major digital wallets like PayPal, Amazon Wallet, Stripe and more. Streamline the checkout process, accept multiple currencies and set up a recurring payment collector for a subscription-based business model.
    • Inventory Management: Monitor product status, reorder quantities and remaining stock, verify amounts and receive low stock alerts. Quickly update inventory by uploading CSV files. Create custom barcodes for products for easy identification.
    • Order Processing: Process phone, website and mobile orders. Set up warehouse locations and keep track of returns. Receive updates for chargebacks and claims against the business.
    • Shipping: Specify shipping types, provide signatures, offer special discounts, set shipping rates and provide flat-rate shipping options. Leverage available integrations for seamless dropshipping.
    • Tax Calculator: Automate tax calculation based on region, currency and regulations. Stay up-to-date and receive tips on reducing tax costs.
    • Related Products: Entice customers to buy more by displaying related products based on their last purchase.
  • CRM: Improve customer engagement and relationships. Manage sales tickets, route them to the concerned departments, monitor customer reviews and respond to feedback from a centralized platform.
  • Mobile App: Manage stores, update inventory, interact with associates and customers, and generate reports with a mobile app compatible with both Android and iOS devices.
  • Growth Hacking: Rapidly scale business and drive growth through digital marketing and leveraging insights.
    • Listings: Showcase products on major marketplaces like Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Amazon and more. Make changes to listings from the dashboard and link social media accounts to promote on Instagram, Twitter and more.
    • ROI Tracking: Accurately estimate the value of investments with comprehensive ROI tracking, based on ad campaigns, newsletters and affiliates.
    • Reporting: Create personalized reports to drill down on critical areas. Receive insights on abandoned and live carts, purchases, product views, CRM tickets submitted, and more.
    • Discounts and Gift Cards: Set the starting time, duration and percentage or amount of a discount. Create customizable gift cards with business colors and logos. Set up deals of the day to push sales of stagnant stock.
    • Newsletter: Create and send custom newsletters and keep customers in the loop.
    • SEO: Manage metadata and let search engines crawl every corner of the site with sitemap indexing. Prevent specific pages from being crawled with editable robots.txt files.
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Product Ranking

#8

among all
eCommerce Platforms

#28

among all
eCommerce Platforms

Find out who the leaders are

Analyst Rating Summary

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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 1676 reviews
Good User Sentiment 169 reviews
86%
of users recommend this product

BigCommerce has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 86% when considering 1676 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

72%
of users recommend this product

Volusion has a 'good' User Satisfaction Rating of 72% when considering 169 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

5.0 (14)
4.5 (14)
4.2 (524)
3.3 (57)
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3.8 (44)
4.4 (323)
3.8 (37)
4.4 (152)
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4.3 (663)
2.7 (17)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated BigCommerce and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Integrations.

Integrations Award

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Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Customer Service and Support: Many reviews highlight excellent customer service, with helpful and responsive support teams that are available via phone and chat.
Functionality and Customization: BigCommerce offers a robust set of features, including SEO tools, custom URLs and 301 redirects. It also has strong B2B capabilities, multi-store functionality and a variety of apps for integration.
Stability and Reliability: Users praise the platform for its reliability and lack of downtime.
Scalability: The platform is scalable, making it suitable for businesses of different sizes, including those looking to grow.
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Easy to Use: Volusion is known for its user-friendly interface, making it a good choice for beginners with limited technical expertise. The platform offers drag-and-drop functionality and intuitive design tools, allowing users to easily build and customize their online stores without needing to code.
Built-in Features: Volusion provides a comprehensive suite of built-in features, including marketing tools, SEO options, and payment processing capabilities. This eliminates the need for extensive third-party integrations, streamlining the setup and management of online businesses.
Scalability: Volusion offers various pricing plans to accommodate businesses of different sizes and growth stages. As businesses expand their product offerings and customer base, they can easily upgrade their plans to access additional features and resources.
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Cost and Hidden Fees: BigCommerce has tiered pricing based on sales volume. Many users feel this pricing model can be restrictive and costly, especially for businesses with significant brick-and-mortar sales.
Limited App Selection: Reviews mention a relatively limited selection of apps compared to competitors like Shopify. Users may need to rely on external developers for custom integrations.
Limited Free Website Themes: Some reviews have complained about the lack of free storefront themes and templates. Users have to pay for good templates on top of the subscription fee.
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Limited Design Flexibility: Volusion's templates can feel restrictive for users who want more control over their online store's appearance and functionality. Customizing beyond the provided options often requires coding knowledge or hiring a developer, which can be a barrier for some users.
Transaction Fees: Unlike some competitors, Volusion charges transaction fees on all plans, including higher-tier ones. This can eat into your profit margins, especially if you have a high volume of sales or sell lower-priced items.
App Store Limitations: The app store offers fewer options compared to other platforms, potentially limiting the ability to extend your store's functionality with third-party tools and integrations.
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During testing, I noticed right off the bat that BigCommerce is a feature-rich platform that needs a lot of customization to fit my exact needs. Plus, there aren’t guided onboarding experiences, making implementation time-consuming. You must manually explore the interface to learn how to create or connect a domain, add products, set up fulfillment workflows, connect sales channels and design a storefront.Secondly, what caught my eye was the platform's speed and operability. BigCommerce boasts a 99% website uptime, and I could see why. It automatically optimizes images, minimizes HTTP requests and uses browser cache to identify customers. Also, a global content delivery network allows visitors worldwide to view your site from the nearest server.I loved how intuitive it is to connect and manage sales channels using BigCommerce. You can set up differentiated experiences for each channel using dynamic pricing, multiple product views, product swatches and bulk pricing tools. A robust customer segmentation module automatically groups similar customer personas based on your rules and helps design personalized experiences.The storefront editor uniquely lets you design a carousel for the website header. However, I didn’t like anything else about the storefront editor. It has limited free themes, and paid ones are comparatively more expensive than what competitors offer. That said, the platform's headless architecture helps compensate by enabling custom storefront development.My only point of contention was its unique pricing model. It charges a base subscription fee and puts a cap on your business's annual sales. If you exceed this cap, BigCommerce takes a percentage of your revenue based on your subscription plan.Also, if you connect the platform to a POS, every POS sale is considered an eCommerce sale, leading to a higher sales volume and cost. This leads to complex TCO calculations for enterprises with large sales volumes and international customers.Overall, BigCommerce is one of the best options for growing mid-sized businesses that can offset the platform cost with their sales revenue. It's flexible and can adapt to multiple business models, including B2B, D2C and dropshipping, with separate storefronts for each.However, the platform can be overkill for small businesses and may require significant investments to unlock its full potential. That's because all the good features like multi-storefront, personalization, customer segmentation and headless architecture are available in higher-tier plans. Also, lower-tier plans are comparatively more expensive than those of competitors like Shopify.

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Volusion has been making waves in the eCommerce world, but is it the right fit for your business? Let's dive into what users have been saying over the past year. Volusion's user-friendly interface is a major draw, especially for those new to eCommerce. The drag-and-drop functionality makes building and customizing your online store a breeze, even without coding experience. This ease of use is a significant advantage over more complex platforms like Shopify or Magento, which often require a steeper learning curve. However, Volusion's simplicity can also be a drawback for larger businesses with more complex needs. Some users report that Volusion lacks the advanced features and scalability required for high-volume stores or those with intricate product variations. Another key consideration is pricing. Volusion's plans can be pricier compared to competitors, which might deter budget-conscious entrepreneurs. But, for those who value ease of use and a comprehensive set of built-in features, Volusion's pricing might be justifiable. The platform offers a range of tools for inventory management, payment processing, SEO optimization, and marketing, eliminating the need for multiple third-party apps, which can add up in cost and complexity. So, who is Volusion best suited for? It's ideal for small to medium-sized businesses and solopreneurs seeking a user-friendly platform with a wide range of built-in features. If you're looking for an intuitive solution to get your online store up and running quickly, Volusion is worth considering. However, if you anticipate rapid growth or require highly specialized features, you might want to explore more robust platforms. Remember, the eCommerce landscape is constantly evolving, so be sure to check for the latest updates and offerings before making your final decision.

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Screenshots

Top Alternatives in eCommerce Platforms


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TrueCommerce

Unilog

Wix

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