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ProStores Vs. Volusion

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ProStores is the better e-commerce solution!

ProStores Vs. Volusion

Any ProStores challengers out there? I have been using ProStores for over four years and I believe that their product has steadily increased in value. April 2011 ProStores announced a change in their plan pricing replacing the two plans with five different plans now.

With ProStores you can have up to 5000 products active for only $49.95 a month. Can you say that about Volusion? No you can't! Volusion has a $99 "Gold" plan for 5000 products but Volusion did do away with the setup fee on this plan.

The smallest plans are ProStores 250 products for $29.95 per month plus .5% transaction fee (This never really bothered me since it only is charged if you sell something but if you are selling high dollar amounts this can certainly add up. It breaks down to approximately 25 cents on every $50 in sales.) and Volusion 100 products for $29 a month.

I am challenging you to step up and take a stand in our ProStores Vs. Volusion duel! Come on now don't be afraid to speak up for your e-commerce shopping cart solution of choice.

ProStores Vs. Volusion
Essential Wonders a ProStores success
Volusion's side of the story.
What the blogs are saying about ProStores and Volusion.
Where can you find Pricing Details?
Learn more about ProStores and Volusion
ProStores Version Update Coming May 17, 2011
Volusion is up for the challenge!
Show off your ProStores store here
Show off your Volusion store here
Share info on your online store

ProStores Vs. Volusion

Feel free to substitute "Volusion" with any other e-commerce solution. Just be sure to let us know the company name in your response.

For both sides here are some suggested questions to answer:

Why?
What do you like most?
When did you sign up with the service you selected?
Costs?
Anything you dislike and wish they would change?
Have you tried both in the past?

I left this open for anyone to post a response however I will delete any pure spam so please keep it on target we have other areas to post links to your site. We really dislike spam as much as you do. Keep it light hearted and fun please. We just want to see what ProStores has compared to other e-commerce solutions out there in a friendly challenge from the users point of view.

Which e-commerce solution is better for the price?

Yes, you're right ProStores is the best option!

Affen Schwanz says:

Looking for a shopping cart to sell online / ecommerce?? ....AVOID Volusion!!!!!

In our experience ABSOLUTE WORST COMPANY we've EVER dealt with! A million headaches from the start. Hmm, where to begin... We were totally fooled by the online cart comparison technical reviews. DO NOT BE FOOLED. Their coding is IMPOSSIBLE compared to other carts. Need to customize your cart? Yeah, right. Good luck!!! But worst than any of the coding nonsense is their COMPLETE & UTTER arrogance with customers, treating customers like garbage. And I'm not just talking one person, one ticket, one day, one week. I'm talking thru & thru. One thing's for sure: they're consistent! This may be why?

Customer service is really just a shell (bogus) department that's actually just sales. You're there for THEM, they're not there for you. Your problems? Their "opportunities"! Cart not working? Oh, "sorry, that's customized. Contact our coders for a price!" Of course, they make sure to carefully hide their shopping cart code in .asp so you can't do SIMPLE tweaks like moving a box to the left or right without a ridiculous amount effort. Their excuse? They actually wrote something like "We don't make it available to customers or employees so they don't break it." Even more pitiful, we're convinced that it's the same 1 or 2 persons handling all of customer service (the same arrogant tone & writing is always the same) BUT they keep making up bogus names & never have the same person responding to their own thread. It's so funny, because they think they're clever "avoiding responsibility" by changing names each time, so that no "one person" is actually responsible for the ticket. What a joke. To top it off, they also assault you with a lot of junk mail, sending emails to you from "Chief Customer Officer" (CCO) and "Customer Experience Manager" (CEM) and a hundred other silly self-appointed names to give the ILLUSION that they give a s---), providing links to surveys you KNOW they don't read because if they actually cared, they'd be reading the tickets or the forums, both a wealth of information. Survey links (in this case) are just a bogus way to "allow the customer to blow off steam" lol. That's our opinion. You see these companies everywhere. They think that customer service is going to cost a lot, so they spend a lot MORE money, time, effort, setting the company up so that it LOOKS like customer service is their thing, when, in reality, they're only fooling themselves (& robbing you in the process).

Think you'll "try'em out and see what happens"? That's what we thought too! And no sooner had we done the online chats etc and registered...than their whole tone changed. Online chat support is suddenly unavailable. "Tickets" system is completely bogus attempt to LOOK like they care, but try asking for customer support, and every answer is basically "sorry, that's customized". Huh?

Don't be fooled by the message they make you listen to OVER & OVER ad nauseum when you call for support, the one that says "received this (blah blah) award".

We wondered where the "Wizard of Oz" was hiding throughout this whole experience...was anybody really overseeing these power-hungry employees? We figured it's one of 2 things: either owner/CEO is off in Tahiti somewhere sipping his favorite cocktail, or the more likely one, that, as they say, "The fish rots from the head down". That's our opinions and how our customer experience was. You'll laugh too because they send these joke emails to you after a problem from "Chief Customer Officer" or "Customer Experience Manager" giving you a "chance" to fill out a survey (like they even look at those obviously), and we told them, if they really want to know more and are "Chief Customer Officer" or "Customer Experience Manager" (and the 10 other bogus titles they created to give the ILLUSION of customer service), they should read the actual tickets and oversee their employees, or read the forums or the suggestions. Reviewing those forums you see like 90% of them aren't even answered, and if they are, it's not by their admin, nor their" CCO" or "CEM" yada.

One thing's for sure, don't judge a cart by ratings in technical magazines etc. They just write those off the trials/demo. They don't actually interact with Customer Service on a daily basis. In the end, what you're ultimately buying and what you have to deal with- on a daily basis- is Customer Service...or in this case, the shell of Customer Svc.

It's like the biggest SCAM too: they put so much energy into PRETENDING to emphasize customer support, but none into ACTUAL customer service. It's the strangest thing we've ever seen.

When you put yourselves ahead of your customers, you may win the battle, but you lose the war, ie you come out the wrong end every time.

In our opinions, from having dealt with them for months, with MASSIVE DAILY HEADACHES, THIS IS one of the ALL-TIME WORST COMPANIES we've ever dealt with.

Karma B., CIK
Customer Is King

StarrFinancial says:

Now Please no bashing the other side. This is about supporting your own side without the mud slinging tactics. FYI I have used ProStores for years and never been down that long or for that matter at all (knock on wood) since they made many changes a couple of years ago. Curious where they get their umm "facts".

Volusion says:

Volusion has persistent downtime and issue that management refuses to resolve or address. They have no communication with customers and most recently have been down weekly.

StarrFinancial says:

Ok its been a few months since I started this and I would love to say the argument for ProStores heavily outweighs Volusion but being fair I think they both have good and bad like anything else. Its still the best solution for me at this time. Love it!

HoleeStars says:

Pro stores is a better choice just because you can put up to 5000 products on.This offers you room to expand a small growing business.Such as mine Hole e Stars Handcrafted Furniture.
http://www.holeestars.net

RJ2 says:

http://www.2Sand.com
ProStores rocks because it can be customized to meet many different needs. Our store 2Sand.com has numerous customizations. Can you find one?

StarrFinancial says:

I have used other e-commerce solutions and despite needing to learn ssml ProStores has been the best overall option for us. We love ProStores and we hope they continue to grow and prosper. They have one downside worth mentioning. They really need to update their documentation but the ProStores Discussion Board members (myself included starrfinancial) really try to help each other out. You must be a member of ProStores or a Certified Designer/Developer or ProStores staff to post there.

No way, Monkeybrain Volusion is the best option!

Molly at Volusion says:

While ProStores has its good qualities, Volusion is definitely a better business decision in the long run. You can compare here: http://www.volusion.com/volusion_prostores_comparison/

Christine (CEOGolfshop), with regard to exporting orders with customer information, you might try using the reporting section of the admin area. If you can't find a specific report, Volusion can install reports for you. http://www.volusion.com/report-plus/ Please feel free to call 1-800-646-3517 and ask for the Services team and they will be able to assist you with this.

CEOgolfshop - Christine says:

Volusion is highly customizable, SEO friendly, and has tons of built in admin features. The more complex and larger your store, the more likely this is to be better for you. I like the live interface to update as well as the import/export feature. 5 year user. $89/mth. Never had a bandwidth charge (15GB free) and don't know why people bring this up. I wish there were tighter integration of some data for download and analysis. For example, if I export orders it doesn't give me the customer info and the options. If I download order details with options, I can't get the customer info attached to it. I created prostores for clients when I owned a creative agency. It's been 3 years at least. The two were completely different and probably have different niches. For example, to sell electronics, prostores with ebay integration may be best. To sell what I do, which is regular and custom embroidered apparel and other optionally customized gifts, Volusion is better. But hey, I'm always open to be convinced otherwise. Every system tends to have some drawback and Volusion has them as well. http://my.ceogolfshop.com

PeterSakson says:

It all comes down to this,
Volusion: http://goo.gl/WIuf VS ProStores: http://goo.gl/rfHB

You can be the judge...

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Essential Wonders a ProStores success

Ten years ago Matthew Phillips switched from selling furniture to selling coffee. Those products are so distant in nature that you might wonder why anyone would make that leap. Mr. Phillips shares that story with ProStores in an interview noting the success of Matthew Phillips company Essential Wonders and here is a brief quote from that interview when talking about his search for an e-commerce solution.

""With ProStores, the editor was easy to use; coding was simple; and we could incorporate everything we wanted right into the website. We had a store up and running in just a few days. And the support has been amazing. When I call the support people, they call me right back. They've all helped me write code and not charged me. It's the easiest website software we've ever used.""

Essential Wonders were chosen to be published as a success story by ProStores and have been an inspiration to new ProStores merchants. We applaud their success and wish them many many more years of great profits. When you visit their gourmet coffee site you will instantly find yourself thinking of a nice coffee aroma first thing in the morning on a relaxing vacation somewhere away from all of your worries. Go there and make that daydream a reality today. Be sure to check out their Facebook and Twitter pages for special offers plus if you are a new customer you will want to take advantage of their new customer discount on the home page.

You can find the rest of that article here or go directly to Essential Wonders here.

Volusion's side of the story.

I admit that I am on the ProStores side but I wanted to share a little about Volusion to make this a fair fight. Volusion describes themselves as "Volusion's shopping cart software is the easiest way to sell online %u2605 Test drive the leading ecommerce software solution today! %u2605" on their website based on what we could find.

If you are a Volusion store owner and would like to be featured please contact us and we will do a write up and feature your store. Come join the fun.

What the blogs are saying about ProStores and Volusion.

Sorry, there are no matching results available from Google

Where can you find Pricing Details?

ProStores has a features list and pricing chart available just visit the free trial page One Month Free Trial! ProStores - an eBay Company and select Compare Solutions. Also they offer a Free Demo on this same page.
Visit Volusion to view plans and pricing. Volusion also offers a 14 Day Free Trial.

Learn more about ProStores and Volusion

ProStores Version Update Coming May 17, 2011

Prostores update will include
Bringing back the source editor (good move)
Feed files access - create daily feeds.
ShipRush integration
stamps.com integration

And many enhancing features being added or updated.

Volusion is up for the challenge!

Molly with Volusion has spoken out while ProStores has not so I am impressed they took the time to step in and put a note in response to their customers comment on reports. Very nicely done. Not a strike out by any means but a good move. Where is ProStores staff? hmm

Still Unsure?

One Month Free Trial! ProStores - an eBay Company
Volusion Try it Free

Show off your ProStores store here

If you use ProStores show it off!

Add a link that demonstrates the power of ProStores.

ProStores Vs. Volusion

ProStores is the better e-commerce solution!

Table of Contents

ProStores Vs. Volusion

Feel free to substitute "Volusion" with any other e-commerce solution. Just be sure to let us know the company name in your response.

Which e-commerce solution is better for the price?

Yes, you're right ProStores is the best option!

Affen Schwanz says:

StarrFinancial says:

Volusion says:

StarrFinancial says:

HoleeStars says:

RJ2 says:

StarrFinancial says:

No way, Monkeybrain Volusion is the best option!

Molly at Volusion says:

CEOgolfshop - Christine says:

PeterSakson says:

Essential Wonders a ProStores success

Volusion's side of the story.

What the blogs are saying about ProStores and Volusion.

Where can you find Pricing Details?

Learn more about ProStores and Volusion

ProStores Version Update Coming May 17, 2011

Volusion is up for the challenge!

Still Unsure?

Show off your ProStores store here

If you use ProStores show it off!

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Show off your Volusion store here

Disagree? Put your money where your mouth is and show us why.

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Please pick your widget size and display. Then click "Make the Widget" to get the code that's just right for you.

Voila! Just copy and paste this code into your own site. Have fun!

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Share info on your online store

by StarrFinancial

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