Comments on: Volusion vs Shopify vs CoreCommerce

By: Pablinho

Pablinho — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:22:34 +0000

Very useful post. I’m currently using Shopify and find it easy to use but very limited. also I find their support is very limited, I’m looking into other options and after reading your post I’m considering giving Volusion a try.

Thanks

By: Hrishikesh

Hrishikesh — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 08:36:01 +0000

hi Kim,
Your post was written very nicely. I have sensed these problems in all of these products. We have recently launched a new e-commerce platform called ’39shops’. We want to bridge the big service gap that exists between store owners and these e-commerce solutions. It would be great if you can give our product a try and let us know how you feel about it. We are very new and far from perfect. Your feedback will immensely help using taking our platform where it should be! Here is the link to our website:

Thanks,

Hrishi

By: Karin

Karin — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 03:01:18 +0000

Congratulations! Your site looks awesome!

By: fiona

fiona — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 03:34:18 +0000

anastasia, thank you for writing great detail. i have been looking for a few months comparing till i am blue int he face, and it shows there is not a perfect cart for all out there. with corecommerce, had you experienced a lot of downtime? which was a consistant comment i read?

core have the ability to have the wholesale site as well, plus bundled packages, multiple shipping, and languages which seem nice.

i was hoping to find someone that is using both to give me the comparison.. thank you, any other details you might have would be fantastic. lke issues syncing with accouting software etc.

By: thomas stapleton

thomas stapleton — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:17:31 +0000

you can semi-ftp into shopify using a macro with textmate on a mac. there are instructions on the shopify site. it is a new thing – really helps with development.

By: Kim

Kim — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 22:17:55 +0000

^Hey Kiara, I did end up going with Volusion. I like it, but there are still customization issues. You can customize the layout pretty much as much as you want. But you cant customize the tables for the products. That doesnt sound like a big deal, but its annoying because they don’t add any spaces between the product images and the price/product name/links, etc., and the product pages end up looking cluttered :/ Kind of annoying.

By: Kiara

Kiara — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 04:01:16 +0000

Your post was very helpful, as I have been comparing these three carts also.
I have found CoreCommerce has the BEST features, but it is definitely the WORST for customisation! I cant get anything to work and I am well versed in PHP, CSS and HTML. Its just very buggy like you mentioned.
So I am now going to try out Volusion. I have also read up on NetworkSolutions and apparently they are quite good. However their package prices arent anything to be desired, so I am still ontemplating what to do.

I would love to hear how you went with it all.

By: Anastasia

Anastasia — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 11:07:29 +0000

I have used Shopify and recently “upgraded” to BigCommerce. And now have a second store on CoreCommerce mainly because they support multiple language.
Shopify is really simple ecommerce. Simple as in not to many frills and bells and whistles. Changing the tempate was awful and you are right, the Vision template editing program is completely useless. One of the main reasons for “upgrading” my site.

BigCommerce does have a wonderful admin and has been quite easy to use. Template changes and mods are super easy. I like that you can see the original code, highlight the changes you have made to the original template and revert them if needed. I did have a brief issue with missing panels, but resolved pretty quick.
BigCommerce does lack some important features for such a highly popular and heavily marketed site, such as PCI compliant, fulfillment services, multiple language support, daily currency exchange updates, backend updates are sllloowww to roll out and you are on pins and needles when upgrading your site that the upgrade my total your site and leave your live site useless for a while. Scary! Check out the community post for more problems and clients begging for standard features to be implemented.
CoreCommerce has a dry admin, but mirrors the structure of BigCommerce a lot to the degree that I thought they might be built on the same core or something. They roll out new features every few weeks and it does not affect your template (so it seems). All the problems with BigCommerce seem to dealt with with CoreCommerce. The complaints you had about them are covered now. CC also seems to focus on their function and upgrades opposed to their marketing. There is way less chatter in the forum and overall. I attribute this to clients not really have major issues. I haven’t used costumer service on CoreCommerce, but calling BigCommerce and resolving my issues on the phone was really nice.
Both systems have pros and cons. It is up to what you need and want from your ecommerce. I foresee that I will be using both systems for a while.

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:41:28 +0000

@Amy, I ended up figuring out the template thing. Thanks for the offer though!

@Sapna – be sure to let us know who you ultimately end up going with!

By: sapna

sapna — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:54:50 +0000

Hi Kim,

I’m a jewelry designer and like you, I’m trying to choose a shopping cart platform. I nixed Volusion because i heard of horrible downtime there. I really liked Shopify and was excited about the unlimited bandwidth and built in blog but they hardly have any features like gift certificates, RMAs (managing returns)…
I am not deciding between CoreCommerce and Big Commerce. I have to agree that the Core Commerce admin interface was horrendous! I almost gave up and then when I logged into my free trial again a couple days ago saw that they made some (welcome)changes to the interface. But still not so easy to use.

I love the Big Commerce admin interface but they are lacking some features that I absolutely need (like free shipping discount code) and I still can’t figure out how to add multiple shipping options!

My awesome hubby is a web designer/developer so he will be customising my site. He said that may be a bit easier with Big commerce than Core Commerce.

It was nice reading your blog…. I feel your frustration too!! Good Luck!!
- sapna