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By: Laura Bernheim
Editor: Lillian Castro
Reviewer: Cristian Lopez
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★★★★★
Founded by 16-year-old Kevin Sproles in 1999 as a web design studio, Volusion added ecommerce functionality in 2002 and hasn't looked back. More than 180,000 entrepreneurs have looked to the company for help hosting and managing their online businesses, and Volusion has processed more than 185 million orders worth $26 billion. The company offers a hosting/site-building combo platter worthy of consideration if you're in need of a basic online store and the means to promote products. The company focuses on easy, custom designs and ecommerce-optimized features. Although Volusion could increase its support offerings to further justify a price tag that exceeds most shared hosting competitors, the company's focused niche in online store design and inventory management warrants the investment. Store owners will need to purchase a domain elsewhere before connecting it to Volusion and launching their store. Once you're ready to start designing your site, Volusion's revamped site builder provides dozens of stellar mobile-friendly themes. The company used to offer hundreds of themes, so we expect — and want — to see the number of options grow. Unlike many ecommerce site builder plans that limit your product numbers substantially, Volusion's most basic plan allows you to display unlimited products. Regardless of which plan you choose, site owners are allotted unlimited storage and zero transaction fees, in addition to tools for inventory management, order processing, and shipping oversight. Finally, market your products via social media integrations and reach new markets via integrations with Amazon, eBay, and Google. Collect payments via all the major credit card issuers (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and AmEx), as well as through cash, PayPal, Google Wallet, Amazon, and Stripe. The platform will calculate reports to show your return on investment and store activity.
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★★★★★
As a web builder, Wix is an industry leader when it comes to ease of use, setup time, and available features. The browser-based, WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) site-building service is hands down one of the foremost brands in this industry niche, and that's not without just cause. Getting started and familiar with the platform is a straightforward process, and the resulting websites you can build are in keeping with industry standards, as far as design and customization go. While you're not going to get the same level of support as you would from a leading web hosting service, the feature set available and included in this free service is a pretty exhaustive list. All it takes to sign up — and said signup is free — is an email or a Facebook account. Once you're in, you can preview thousands of templates, which are all broken up into categories and then further classified by design or industry type. For example, choose the Online Store category with the Clothing & Accessories subcategory to start selling your custom-printed t-shirts. Your garage band can showcase your latest performances and let family and friends know of upcoming shows by utilizing the Music and Band categories. You can browse the most popular templates and check out the newest additions. Once you've made your pick, you may feel a tad overwhelmed at the interface — but that's only because the functionality exceeds that of your typical drag-and-drop builder. You can manipulate and edit virtually any facet of your new website, until it perfectly matches the picture in your head. Finally, get your finished creation noticed by search engines (and the millions of web surfers that they send to websites) using the Wix SEO Wizard. Just tell the Wizard the words or phrases you want people to search for and find your site, and Wix will spit back out a full SEO report — so you know where you stand in terms of relevant visitors being sent to your site. Wix premium plan customers can also benefit from $300-worth of search engine advertising credits, upping the chances of increased site visitors. Anyone could find themselves wanting a website at some point in their career or personal life. Whether you're a stay-at-home mom with a creative writing habit to share or a serial entrepreneur ready to profit from your next great idea, you don't want building your own website from scratch to be a strain — on your wallet, your time, or your brain. With Wix, you can be your own web designer, developer, and marketer. The interface is easy to use and the end designs are up to snuff with industry standards. When it comes to code-free website building, Wix is a leader and an innovator.
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★★★★★
When folks typically search for cheap web hosting, they're often in need of a shared server provider that offers a basic site builder or easy integration with blogging apps or content tools. For folks looking to launch an online store, however, costs can rise with the addition of ecommerce-friendly features. Volusion might not be the most affordable hosting/site-building combo around, but the company does focus on helping customers build a better ecommerce store. All of their plans are geared toward promoting more products in more ways, though the price scales rapidly as you upgrade your plan to take advantage of additional services. Similar to mainstream hosts, however, Volusion is designed to help store owners become successful. The company makes the design and setup process user-friendly and emphasizes ecommerce with each feature or customization option added. You might not get the same 24/7 technical support that other hosts offer, but Volusion can help entrepreneurs build a basic website and beautiful online store that profits quickly with zero transaction fees. Volusion's business is helping you launch your online business quickly and painlessly. The company makes store designing simple and offer a solid number of customization options when it comes to promoting your products. While Volusion may not have the lowest price tag on its services, the company offers what many hosting newcomers are looking for, which is an extensive feature set that caters to ecommerce needs.
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★★★★★
Wix is known as a web-leading site builder service that's one of the most affordable — because getting started is absolutely free and about as easy as processes get. You can log in via Facebook or your Gmail account and be editing your new web property within minutes. All but the most basic of plans include a free domain name voucher for your first year of service, and with Wix comes the wealth of templates to be customized within the Wix Editor. This interface is extremely intuitive, once you take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with it. Once you're comfortable, you'll find yourself dragging and dropping images, text, menus, sliders, and more — all without any code — and feeling like a full-fledged web designer extraordinaire. All of the template designs are up to the latest industry standards, including parallax layouts, a mobile display editor, and responsive designs, and there are thousands of themes to browse. If you've read our reviews and seen the multitude of features that can be had for a mere few dollars a month, you've probably realized that Wix is not the cheapest on the list. With Wix, you're paying for the user-friendliness of the no-tech-skills-needed platform, as well as the speed at which you can get your new site up and running. You're paying for accessibility, so to speak. That doesn't mean you're not getting a lot for the price. Premium plan holders, in particular, can benefit from $300-worth of ad vouchers, free apps for building forms and boosting your site's SEO status, and even priority support. Bottom line: There is tremendous value in the offerings of Wix plans. Things like 24/7 expert phone support, stellar uptime rates, and mega-powerful servers are not features they tout, but that's intentional. Wix is an awesome website builder service, and if that's what you're looking for, you've come to the right place.
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★★★★★
Volusion's drag-and-drop builder and ecommerce interfaces are exceedingly modern and user-friendly, but the company is still playing a bit of catch-up. Our biggest knock on the site builder when comparing Volusion to other ecommerce platforms is the lack of theme options, which we expect to be solved as time passes. At the time of writing, Volusion offers roughly 50 design templates, while competitors offer hundreds of choices. The beauty of an online website builder is the idea of focusing on the WYSIWYG or what-you-see-is-what-you-get aspects of the design process and knowing that the web hosting itself is happening in the background. That's why online platforms like Volusion are particularly good options for first-time site owners and mom-and-pop shops that just need to get a basic website off the ground. When it comes to easy-to-learn customization features, Volusion does an excellent job of giving users options. Once you're up and running, you can promote unlimited products and add plenty of photos and videos to display your items, with specifications for the colors, sizes, and textures that are available for each. Finally, promote your online store via social media, send out email marketing campaigns, sell on a variety of integrated third-party platforms, and track your business progress with informative reports and analytics. Overall, Volusion's strong suit is site building for ecommerce. There are tons of online web builder platforms out there, but Volusion specializes in catering its plans to meet the needs of future online store owners. The company makes it pretty easy to get started, offer a bunch of layout options, and allow you to customize via HTML and CSS as well.
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★★★★★
#1 out of 9 in Website Builder Hosting reviews Website building is where Wix shines. The thousands of templates, the intuitive editor, the industry-leading designs that cater to a variety of specific fields and use cases — all these facets represent a platform that excels at facilitating easy web design for the non-tech-savvy user. Sign up with your Facebook account or email address and get started for free. I'll admit, the Wix Editor may appear daunting when you first meet it, but get to know the interface. Once you familiarize yourself with the environment, you'll realize that what first comes across as overwhelming is actually empowering — the customization functionalities to be had are many, and they're awesome. There's no need for coding of any kind. Just drag and drop elements of your new site and BAM: What You See Is What You Get (i.e., Wix is a WYSIWYG website builder!). You don't have to design your website from scratch with Wix, though blank templates are available. There are thousands of templates, each one categorized by design need and further classified into industry niches, and the site's look can be molded to match your brand or personality very easily. Layout and design options include parallax themes (where the viewer scrolls down the screen and one page rolls seamlessly into the next), custom sliders, multiple columns, mobile-specific and mobile-responsive displays, and tons of button and menu navigation tricks. While Wix isn't our favorite host in terms of expert support or top-of-the-line hardware, it's an industry-leading platform for website building. It's popular for many reasons: the simple startup process, the ease of use, the array of customization options, and the WYSIWYG results, as examples. Its reputation precedes it, and we can totally see where the rave reviews are coming from.
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