Did you ever have that feeling like you just couldn't shake the albatross around your neck? Kinda like having a problem with your car that caused an eerie noise, which, after you had it fixed, you still spent weeks listening to see if the problem is coming back?
I'm having one of those moments. After a few years of being in a job saddled with Volusion, I finally broke free to another job. Unfortunately, that job didn't work out. So, I found another one.
Sadly, my second day on the job, they introduced me to one of my major responsibilities: working with their web site's e-commerce store, powered by Volusion.
Oh, happy day. The car is making that funny noise again, and I have a big dead bird hanging around my throat.
So, I guess I'll be relieving my stress on this blog again. I hoped that after nine months away, Volusion would have figured some things out.
Wishful thinking. Volusion still sucks.
More to come...
Want to open a successful online store? Live vicariously through the travails of one person's attempts to build a successful eCommerce site with Volusion.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Monday, September 17, 2012
Volusion is Special
Harken back to when you were in early elemental school. You probably had one kid in your class who was, um, special. Not the exceptional kind of special. No, more like the mommy-accidentally-dropped-him-on-his-head-37-times-during-his-first-year-of-life kind of Special (with a capital "S"). Think Stephen Lynch singing about Special Ed; that kind of Special.
Now, I remember we had a Special kid in my class when I was in elementary school, who was with us all the way through high school. In 2nd grade, we picked on that poor kid mercilessly. However, by the time we were in high school, we had quit picking on him (matter of fact, most of us kind of protected him a bit).
Why did we quit picking on him?
Simple. There was no challenge to it anymore. It was too easy. What fun is there in picking on a defenseless person without the faculties to defend himself?
It is for this reason that I've pretty much given up on picking on Volusion on this blog. Just like that Special kid that we picked on in 2nd grade, I eventually got bored with it, because it was too easy.
Does that give Volusion a free pass? Of course not. Eventually, they'll work themselves out of business because word will get around about how deficient their software and service really is.
And what will Volusion need to do? Just like Billy Beane in Moneyball, they'll have to "adapt or die."
But I'm tired of bashing them. Not because they don't need it. They do, believe me. It's just that it isn't all that fun anymore.
Its just too easy.
Now, I remember we had a Special kid in my class when I was in elementary school, who was with us all the way through high school. In 2nd grade, we picked on that poor kid mercilessly. However, by the time we were in high school, we had quit picking on him (matter of fact, most of us kind of protected him a bit).
Why did we quit picking on him?
Simple. There was no challenge to it anymore. It was too easy. What fun is there in picking on a defenseless person without the faculties to defend himself?
It is for this reason that I've pretty much given up on picking on Volusion on this blog. Just like that Special kid that we picked on in 2nd grade, I eventually got bored with it, because it was too easy.
Does that give Volusion a free pass? Of course not. Eventually, they'll work themselves out of business because word will get around about how deficient their software and service really is.
And what will Volusion need to do? Just like Billy Beane in Moneyball, they'll have to "adapt or die."
But I'm tired of bashing them. Not because they don't need it. They do, believe me. It's just that it isn't all that fun anymore.
Its just too easy.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Drop-shipping Fees
I've mentioned it before, but one area where Volusion does have an advantage over some competitors (and truly the only real reason we've not abandoned Volusion) is because of their ability to calculate shipping costs from more than one warehouse on a single order. However, there is a huge deficiency, and three years of complaining to Volusion hasn't yielded a solution. Of course, if they had anyone in the QA department that actually worked with their users to fulfill the user's needs (rather than focusing on Volusion's need for increased profitability), they would have done something about this deficiency years ago.
Here it is:
Many distributors charge a drop-shipping charge per-shipment. In our case, we have vendors that charge anywhere from $2 to $7.50 per drop-shipped order. The problem is that Volusion doesn't have the ability to add this per-shipment drop-shipping fee per order. There is a simple solution that we have proposed many times, that being the ability to add a per-shipment fee per warehouse.
Volusion has repeatedly denied this request, whether through the old enhancement request system (that entailed multiple entries into the forum to try and get the message properly formatted and past the prying eyes of the administrator, a.k.a., Forum-Nazi Dave), or the seemingly-ignored-yet-somehow "improved" enhancement request system.
Instead, the solution the (on) crack team at Volusion support suggested was to add a fee to each PRODUCT, as shown here:
Well, that's fine and dandy, but creates more problems than it solves. This means that if there is a $5.00 drop-shipping fee required by the vendor (and thus added per product), and a customer orders ten units, the order will have a $50 fee added to the shipping costs.
Guess what happens to that customer?
If we're lucky, they leave and probably never come back. If we're unlucky, they flame us on Google Shopping for excessive shipping costs.
So, what I have to do is try to determine the AVERAGE number of items for each particular vendor per order, and adjust the Fixed Shipping Cost per product accordingly. In other words, if my wild-assed guess is too low, we lose money. If it is too high, we lose customers.
Thanks, Volusion.
Here it is:
Many distributors charge a drop-shipping charge per-shipment. In our case, we have vendors that charge anywhere from $2 to $7.50 per drop-shipped order. The problem is that Volusion doesn't have the ability to add this per-shipment drop-shipping fee per order. There is a simple solution that we have proposed many times, that being the ability to add a per-shipment fee per warehouse.
Volusion has repeatedly denied this request, whether through the old enhancement request system (that entailed multiple entries into the forum to try and get the message properly formatted and past the prying eyes of the administrator, a.k.a., Forum-Nazi Dave), or the seemingly-ignored-yet-somehow "improved" enhancement request system.
Instead, the solution the (on) crack team at Volusion support suggested was to add a fee to each PRODUCT, as shown here:
Well, that's fine and dandy, but creates more problems than it solves. This means that if there is a $5.00 drop-shipping fee required by the vendor (and thus added per product), and a customer orders ten units, the order will have a $50 fee added to the shipping costs.
Guess what happens to that customer?
If we're lucky, they leave and probably never come back. If we're unlucky, they flame us on Google Shopping for excessive shipping costs.
So, what I have to do is try to determine the AVERAGE number of items for each particular vendor per order, and adjust the Fixed Shipping Cost per product accordingly. In other words, if my wild-assed guess is too low, we lose money. If it is too high, we lose customers.
Thanks, Volusion.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
The Volusion ESPN Model
Today, I'm going to rail on Volusion's adaptation of what I call, "The ESPN Model."
For anyone who is a sports fan in the USA, 1996 was one of the worst years on record.
Why?
Because that was the year that Mickey Mouse bought what was the greatest sports network on the planet, and immediately began to F&#K it up. Now, it's nothing but painful-to-watch, shameless self-promotion. Never mind that the network still chooses to employ Jabba the Hutt:
With the exception of their college football and basketball coverage, most of their programming is more about ESPN than it is about the event that the viewer tuned in to watch. If they would only worry about doing the job at hand (the event being broadcast at that moment) and quit spending so much time trying to sell their personalities, other shows and the brand itself, they would begin to do the job we would expect from a network that bills itself as the worldwide leader in sports.
Unfortunately, Volusion has chosen to take the same self-promotional path, and here is a perfect example. Volusion's SEO module is riddled with so many problems that it is almost impossible to outline all of them here. However, every time you turn around, Volusion is trying to sell their clientele on the benefits of their extremely pricey SEO service, where they will attempt to optimize your pages for higher visibility in the search engines (which, in an era where fresh content is king after Google's Panda and Penguin updates, is a complete and total waste of money).
When one considers Volusion's incessant self-promotional methodology, is it a coincidence that they offer a paid service that is supposed to improve upon functionality that sucks in their program?
You be the judge.
For anyone who is a sports fan in the USA, 1996 was one of the worst years on record.
Why?
Because that was the year that Mickey Mouse bought what was the greatest sports network on the planet, and immediately began to F&#K it up. Now, it's nothing but painful-to-watch, shameless self-promotion. Never mind that the network still chooses to employ Jabba the Hutt:
With the exception of their college football and basketball coverage, most of their programming is more about ESPN than it is about the event that the viewer tuned in to watch. If they would only worry about doing the job at hand (the event being broadcast at that moment) and quit spending so much time trying to sell their personalities, other shows and the brand itself, they would begin to do the job we would expect from a network that bills itself as the worldwide leader in sports.
Unfortunately, Volusion has chosen to take the same self-promotional path, and here is a perfect example. Volusion's SEO module is riddled with so many problems that it is almost impossible to outline all of them here. However, every time you turn around, Volusion is trying to sell their clientele on the benefits of their extremely pricey SEO service, where they will attempt to optimize your pages for higher visibility in the search engines (which, in an era where fresh content is king after Google's Panda and Penguin updates, is a complete and total waste of money).
When one considers Volusion's incessant self-promotional methodology, is it a coincidence that they offer a paid service that is supposed to improve upon functionality that sucks in their program?
You be the judge.
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