Online job post boards are full of Volusion clients trying to find qualified freelancers or foreign companies to complete work on their storefronts, but what are the risks of outsourcing your Volusion projects on these types of boards? This question has been a hot topic in our forums lately. Current Volusion customers weighed in on their experiences outsourcing everything from coding and third party integrations, to design and SEO. The feedback they gave made it overwhelmingly clear that services such as these are, as the old adage goes, “buyer beware.”

Complaints from our Forum Users

These are the top complaints our customers had regarding their experiences with outsourcing their Volusion projects to freelancers or foreign companies:

1. Language barriers made communication difficult
2. Project took longer than expected/quoted
3. Client fell prey to a scam
4. Too much time was consumed by excessive or redundant communications
5. Work was of poor quality
6. Client’s local market was not well understood
7. Business Logic was flawed/client’s business model was not understood

Quotes from our Forum Users

“I was supposed to have a project done months ago that was outsourced and they are giving me the run-around on it, which means I’m going to have to pay even more money and find someone local to complete it as I just don’t have time to do it myself.” -htdepot (more…)

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Give Me Email or Give Me Death

Email is life for many Americans. In fact, recent studies show that 87% of Americans use email as their primary form of online communication. The prevalence of email in our culture may be the driving force behind the approximately 4.4% conversion rate from email marketing reported earlier this year. Unfortunately, these positive statistics have led some marketers to abuse the success of email marketing.

Recently, a survey asked North Americans how often they unsubscribe from emails. Fourteen percent of respondents said they “frequently” unsubscribe, with an additional 55% reporting that they “sometimes” unsubscribe from emails. As a marketer or small business owner, obviously, you want to minimize the number of customers unsubscribing to your emails. But how can you keep people from unsubscribing? (more…)

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In 2006 Loren Taylor moved his water fountain website www.SoothingWalls.com to the Volusion platform. As he explains, “I tried several ecommerce solutions and none compared to the options and flexibility that Volusion offered. I was instantly sold on their service.” But his move to Volusion was just the beginning!

It’s A Success!

After getting SoothingWalls up and running, sales just snowballed. From 2007 to 2008 SoothingWalls saw revenue grow 600%, but this massive surge did not slow Loren down- SoothingWalls is on record to grow an additional 100% by the end of this year.

Currently Loren is maintaining www.SoothingWalls.com and www.ethanpaulfountains.com, but within the last three years Loren has opened a total of 10 online stores with Volusion, so it’s anyone’s guess as to how many stores he’ll have running at this time next year.

Loren has a natural entrepreneurial spirit. He’s tried it all and he’s succeeded in a big way! So what advice can he give to fellow online store owners? Simply put, Loren advises, “Don’t give up too easy.  Volusion offers the tools to succeed online, just have faith in yourself and your products.” (more…)

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World Vision President Rich Stearns observes children at a watering hole near the Boset area development program in Ethiopia.

In light of our recent focus on The Volusion Foundation we thought it would be informative to allow World Vision to do a guest post to explain a little bit more about their worldwide efforts.

World Vision Director of Executive Communications, Dean Owen, sat down with World Vision President, Rich Stearns to get the perspective from the top. Below is the transcript from the interview:

Dean: Why was World Vision founded?
Rich: In 1950, World Vision founder, Bob Pierce, a pastor and documentary filmmaker, was deeply touched by the plight of Korean War orphans.  His heart had been broken, as he would later pray, by the things that must also break the heart of God.

The vision of one man nearly 60 years ago has now grown into the largest Christian humanitarian organization in the world, with 40,000 staff working in nearly 100 countries.  Our global budget last fiscal year was $2.6 billion, including nearly $400 million in donated products from U.S.-based companies.

Dean: How can another business owner get involved?
Rich: World Vision receives products, services and monetary donations from all kinds of businesses. Companies can get involved in many different ways. Some donate goods and services such as pharmaceuticals, books, toothpaste, school supplies, toys, clothing and even services such as shipping or consulting.  Some companies provide cash gifts to support specific projects here in the US or internationally.  Others may launch an employee giving campaign or partner with us in a cause-related marketing effort to link their brand or product with World Vision’s work. With their many assets and capabilities, businesses are a great source of untapped resources for charities. (more…)

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Kevin Sproles’ trip to Africa on behalf of The Volusion Foundation has prompted some of you to ask us, “What is the Volusion Foundation?” The Volusion Foundation is focused around three areas of support- Time, Product and Revenue. The Volusion Foundation devotes 1% Time to serve the community, 1% Product to help non-profits businesses, and 1% Revenue to provide support for the environment and vulnerable children and families worldwide.

1% Time
Volusion employees are given paid days off to volunteer with their favorite charity organization(s) as well as presented with company-wide opportunities to give back to their communities throughout the year.

Right now, actually, the Texas office is collecting items for “Operation Backpack” through Project HELP to provide school supplies for Austin’s needy children.

1% Product
Currently there are a number nonprofit companies using Volusion’s platform. Every month Volusion sets aside some gold level stores to provide to eligible nonprofit companies at no cost through our Stores to Change the World program. (more…)

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