There are just two words that sum up the internal search function of Volusion eCommerce shopping cart software -- but being a professional, I won't use those two words, and will instead just say, "not good".

When a user searches your Volusion store, the search only returns results where the search term appears in the Product Code, Product Name or if the words were (manually) entered in the Additional Product Keywords field of a product record. By default, none of the text in product descriptions, product options, category pages, help files, policy pages, the "knowledge base", (or image alt tags, meta data, etc, etc), or any other text in your store is searched.

To enable Volusion's "extensive search", (which does at least search the description fields of your product pages), you need to add the following hidden input field into your search form.

<input type="hidden" name="Extensive_Search" value="Y">

Still the result pages are poorly formatted and since there are no suggestions for mis-spelled words, semantic or contextual search functionality, and no "best match" -- this leaves the user to fumble through the results, or worse; may cause potential customers to leave your site and go to Google or another search engine to locate the product they want to buy.

You May be Losing Sales because of Volusion Search!

But, there is a solution...

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Using Volusion Coupon Codes and Promos

You had a web designer create a custom template for your Volusuion store and it looks great. You got great products. You've got great prices. You offer great service. But, you aren't getting enough traffic to your site.

What's next? You look into Adwords and other PPC advertising, and even spend a little money to buy some traffic. It works well, but after considering your narrow profit margin, and competition for keywords in your market, you think, "There has to be a better (cheaper) way to get people to the site".

One way to get traffic is to run a promotion. Sure, you could buy PPC ads to promote the special pricing, free shipping offer, or other savings -- but then you realize there [READ MORE...]