Webflow Review: Should You Use It For Ecommerce? [What We Honestly Think]

In today’s booming ecommerce industry, aspiring entrepreneurs are presented with a multitude of platform choices. To be honest, it can be quite confusing. So to help narrow down your choices, we decided to pick one, put it to the test, scrutinize it, and see if it is indeed a good ecommerce platform. Hence, this in-depth Webflow review.

So if you want to know more about Webflow, this is the place to be. Let’s get started.

Is Webflow Similar To WordPress?

Both WordPress and Webflow can be used for ecommerce. However, since WordPress is the more popular one, it has more ecommerce plugins and integrations compared to Webflow.

Those who want the flexibility of the WordPress CMS can design a website and integrate ecommerce platforms to it to carry out their ecommerce functions. For example, it can be integrated with Shopify so that a website has a CMS using WordPress and an ecommerce function that is powered by Shopify.

With so much flexibility, WordPress is not actually a beginner-friendly platform. Instead, it is best used by web developers in order to maximize the CMS.

On the other hand, we have these platforms like Shopify, Wix, and Webflow that are classified as website builders.

A website builder is a more user-friendly platform where anyone – even beginners – can launch a well-designed website. Webflow is developed for web designers and it also has a number of integrations and a few apps built around its ecommerce capability.

Therefore, if you are a beginner who wants to launch a website, Webflow is a good solution for you.

Features

Take a look at some of the features of Webflow:

Box Model

Webflow has a very unique “Box Model”, as they call it. Typical website builders divide their pages by sections – which means horizontal divisions that span on both ends of a page.

There are also sections on Webflow, however, these sections can consist of blocks that you can manually manipulate in order to get the design that you want without affecting the entire section.

Webflow Templates

One of the things that both new and professional web designers would love about Webflow is that they can start with a blank canvas and build a website from the ground up. But to those who want to have a starting point, this platform offers thousands of screen responsive templates across 16 different categories. Additionally, you can find free templates.

Parallax, Animations, and Interactions

Right from their dashboard (no third-party apps needed), Webflow allows users to put animations on their designs, include parallax motions, and add tiny movements to make their web pages more interactive and fun to use.

Backup & Security

Source: Webflow

Webflow is hosted in Amazon Web Service or AWS – which is known for its secure cloud services encryption.

This makes Webflow relatively secure. Additionally, it also has some built-in security features such as:

• Two-factor authentication
• SSO capabilities with G Suite
• Single Sign-On (capabilities vary based on subscription tier)
• Role based permissions
• Free SSL certificate
• Backups and versioning

Ecommerce Capability

Source: Webflow

Webflow has an ecommerce feature that allows entrepreneurs to create online stores. However, we found a very important aspect of ecommerce that is lacking in this platform. And later in this article, we will shed light into that.

Let’s Put It To The Test

Now, it’s time to put Webflow to the test to see if it is indeed a beginner-friendly platform. Take note that this is also the first time that we’re going to use Webflow. So we are in the process of learning it just like you are.

Our focal point for this one is Webflow’s ecommerce capabilities. Thus, our succeeding discussions will revolve around that.

Let us begin.

Selecting a Template

After signing up on Webflow, you can either start from a Blank Site or you can choose from the three pre-structured templates depending on your purpose.

On the other hand, you can scroll down the page to find templates for your chosen business. Click View All on the upper right corner of the section and you will be redirected to their selection of themes.

We chose ecommerce from the categories and we opted for this one:

Reminder: You need to be careful and decisive when choosing a theme on Webflow because unlike Shopify, you cannot change your theme in the future if you don’t like its functionality.

That’s why in selecting a template, it is important to try it out in the Webflow editor and take your time with it.

To explore the template, click on Preview in Designer (refer to the image above).

First Impressions: Editor Interface

Upon first glance, the designer has this overwhelming and intimidating feel to it because of the buttons and menus on both sides of the screen – to the point that it looks like the interface of Adobe Photoshop.

But don’t be too afraid, it’s fairly easy to understand. The key here is to familiarize yourself with the navigation.

Navigator

The navigator menu shows you the overall structure of the website in list form. As you can see, the template scrolls down to show the section that we are selecting.

Clicking on the dropdown arrow beside the list item will reveal the different elements contained on that section – including boxes, images, headers, text, etc. This is how you manually manipulate these elements using the customization pane on the right side of your screen.

Pages

If you want to view the other pages in your website, click Pages in the left pane and select the page that you want to view. And then, you can click on the Navigator menu while on that page to see the different sections of the page.

Content Management System (CMS)

The CMS menu will show you the content that you have published in your website – including blogs and press releases. This is where you can publish new blogs on your website.

Ecommerce

Lastly, we have the ecommerce menu where you can find products and collections. This is where you can fill out their descriptive information such as name, price, slug, description, category, images, and other details.

Conclusion From First Impressions

We must admit, we were a bit overwhelmed when we first saw its web designer interface. But after spending some time exploring it, we realized that it is not really that difficult to understand how it works.

Given that we have barely scratched the surface of the editor, we’re pretty sure that it will take quite a bit of time to truly learn everything – realistically speaking.

Webflow University

The good thing about this platform is that it has a Webflow University where it takes you to a structured course to jumpstart your learning. Here, you have video-format beginner and advanced courses.

Also within Webflow University, you get access to different lessons that tackle all aspects of the website. You can learn more about properly using its “box model”, conditional logic, animations, SEO, and more.

Therefore, if you don’t have prior experience in using Webflow, these learning materials will help you build the right skill sets.

Webflow Pricing For Ecommerce

Webflow has different pricing structures for general-use websites, freelancers, and ecommerce. The above-shown image is the pricing for ecommerce.

• Standard plan starts at $29
• Plus plan starts at $74
• Advanced plan starts at $212

For new ecommerce entrepreneurs, they would naturally navigate towards the Standard plan which is the cheapest of them all. However, take note that this is billed annually. Thus, it still requires a minimum of $348 dollars for a start.

WebFlow For Ecommerce, Is It Good Enough?

We now know that Webflow is an excellent platform for those who want to create a modern website without limiting their creativity. It is undeniable that this platform has aced design flexibility.

However, is it wise to use a Webflow site for ecommerce?

You see, although web design plays a huge factor in ecommerce in order to attract customers, there are other factors that need to be considered when choosing an ecommerce platform – these are called apps, plugins, and integrations.

These three things have a substantial role in your website’s ability to convert visitors into paying customers. Additionally, these things add flexibility to your online store so you can scale it when your business grows.

With all these in mind, we listed down the important things that should be present in an ecommerce platform and figured out if Webflow has all these.

Let’s take a look.

Payment Gateway

First and foremost, an ecommerce site should have a payment gateway to provide your customers with a means to securely process their payments.

For this part, Webflow gives you two options of payment providers – Stripe and Paypal.

Stripe lets you process debit and credit transactions for Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, and more. On the other hand, Paypal lets you process payments via its platform.

Point Of Sale (POS)

Webflow doesn’t have a POS infrastructure built around it yet. Thus, if you own a physical store, you can’t centralize your online and local sales and inventory. If you are purely operating online, this shouldn’t be a problem.

SEO

Webflow has a very basic built-in SEO feature where you can upload images, edit alt texts, meta descriptions, slugs, and the likes. However, it does not have a robust tool to see how your site is doing in terms of traffic and SEO performance.

If you want to have that capability to ensure that your store is doing well, you have to look at the Webflow App store.

So we went to their app store and found this:

By installing Optomate to your Webflow ecommerce site, you will get access to a wide range of SEO tools. Optomate has the following capabilities:

Audit

Monitor 200+ parameters search engines use to rank your website. This has a 24/7 site monitoring feature where it crawls your website to identify errors as they happen.

Optimize

This helps fix critical issues of your website and figure out opportunities to improve SEO. For each error, Optomate provides actionable insights to rectify issues. This feature ensures that your website does not experience sudden drops in web traffic for reasons that could have been avoided.

Automate

All processes Optomate offers are automated. The app gives you monthly reports of your SEO performance, and real-time critical alerts so you can act as fast as possible when issues happen.

Sales Conversion

Conversion is the process of converting your visitors into buyers or customers. In most cases, you will need apps to optimize your store’s conversion rate – regardless of the platform that you are using.

Again, we went back to Webflow’s app store to see if there’s an app built for this task.

We found Monto.

Monto is an app that helps boost the sales of your Webflow business website through the following features:

Abandoned Cart Recovery

Set up email campaigns to remind customers of their abandoned cart from your website. The average conversion of ecommerce stores is only at 3% – even for large businesses. Thus, at this low rate, recovering abandoned carts and converting them to sales can substantially impact your bottom line.

Reviews

Monto allows you to automate your review collection by sending email review requests to your previous customers. As you know, customer feedback impacts your potential customer’s buying decision.

Subscriptions

This subscription tool allows you to keep your customers engaged with your business by giving them the option to subscribe to your store. This means recurring sales.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing can help you create brand ambassadors out of your customers by incentivizing them every time they spread the word about your business.

Multi-Currency Payment

With Monto, you can tap into a global audience by using its multi-currency platform to convert your prices into the local currency of your international customers. Currently, Monto supports 100 currencies and these are converted real-time into the prevailing forex rate.

Dropshipping

Dropshipping is one of the easiest ecommerce businesses to start. Unfortunately, this is where Webflow comes short.

Some of the most popular dropshipping platforms out there are:

• CJDropshipping
• DSers-AliExpress
• Spocket
• Zendrop
• Printful, and
• Trendsi

However, Webflow only works (as of this writing) with one of them – Printful.

Not to say that Printful is a lesser choice. But having only one choice for dropshipping limits your business in a huge way.

What We Did And Didn’t Like About WebFlow: Pros & Cons

There are a lot of good things to be said about Webflow. But at the same time, there are also quite a number of not-so-good ones that can’t be ignored. Here are its pros and cons.

Pros

Some of the things we like about Webflow are:

Design Flexibility

This is the part where we are most impressed. The designs and templates are just spectacular and eye-catching. You no longer need a page builder to create an eye-catching website because Webflow is so flexible and malleable out of the box. After-all, it’s a design-centered web builder.

Webflow University

The developers of Webflow are aware that using their website requires a bit of a learning curve – especially with its “box model”.

Since we at PageFly are accustomed to using Shopify stores, we must admit that we were a bit overwhelmed upon first experiencing Webflow’s editor. To navigate our way through this different approach, we relied on Webflow University’s courses and lessons.

SEO Friendly

Aside from visually stunning, Webflow sites are also SEO friendly in terms of load speed. We visited some of the top websites that are using this platform and were amazed at how snappy they are.

Some of the websites we visited are:

• April Ford
• Michael Kors Collection
• VOUS Church
• Moon UltraLight
• Hsu McCullough

Best For Web Designers And Company Websites

Webflow is best for companies, professionals, and individuals who want a dynamic, modern, and visually striking website. User experience is surely something that you can ace if you take your time in designing a website using Webflow.

Integrations

Webflow has a very small list of apps in its app store (see next section). However, there are a number of possible integrations to it so you can improve its ecommerce functionality.

Elfsight is a software developer that creates widgets for different platforms such as Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, Webflow and more.

For Webflow, Elfsight has more than 60 tools and widgets for social media, ecommerce and more.

There are also hundreds of Webflow integrations for different use cases. Thus, the number of apps is compensated for by this.

Cons

Some of the things we didn’t like about Webflow are:

Limited Apps

Webflow’s ecommerce platform was only launched in 2018. It is relatively new when compared to platforms like Wix and Shopify.

Being a new player in town, there are very few apps that are compatible with it. In fact, as of this writing, there are only 34 apps in the app store. Additionally, the app store is still in its beta testing stage – thus, it isn’t a fully committed platform yet.

Not-So-Beginner-Friendly

Contrary to what the internet says, Webflow’s designer is not beginner-friendly. It provides immense design flexibility, but with this flexibility comes a lot of intricacies.

In terms of ecommerce, you can get away with a no-code use by using some apps. However, if you want more powerful functions, you’d have to integrate – which requires you to copy and paste a code snippet into your store’s code. This can be risky as mistakes are bound to happen.

Payment Gateway

There are only two payment gateways available for Webflow – Stripe and Paypal. Thus, customers have a very little payment option when purchasing from you. The lack of payment options is one of the reasons why customers abandon their carts. Thus, you should provide as many choices as possible to reduce checkout friction.

Transaction Fee On Standard Plan

Honestly speaking, the 2% transaction fee on the standard plan is a bit undesirable, considering that new businesses would have to pay $348 upfront cost to use the standard plan and choose a theme that they would have to pay for (thus, more upfront investment). A transaction fee that eats up the profits is not really helpful, especially for new Webflow users.

You’re Stuck With Your Template – Forever

Despite the thousands of templates to choose from, at the end of the day, you can only have one. And when you choose one, you are stuck with it forever.

Takeaway

With all these things considered, here are our takeaways from this lengthy Webflow review.

We’re impressed with how Webflow is able to add all these design features that can truly build a stunning website. However, based on our initial encounter with it, it seems like Webflow is using its extreme flexibility to try to compensate for its grave lack of ecommerce capabilities.

It's hard to plan for future actions on your ecommerce website when using Webflow because some of the features that would be essential to you when your business grows aren’t present in the Webflow app store yet.

To Answer The Question: Should You Use It For Ecommerce?

In our honest opinion, Webflow is best used for bloggers, content creators, and businesses who want to have a visually striking website. Undeniably, Webflow hits all the marks when it comes to the design department.

For ecommerce, we’d say that there are other options that you should look into. Be that as it may, it would be unfair to say that it can’t be used for ecommerce.

However, since Webflow ecommerce is still in its beta stage, it isn’t fully developed yet. We were unimpressed by the very limited availability of apps in the Webflow store. Thus, we highly encourage you to explore and read about other ecommerce platforms in order to make an educated decision once you're ready to pull the trigger and launch your ecommerce website. That way, you can avoid regretting your decision.

Should you use it? Well, the answer lies on you. If you are satisfied with what you read in this Webflow review, then by all means use it.

Checklist (SEO)

• Keyword in the Title?
• Keyword in the heading?
• Keyword in the body content?
• Did you use boldtypography in the keyword?
• Keyword in the 1st paragraph of an article?
• Keyword in the blog URL?
• Did you use external links in the article? (no internal links per 06.22.23 update)
• Did you optimize the article with SurferSEO?