Now as you will know, dear reader, we are huge advocates of the Shopify platform and have worked with it for a number of years, when it was but an infant platform, watching it grow and change much like our own children. And as such maybe we have a few biases towards our golden child, but today we are going to put those views to the test by exploring the offering from Webflow, who as of the time of writing this, is becoming a very strong contender for taking the crown off of Shopify in a number of ways.
Let's check out a few of it's features and see how it compares today.
1- What is Webflow?
Okay so we're getting ahead of ourselves here a little. Maybe you have never even heard of Webflow. So here is a brief overview.
Webflow is a fully featured visual website builder that allows you to create highly custom websites without having to write any code. It's an ideal use case for business who want granular control over the look and feel of there website, it is a product aimed at visually creative people such as UX and Graphic designers.
While it is considered to be somewhat more complex to pick up than Shopify its wealth of online resources, named the academy, will help you get up and running pretty quickly.
2- Webflow features
Jumping right into the meat and gravy of this, the features of Webflow which make it stand out are:
- A/B testing
- Powerful product pages
- A feature rich visual editor, allowing for control over every visual element.
- Customisable checkout process
- Supports a myriad of third party marketing tools
- Dynamic checkout pricing
- Integrated Social Media campaign manager
- 100's of professional theme presets
- Integrated dropshipping support
- Support for programatically extending your store
- Automated shipping and tax calculations
- Fraud analysis
- Full access to the theme code
- Allows for download of clean template code to host site elsewhere
- Integrated AI designer assistant to aid in brand design and template content
3- Pricing
Pricing wise, both platforms are actually pretty similar within just a couple of dollars of each other, although it might be said that Shopify is somewhat less restrictive on things like product count, database entries, page visitors and bandwidth which Webflow does restrict for some reason. The pricing models is a little more complex for beginners to understand what they should purchase for there needs but again, Webflow do have detailed resources to help you select the right one.
For context, Shopify's starter (basic) plan starts at $31 USD while Webflow's eCommerce plan starts at $29 USD (billed monthly). Shopify also has a very appealing new user offer of 3 months Shopify for $1 USD p/m so that's great to get you up and running with minimal investment.
Summary
While Shopify has remained the staple of every eCommerce entrepreneur over the last few years powering brands big and small, there is no doubt that Webflow is making a splash in the no code design space. With each iteration, they add more and more features to empower there eCommerce offering making it a definite contender for the crown. With that being said, the ease of use of the Shopify platform and the sheer size of the community still put it out in front for now.
Watch this space! Bye for now :)