What is E-commerce?
Before we jump into the guide, we want to clarify the obvious. What does e-commerce even refer to? According to Investopedia, e-commerce refers to a business model where companies buy and sell goods over the internet. In 2023, nearly every service/product is available online making brick-and-mortar businesses obsolete.
The e-commerce industry skyrocketed during the pandemic and is currently one of the hottest industries out there. Sales reached almost $900 billion in the US alone in the year 2021. This is a 14.2% increase over 2020 and a 50.5% increase over 2019 according to Forbes. The global e-commerce market is expected to total $5.55 trillion in 2022. All in all, e-commerce is booming and there is no sign it will slow down any time soon.
To join this trend and get noticed in the fierce competition, you will need an appealing website. After all, this is the place where all the e-commerce selling and buying happens. With the industry growing so fast, it will be hard to stand out and get ahead. Here is where Webflow comes into play, allowing you to create an outstanding user experience.
What is Webflow?
Webflow is a no-code tool, created by Sergio and Vlad Magdalin in 2013. It allows you to build fully flexible and responsive sites without ever writing a single line of code. Designers get the power of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript in an easy-to-use visual canvas. With underlying code still accessible, Webflow allows complete design freedom. Webflow goes even further and can handle hosting, security, and website performance itself.
Put it simply, Webflow is a user interface for front-end development. You build your site in visual canvas, and semantic code is generated under the hood. What sets Webflow apart from other platforms is that is not template-based. It is completely custom and enables you full creative freedom. You can customize even the tiniest element on the site.
Albeit Webflow offers a wide array of features, today we will on just one. Read further and learn all about what is Webflow e-commerce and how it can help you get ahead of your competition.
Webflow e-commerce: how it works
As already mentioned in the introduction, Webflow offers you creative freedom. No other platform or website builder allows anything like the level of customization possible in Webflow.
And this, of course, is so important in e-commerce because it means you can make the look, feel, brand, and customer experience of your site unique to you and your business. There’s more competition out there than ever before, so your website absolutely must stand out.
Easy to integrate third-party tools and apps
Webflow offers quite a collection of widgets and plugins to enhance your website and improve functionality. Besides this, there are already a lot of third-party tools integrated by default. In the Webflow library, you can find a huge variety of integration categories. Everything from analytics and anti-spam, to CRM and e-commerce integrations. Some of the Webflow e-commerce integrations are:
- Monto
- Zapier
- Shippo
- Shopify
- Send Owl
- Host Europe
All those integrations can automate your workflow and improve your customer retention. Check out this blog post to learn about 6 must-have Webflow integrations for your business.
Customize the shopping cart & checkout experience
Webflow is all about creating unique customer journeys. It is only natural to be able to customize cart, checkout, and order confirmations on your site.
Not only you can create a unique cart button, but you can also customize the cart itself. You can specify the cart type, customize the animation, and style different cart states. Styling your cart for how it appears in the default, error, and empty state will improve the user experience.
After you are done with this, you can also customize your checkout flow and page. You can customize the checkout page by reordering and styling components and elements. You can even customize the PayPal checkout separately from the card checkout. Webflow University covers all the tips on how to do this.
User-friendly and versatile CMS
Editing content in Webflow is a breeze with its own CMS system. CMS enables you to add dynamic content to a website without touching any code. When editing in Webflow, you don't have to preview your site all the time to see every change you make on the website. The editor presents the page almost exactly as it looks life, so you can work with the page itself and not some distorted version of it.
By using CMS, you can create CMS collections and items. A collection is a specific content type such as blog posts for example. Each collection is then made up of fields (text, images, publish date, etc.). Each blog post is then an item within the blog collection. Simply put, with CMS collection you can create just one design template for each of your collections.
This works pretty similarly in creating your e-commerce collections. They are created for you once you enable e-commerce for a project. You can edit the settings of these collections to customize and enrich them with custom fields. Collection templates pages allow you to smoothen this entire process.
Customize your shop layout
It has long been known that people buy with their eyes. This report shows that more than 60% of consumers say that pictures are more important than the product description. Color visuals are proven to increase people's willingness to read a piece of content by 80%.
Customizing your shop layout and gallery page can thus really pay off. Creating a beautiful customer journey will help users have a seamless interaction with your site. This will lead to better conversion and more sales. To help you get some inspiration, here is a list of 25 e-commerce website examples in 2023.
Customize your transactional emails
Webflow allows keeping your branding consistent through all customer touchpoints. You can keep your branding consistent even through transactional emails. You can set the brand accent color, choose the background and upload your logo. You can also personalize every single email with the help of dynamic fields.
Besides making your email customs, Webflow also allows you to manage your whole marketing lifecycle. You can add forms to collect emails and then connect your site to Mailchimp to run email campaigns.
Build custom interactions and animations
In this year and age websites are no longer static. Adding animations and custom interactions don't just help you stand out but also enhance the user experience. Webflow enables you to create those animations without writing code. You can create effects like parallax, precise reveal animations, and progress bars. You can also create micro-interactions that shift and move as you hover over the elements.
The best thing is that you don't even have to create those animations alone. There are more than 20 preset interactions and animations you can add to your site in just a few clicks.
Pricing
Setting up Webflow e-commerce is not the cheapest. You can choose among three different pricing tiers (standard, plus, advanced). The standard plan starts at $29/mo (billed yearly) and adds a 2% transaction fee. The plan also includes all CMS plan features, enabling you to list 500 items, a customizable shopping cart, and a shopping portal.
If you want to eliminate 2% transaction fees, you have to upgrade to the Plus plan. The plan starts at $74/mo (billed yearly). The plan also supports 5.000 e-commerce items and enables you to use all business plan features.
The last and most expensive plan starts at $212/mo (billed yearly). You also get 0% transaction fees, all business plan features, and room to list 15.000 items.
Conclusion
E-commerce has been on the rise for quite some time now and Covid gave an extra boost to the whole industry. According to Statista, the percentage of customers who made at least one purchase online in 2021 skyrocketed. The number grew to 74% in the US, 81% in the UK, and 69% in China. According to a Shopify report, global e-commerce sales are expected to reach more than $7 trillion by 2025.
Knowing those facts, it is a no-brainer to join the game and build your e-commerce site. While Webflow is not the cheapest option, its heavy emphasis on design can help you stand out from the crowd. Webflow allows you to customize everything from your store layout to transactional emails. Here are a few great examples of custom Webflow e-commerce sites: Nalen Ayurveda, Déplacé Maison, Cloe Cassandro, etc.
In the end, Webflow is an attractive solution and a strong alternative to other website builders. It will give you flexibility, is easy to use, and will help you stand out. But if you are still not sure, check out our blog post on how to Webflow compares to Shopify or WordPress.
FAQ
Can I use Webflow for e-commerce?
Webflow supports e-commerce and has three different pricing tiers you can choose to set up your site. You can pick among Standard, Plus, and Advanced plans.
Is Webflow e-commerce worth it?
Webflow e-commerce has all the essential features required to run a fully functional online business. While it doesn’t have as many functions as Shopify, it offers you more freedom in creativity. If having a fully custom e-commerce site is a priority, Webflow is worth it.
Can I use WooCommerce with Webflow?
You can use WooCommerce with Webflow with the help of Udesly.
