Hello, everyone. I’m designing a site for a friend that has a jewelry store. He wants e-com capability, which is something I’m excited to do but I am in serious need of guidance.
I can create a pretty decent site by now and know how to incorporate the cms well enough, but I do not know what to do on the back end of an e-com store. Do I find a 3rd party jewelry e-com platform (a Shopify app or something similar) and somehow embed custom code to sync with my site?
Basically, I’m asking what I should be doing after the e-com page of my site is built - what am I attaching it to (widget, app, etc.). My friend does not want to do any upkeep, so the simpler the better.
I hope someone can point me in the right direction. Thank you so much, everyone!
Hey @Cdlarsen73 , I am not sure if you are aware but Webflow does have an E-commerce platform, managed similarly with their CMS. You do not need to add any widgets unless you are looking to do something specific. https://webflow.com/ecommerce
Hey, imtiazraqib. Thanks for responding. Yeah, I’m aware and have even built a mock site using it. What I’m ignorant about is what to do after the page is built and functional. What kind of inventory management services are out there (if that’s what I should be looking for)?
Are there generic, 3rd party inventory platforms that one can subscribe and sync to (for example, are there marketplaces out there that all I have to do is pay to sync with and then gain access to their inventory)?
Or do I (the client) have to create and manage the inventory personally?
I like the Webflow e-com platform you mentioned, but it’s how and what I connect it to that I am currently trying to figure out. These might sound like stupid questions, but I’m in the dark. Thank you for your help.
Hi @Cdlarsen73 not sure if you have resolved this but I recently had this limitation brought to me by a client and I was able to build out the ability for them to use Shopify products within their Webflow designs. i also managed to make it possible for the buy button, slider cart and cart icon all to be editable within Webflow. Meaning Shopify just handled their product stock and anything after order.
The benefit of this was it allowed them to have the front-end design abilities of Webflow but the back-end functionalities like product handling and customer communication automation that Shopify offers.
Hey Chris, regarding the benefit, is it because Webflow is lacking product handling integrations or is Shopify product handling far more superior? Or is it just purely user preference?
I only asked because I’m also looking to build an e-commerce site as well and would like to see what options are out there. Given how popular Shopify is, I assume your route may be the best solution.
Oh, man. Sorry for not responding earlier. This just slipped through the cracks for me. I have not resolved this yet b/c the project got put on hold till next year.
I’ve heard that you can sync webflow up with shopify by copy/pasting the id number and something else (does that sound correct?). Is that what you did?
Do you know if your client had to send their items into shopify fulfillment centers, or does shpoify have a ton of items for anyone to list on their site (and then shopify gets a cut)?
Again, sorry for the delay. Thanks for responding.
I believe this was down to the Shopify aftersales and product handling having many more options for marketing and stock management. This particular client didn’t use a fulfillment center however I have integrated this for other clients who did.
The biggest benefit for this was it allows Shopify to become the hub for their products meaning they can link it with many other platforms ie: Amazon, Facebook etc and manage it all in one place.
Drop me an email chris@clickyclicks.co.uk if you would like to have a quick call to discuss in more detail.
We wrote some Jquery and used the Shopify Buy Js to integrate the buittons. This meant you just needed the product id in the CMS in webflow and the relative items (Buy Button, images, description etc) were pulled through from the API wherever that id was. This also allowed us to have buy buttons on the collection list pages and didn’t require the code to be copy and pasted each time.
Drop me an email chris@clickyclicks.co.uk if you would like to have a quick call to discuss in more detail.