Ok, so from what I have seen since the inception of Webflow’s eCom interface is nothing short of a way to make the shopper interface look pretty and allow a lot of “made easy” customisation of the initial style pretty easy, which is fine BUT…the BIGGEST issue with eCom sites and always has been is the ability to handle large amounts of data, publishing!
What I worry about here and fail to see is that people may engage with the great marketing you are doing selling this project, that’s what marketing is supposed to do but again i don’t see how you are revolutionising eCom…AT ALL!
First and foremost the basis to any successful eCom site is the ability to publish large volumes of stock online, to sell. Reducing the amount of time you spend updating products and putting in descriptions, prices let alone attributes is a MASSIVE chore.
CSV importing of databases allows for a much better way of importing products and publishing them but NONE of the eCommerce solutions have solved the core issues for shop owners or administrators, and I don’t see Webflow solution making it any better.
1: Import large volumes of products
2: Ability to assign products to categories on global import
3: Ability to assign attributes globally to multiple products at the same time
4: Import and resize images scaling all to correct size and format for fast web viewing, multiple image import too.
5: Importing stock size per SKU for stock tracking and notification to store owner
They are the main Achilles heal for any eCom store manager/admin and I don’t see where this solution tackles this? There are many eCommerce solutions available to also go against your claims of the only fully customisable interface, not true, there are some outstanding CMS available that allow the user to set styles that deliver a very stunning template that is used through-out the websites pages.
There are many developers that have produced great plugins and modules that do, to a degree, solve some of the issues we see as eCom builders and store administrator but they all lack the out-of-a-box functionality that the marketplace craves/needs on a large scale.
I absolutely love what Webflow can achieve and the interface and I have used it to build a couple of sites but soon found that for a web designer it has limitations in sense of being chained to how your database driven content can only be used if you host (at extortionate costs) on Webflow hosting service and you cannot move once you do this, I think your hosting costs compared to the marketplace are outrageous to be honest. I like the eCom directive but I just fail to see how you are making it better? You are just creating another interface for people to use and probably hit a wall with once they start to try and build a business using it which I think is misleading, intentional or not. These pitfalls are a nightmare to someone who has spent probably weeks installing and setting up products to then realise this platform is not going to deliver for them.
Payment gateways limited too, a HUGE downside to a world geared for Paypal and clearly the biggest used payment gateway on the planet! Or have I missed that too?
I have built sites and eCom sites in particular for years and have seen various products come out on the market over the years, some solutions have caused a lot of harm to the industry too as they often produce fractured half assed sites that don’t work properly through no fault of the people thinking the product they are using is going to make them look like a professional web-designer over night but the reality is these solutions are not ever going to be able to allow that to happen as you just can’t beat experience or knowledge.
I really wish someone like Webflow would produce something truly remarkable, the Webflow interface is fantastic, the business model I think sucks as it traps people into hosting with you if using database driven content which is unfair as the costs high, the eCom looks like you’re doing something unique, you are not, you’re just allowing people to make page look fancy while hugely overlooking the core pitfalls of data management which is what eCom is and I see nothing that you’re doing that has changed in the last 10 years.
Come on guys, you clearly have an extremely skilled team, make the ultimate product that tackles the problems and delivers the solutions, not create another product that does nothing but make something look like it’s doing a great job…when it isn’t!
My advice to anyone thinking of using this product, research eCom first, look at other CMS and don’t get tied into something you can’t get out of, you will lose a ton of effort, time and money to realise this solution is far from groundbreaking and I certainly would advise any client against using it right now until we see something that tackles age old problems that require a skill set to deal with it.
I eagerly await in anticipation the full release of this eCom solution, great work, lacks functionality to deliver.
