Hi all! I’m wondering about the advantages and disadvantages of Webflow over Woocommerce, why would a client benefit from one over the other.
A client is looking into replacing their current site, so I’m looking into what option is best for them in order to plan my pitch accordingly.
Webflow has eCommerce and there are 3rd-party services, like https://www.foxy.io , the Shopify button, that also add eCommerce features and payment gateways, these would also affect how WF compares to Woocomerce.
It really depends on the needs of the client as functionality/cost can vary between all of the options. Webflow Ecommerce by itself is fairly new but very capable for small to medium storefronts but can be limiting in certain cases.
Thank you @mikeyevin , this store has around 600-800 products online at the moment, and can easily reach 2-5 thousand eventually, with prices ranging from about $40 to $8,000 in case that helps.
It sounds like Foxy.io or exploring the idea of Udesly will be a more appropriate option here. I know that @foxy is fairly active in the community so they can probably answer any questions you may have in regards to pricing or limitations of using them in combination with Webflow.
Hi @Yaco.
Josh from Foxy here. Feel free to email us details on your specific needs and we’ll be more than happy to help you determine if Foxy + Webflow will be a good fit: hello@foxy.io
Wordpress remains a horrid design experience for a visual / low coder. You will need to find your Wordpress page building / theme building tool like Oxygen or Udesly (design woo with webflow). You will likely also needs a custom fields tool to provide some database customisation.
Webflow ecommerce has the lowest setup & maintenance cost.
Woo has a comprehensive api (for integromat, accounting, seperate product admin app etc)
Woo has so many plugins for payment gateways, coupons, gift cards, advanced shipping etc.
I would advice you to try the Shopify buy button option. Not because it is the cheapest one, although that could be appealing for some clients, but because Shopify is the best ecommerce platform, you can google it. They have the best integrations and that is something that your client will need down the line, anything from print on demand to automated emails, to social media campaigns . The buy button is really easy to use with Webflow, it could be used with collections within a CMS plan, I even used it without collections for small shops, you won’t have to buy an ecommerce plan from Webflow. Lastly, Shopify support is really good, almost no waiting time and straight to the point. I hope this helps.
I’ve used Shopify in a basic capacity previously, on much, much smaller stores. Would it work well for clients uploading 100+ products in bulk at a time?
Like I said, my experience with it is limited so it seemed like integrating the Shopify button for each product would require a a back and forth for the client if we wanted to make full use of Webflow’s design capabilities.
The Shopify Buy button only embeds the Shopify checkout along with either, a picture with a description and variants and a button, or just the button, leaving you the freedom of design that you have with Webflow. You can create collections on Shopify, that will dynamically connect with the Webflow CMS, so I don’t think it would be a problem uploading 100+ products at a time.
One more thing that I should mention is that if you sign up with Shopify Partners you can design a website or a buy button for a client and get a commission once they sign up for a paying plan.
Ive used woo commerce within wordpress. After that experience I switched to webflow. You will find you need to update the woo commerce plugin every month!! Its more a way to make wordpress into a shop than a shop solution - if you get what I mean - so it just adds another level of confusion to go alongside your wordpress style template and child theme.
Ive made several sites in webflow and decided from then on I didnt want wordpress or woocommerce in my life anymore. That said I havent used webflow to make a shopping site at all. Another dedicated shopping platform I have used is Opencart. You would need to tweak the css of a bought template - but what it does have is a very good CMS, very good with languages if required - also easy to integrate any particular payment system you may require (im in europe) what I found with shopify was that its canada/usa based so the payment systems were more focused in that region. I dont know where you are located but anyway - thats my thoughts on the matter - good luck with it.
Thank you @Pablo_Cortes ! How connected can the Shopify collection and the cms be? I’ve embedded a collection on a Webflow site, but then I didn’t get WF’s control over design. Is that actually possible, or am I reading too much into your suggestion?
Thank you @pauloram , that is very useful, It’s good to know thoughts from someone who made that transition.
I used to use wordpress as well but never Woo.
Opencart sounds nice, thanks for the suggestion! Being free certainly helps, though I’d rather use Webflow to tailor the design to my client’s needs than use a template.
My client needs to sell in Europe as well as LatinAmerica, so a platform that easily allows for specific international gateways is a must. that is also why I don’t just use Webflow’s eCommerce, as Paypal and Stripe on their own won’t meet those needs.
That is a good question that I had to deal with too. So, what the embed does for you is two things basically, it displays a button, and it uses a checkout page that allows your customers to make payments. Now, you have limited design capabilities with the checkout page, but you can modify some things to match your brand, like you can add logo, pictures and colors. For the button itself, you have three options, one is with the picture/s pulled from your Shopify products, two with pictures and descriptions, and the third one is just a button. Now you can style that button however you want with costume code and place it however you like in Webflow, that way you can use whatever layout, fonts, and colors you like and just place an embed element to show the button that will take you to the checkout page. I hope this helps.
Glad to be of help - yes I would definitely look into opencart - the complexities of a shopping site are so huge - the actual shopping experience really does need to be well structured, especially once they have clicked on purchase and managing all the various payment gateways, I love webflow as a design tool, but i’m not sure if its there yet with this type of complex site. The site I made in opencart was in 4 languages - in the cms I could edit all of them for each item in one go. Keep this post updated with your design journey whatever you opt for, I for one would be interested to hear how it goes.