Let’s focus on two of the best internet cloud-hosted e-commerce platforms - Webflow and Shopify. Our guide is here to inform you on why companies are switching from Shopify to Webflow in 2022.
E-Commerce sales were $870 billion in the US in 2021, a 14.2% increase over 2020 and a 50.5% increase over 2019, and is set to reach over 1 trillion in 2022. From dropshipping to large corporation e-commerce, having a website that smoothens the process for product fulfillment, content creation, marketing, etc can be one if not the most important one for your business.
There are two options for building your online e-commerce store, self-hosted and cloud-hosted platforms but today let’s focus on two of the best internet cloud-hosted e-commerce platforms - Webflow and Shopify. Our guide is here to inform you on why companies are switching from Shopify to Webflow in 2022.
What makes Shopify unique?
Shopify is trusted by over 1,000,000 businesses globally and growing. At only $29 per month, Shopify is the ideal e-commerce platform for individual or small business owners to quickly launch a new e-commerce business. Shopify provides a variety of high quality templates there ready for you to launch your products efficiently. Shopify is also known to have easily downloadable apps and marketing tools that integrate into your store to help drive additional revenue and support, making Shopify one of the most convenient website builders available on the market in 2022.
Some of Shopify's main features include:
What makes Webflow unique?
Webflow is a popular web design tool, CMS, and hosting platform with a powerful highly customizable visual editor which allows designers and developers to easily design, launch and manage websites with additional fancy animations and elements without the need to code.
Webflow is a popular drag and drop website builder, perfect for for e-commerce. While it can be challenging to navigate at first, with the help of youtube videos and Webflow university, it can be one if not the easiest drag and drop website building platforms to learn. Once you equip yourself with webflow design knowledge, you will be able to build truly amazing websites that stand out.
In addition, Webflow provides designers with unmatched technical tools, such as the ability to export clean code while you design, which is necessary if you are looking to switch between platforms. Lastly, Webflow provides easy search engine optimization (SEO) integration in the designer tool so that you can ensure your site is visible and ranked accordingly.
Some of Webflow's top features are:
What makes Webflow better than Shopify? Let’s find out below.
Webflow allows you only pay when you want to go live
A unique feature of webflow is that you have unlimited design access for as long as you need until you are ready to go live and start processing orders, fulfilling etc. Shopify, on the other hand, provide a free 14-day trial, however, you start paying as soon as the 14 days are up, even if you are still in the design process and your website is not ready to go live.
For companies wanting to perfect their designs, user experience, and landing page optimization before going live Webflow is a better choice as Shopify seem to hurry your website building experience therefore making it less ideal for businesses with a long term vision.
However, if you know how to build a Shopify website and need to launch and test new products quickly, Shopify can work for you.It is entirely up to you and how intricate and stunning you want your site to display.
Webflow doesn’t need coding at all
Webflow’s flexible design tool generates automatic code with your design. When you visit a website what you normally see is the result of your browser making decisions about how to load the website's code. It will pass information from the code to display HTML (content) and CSS (design and style).
By visually creating and manipulating content on a design canvas, Webflow directly interacts with HTML and CSS onto the screen, allowing you to sketch and design the most intricate of ideas and animations while Webflow simultaneously produces the code for you.
Shopify on the other hand requires coding at times. For example, if you are wanting to add an extra button on a landing page or embed a video into a template you will need to manually insert code into the HTML and or CSS files to display even the smallest of changes, making it less convenient than Webflow.
Webflow has unlimited customization
There are thousands of webflow templates to choose from in 2022, once you have found your ideal template you can start customizing using the webflow designer tool.
All templates on Webflow open up a designer tool that allows you to personalize all the templates, elements, animations and so much more. There are five panels included in your design tool which include the pages panel, assets panel, navigator panel, style panel, and canvas, all of which are easily accessible and easy to learn.
Once you are happy with your design and customization, simply click on the “eye” icon in the upper left corner of the designer to preview your work. Again no code is required as Webflow manipulates the coding for you, making customization a breeze.
Shopify has limited design access. Most templates on Shopify will have set design configurations where you add your imagery and or content however if you are wanting to display additional animation, for example, it can be limited. You can, however, add a Shopify page builder to fully customize your stores such as gem pages or pagefly, however, they will cost additional monthly payments.
Which one do you prefer?
Webflow and Shopify both have their pros and cons, it depends on the type of ecommerce business you have and how much additional customization and features you want in your store. Small business owners may opt for shopify to quickly launch and test products, however for larger more established businesses they may opt for Webflow to upgrade their current website, but again it depends on your personal taste.
Overall Webflow is a popular website builder because it gives entrepreneurs the ability to pay only when you launch, no coding is required and also unlimited customization. However, in order to fully make the most of the platform we suggest you to either outsource or have a dedicated designer to help you with the intricate design changes. If you are looking for a top webflow designer, contact Rohan Malhotra from www.roflow.co and we can create your perfect Webflow website.
Learn more about us here: www.roflow.co
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