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WEBFLOW ECOMMERCE

Don’t we want to create a store that’s not only

visually distinctive – which of course has its own

value – but also stands out because of how well the

content (products) and design mesh? How deeply

the products inform the design not only visually but

also in terms of information architecture, content

strategy, taxonomy and more? If people don’t buy

products but experiences, don’t we have to give them

an experience?

Enter the other end of the spectrum: the code-

heav y solut ions. You r Magentos, Yo!K a r ts, Shopi f ys

(if you’re willing to pay hundreds of dollars a month

for full design freedom). Here the sky’s the limit.

As long as you’ve got a team of developers, an

enterprise-scale budget and a design team with the

chops to customise them.

And that’s all there is. There’s no middle ground

between code-free-but-boilerplate and code-heavy-

but-custom.

But that’s all poised to change (very soon) with

Webflow Ecommerce.

CRAFT CUSTOM

ECOMMERCE SITES

John Moore Williams looks at how the upcoming Webľow Ecommerce is

set to help designers and devs build truly bespoke online stores

You know what’s wrong with ecommerce site

design right now? It’s that you only have two

options to get a store live on the web and that they

occupy opposite ends of a spectrum. That spectrum

is creativity.

The extremes of the spectrum are occupied by

templates and code respectively and as creativity

increases, so does the need for coding ability. At

one end, you have the template-powered estore

offerings. Your Pattern (by Etsy) sites. Your

Squarespaces, Weeblys and Wixes – and, for most,

your Shopifys. Easy to set up, easy to launch, easy to

sell with. Assuming you can get people to your site.

These options have dramatically lowered the

barriers to entry for online commerce. They’ve made

code-free ecommerce a reality. They’ve also brought

to life a host of sites you may remember from your

last browsing session.

That’s not the worst thing in the world, of course.

But as creatives, don’t we want something a bit more

than that?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JOHN MOORE

WILLIAMS

w: webflow.com

t: @JohnAMWill

job: head of content

strategy at Webflow

areas of expertise:

Web, UX, devices, content,

strategy