Webflow vs Shopify: Select a visually appealing platform that increases sales

Launching an e-commerce business website can be really exhilarating, yet you need to pick one of the best e-com web development platforms which fits your particular needs. If you want to guarantee the success of your e-commerce store, then it’s absolutely essential that you make sure every single UX step and CX touchpoint is spot-on. This approach should be applied all the way from first browsing to searching for what a customer needs to ultimately buy the product.

In the past few years, the e-commerce sector has witnessed tremendous growth with the global sale being $513.60 billion in 2018 which is predicted to surpass $6.3 trillion in 2023. With the expectation of growing to $7.3 trillion by 2025, numerous other businesspeople kicked off their online stores. For someone who is planning the same, all these different options in the market may make it hard to figure out where to begin.

Among the leading eCommerce platforms right now, two of the most prominent choices are Webflow and Shopify, so which is better? We’ll dive into the details of each platform and compare them to help you decide which to choose for your e-com store development project. First, we will have a quick overview of the pros and cons of each and then delve into the Webflow vs Shopify comparison on various functional aspects. 

Webflow Pros and Cons:

Shopify Pros and Cons:

Also read: Webflow vs. WordPress : Which is better?

Pricing and Value for Money: Which Is Worth the Investment?

Price is important when picking an e-commerce platform. While both Webflow and Shopify provide different tiers of pricing, what you get is not always the same.

Webflow Pricing:

• Standard: $29 per month
• Plus: $74 per month
• Advanced: $212 per month

Webflow offers three ecommerce plans ranging from basic $29/month (at time of writing this) to $212/month for an advanced package. These programs differ in terms of how many items you may be able to sell as well as annual sales caps.

• Standard: 500 products, $50,000 in sales
• Plus: 1,000 products, $200,000 in sales
• Advanced: Unlimited products, unlimited sales

In addition to the 2% processing charge, Webflow Standard comes with a max of three employee seats.

Shopify Pricing:

• Basic Shopify: $29 per month
• Shopify: $79 per month
• Advanced Shopify: $299 per month

Shopify also offers a set of pricing plans starting from $29/month. But there’s no free plan. They each include unique aspects with certain restrictions like how many team members can be part of it, which also includes discounts on shipping services. With Shopify Payments there are no additional transaction fees. Otherwise, it’s between 0.5% and 2%, based on your membership plan.

Comparing these too options, even though the basic plan seems to be the same for the platforms, Webflow seems to be a bit more economical based on its features and offerings in the overall pricing structure.

Also read: Webflow Pricing for Startups and Enterprise

Ease of Use: Which is Easier To Build with?

In terms of ease-to-use, both Shopify and Webflow go neck to neck. Webflow may seem to be a bit complex in the beginning, but it is because of the scope of integrations and features to be added. It may seem difficult for the beginners as it includes aspects of both a web site builder and a content management system (CMS). Webflow is great with its editing tool but there’s more to learn. With the assistance of a good Webflow ecommerce development service, this task can be easily tackled.

You can create your online store with Shopify, which is also simple and user friendly, but has limited options compared to Webflow. Shopify comes with an onboarding check list to get you started with setting up your store and exploring the dashboard. It features editors on both the front end and back end. You can visually customize your online storefront using front-end editor, while the back-end editor lets you control everything from inventory management, discounts, taxes, collections, and shipping.

Also read: Advantages of Choosing the Best No-code Development Agency

Template Design: Which gives more design flexibility?

Design is an important feature to help you lure and make sure that the customer gets stuck onto your online store. Webflow and Shopify both have templates, but their templates come with different levels of design freedom.

Webflow:

• More than 500 templates are available, both free and paid versions.
• Pre-built webflow templates come with a clean design and can be easily adapted to fit your needs.
• With its excellent editor, you can further tailor your store to suit your branding specifications.

Shopify:

• Offers both free & paid-for templates.
• Professional modern looking templates available.
• Not as customizable as Webflow in terms of customizability. Your template choice could limit you.

One of the things you need to know here is that with more design options, Shopify makes it harder to transition templates and on the other hand, Webflow templates you can change more easily.

Also read: Is it needed to use preset templates on Webflow or Squarespace?

Ecommerce Features: Which is better at selling tools?

For selling tools, Webflow has a slight advantage over Shopify as a constantly building platform. It is a fact that Shopify is uniquely built for eCommerce, whereas Webflow offers options for all types of domains other than e-com too with a custom set of features for each. Here are some key features:

Products and Inventory Management

• Both offer key product management functionalities.
• Shopify is built with an emphasis on e-commerce and has specialized inventory management tools.
• Webflow has a comprehensive set of tools for not just e-commerce, but a wide range of functionalities. 
  

Abandoned Cart Recovery

• Abandoned cart recovery is available on both platforms to regain lost sales.

Multi-Channel Selling

• The good thing about both Webflow and Shopify is they offer multi-channel selling allowing you to promote your store on Facebook, Instagram, and other marketplaces.

Apps

• With 3,000 apps available in its marketplace, Shopify offers many selections in store-improving programs.
• Webflow has a continuously building ecosystem of apps, offering a wide range of programs  and going a step ahead, the scope on integrating third-party tools.

Staff Accounts

• The number of staff accounts varies depending on the type of plans on shopify vs webflow ecommerce. Webflow offers custom plans too for the same based on the specific business needs.

POS (Point of Sale)

• Both the platforms provide a physical point of sale (POS) solution for the sale of goods and services in-person at your business via their platforms.

Payment Options & Transaction Fees

Considering which platform offers more payment gateways and lower transaction fees, we can see that Webflow standard out on this. 

Shopify integrates many payment gateways including Shopify Payments. As of now, the recommend Shopify Payments, for which they do not charge any transaction fees. Otherwise, the fees charged vary between 2.4% to 2.9% + fixed transaction fees depending on the plan you choose.

Webflow supports a number of payment gateways such as Stripe, Apple Pay and PayPal etc. For Plus or Advanced plan, there is no transaction fee charged, but otherwise a fee applies to transactions on other plans.

Also read: Webflow Hosting Plans for Startups and Enterprises

Website and Marketing Features: What is the difference between Webflow and Shopify?

For companies looking to expand, both Shopify and Webflow offer robust website and marketing capabilities compared to other platforms like Magento. But Do big companies use Webflow? The answer is ‘yes’. Let us further explore.

SEO:

• Shopify include some basic SEO elements like meta titles, descriptions, and the alt text of images.
• Webflow’s code is very pure, making it an SEO-friendly tool with some advanced features.
• During product uploads, you will get guidelines on best practices for SEO from Shopify as well as Webflow.

Also read: Webflow Myths Debunked: Is Webflow Actually Bad For SEO?

Reporting and Analytics:

• Shopify has to be integrated with Google Analytics if you want to get more insightful statistics.
• Webflow does offer analytics tools on their platform for basic analytics. However, Google Analytics integration is necessary to achieve more in-depth analysis.

Also read: Google Analytics Integration with Webflow

Social Media Integration:

Shopify vs webflow for ecommerce offers social media integrations. On Webflow, you can also sell on your social pages while you integrate social feeds and icons onto your sites too. On both platforms, you can integrate with multiple different types of social media accounts, along with more varied mediums using Webflow’s library of apps.

Blogging:

• Blogging with Shopify has significantly less potential than with Webflow.
• Because of its CMS abilities, Webflow is the perfect option for bloggers.

Email Marketing:

• Both Shopify and Webflow work along with third-party email marketing tools.
• Email marketing apps from Shopify and integration to Mailchimp at Webflow.

Also read: Key Advantage of No-Code Solution for Enterprise

What we have seen above is a comprehensive comparison of Webflow vs. Shopify in terms of e-commerce web building capabilities. One question we used to hear from our clients lately is Can Webflow replace Shopify? The answer is that even though Webflow and Shopify has almost similar capabilities and features when it comes to e-commerce, Webflow being a much broader and all-inclusive platform for website development, is gaining a significant advantage of Shopify, Magento and other content management systems. 

Also due to its great freedom in the design, Webflow is particularly interesting if you want to present yourself visually differently from other companies. It is great for SEO however it can take a bit more to understand, tending to be better suited for those who already have some experience with web design and/or development.