(upbeat music)
- Hey Zions, in today's video,
I'm gonna be giving you my first impression review
of Webflow's new Ecommerce tool
that's currently out in beta.
The very first time I used Webflow
I put out a first impressions video
where I just filmed as I was building a page
and using it for the first time
and I know a lot of your found that really valuable
to see my thoughts and like initial impressions
and also seeing what I struggled with
the first time I was using it as well.
So I wanted to do it again, do it again
for this Ecommerce functionality.
Now if you've watched my videos before, you may know
that I often work with Webflow,
they sponsor kind of about one video a month on this channel
which is really great, they're a great company to work with.
I wanted you to know though,
that this video is not sponsored.
I don't believe that any sort of review video,
and I would consider a first impressions video
to be a review, I don't believe
that those should be sponsored,
I think that makes them inherently biased
and it's just not something that I personally want to do.
I'm gonna be totally honest with this video
about everything that I like and everything
that I don't like, and I know that the Webflow team
is super open to feedback, so,
let's dive in and take a look.
So this right here is the new little button on the side
for Ecommerce, I'm in the beta at the moment,
so that's why I have access to it.
Okay, so when I click it, it's gonna turn
my website into a store and create
some new collections, let's do this.
Okay, so I really like that the first thing
we're seeing here is yes, what I assumed
was a checklist and I can see it,
it's because there's a couple things
that I could've already previously completed
because my website is already live.
So it's hosting and it's, guys it's out.
I like this because it gives me
a list of things to work through.
So what should we start with?
Let's try adding a product.
Okay, so this, I'm assuming is going to be kind of like
adding an item in CMS collection.
I think I would've liked, when I clicked
from this menu here, this add a product.
If it went straight into this new product window right?
'Cause I just clicked add product,
so obviously that was what I was intending.
Anyway let's just add a test product in here.
Yeah this does seem very similar to how the CMS looks,
which is good, I'll find a random image on my computer.
Ooh, sales tax, this is an interesting point.
Because I live in the UK so I have to charge VAT
to anyone who purchases within the UK
and I think within the EU, so I'm gonna investigate that
bit later and see what the options are for me.
Okay, so I can add a category here,
so let's just call it Prints 'cause that is a category
I will actually be using.
Okay, I noted actually, let me just add another one
'cause I wanna see that, so,
the URL structure it's using is
charlimarie.com/category.
I really wanted to use that for my blog,
like having blog posts under slash category
so I wonder if that's changeable.
Like I could have slash store, slash, you know what I mean?
We'll get back to that, we'll have a look.
Cool, and it'll track the inventory so I could say
I have a hundred of the screenshot.
It'll know when I run out, and
working out shipping there too.
Okay, let's just create this and see how we go.
What else have we got here?
For orders, this is interesting,
so it takes me to like the editor view,
which is what someone would see
if they weren't the designer of a site.
I guess that makes sense because
the main use case for Ecommerce
would be designers or developers
building a store for like a client to use,
and probably in a very small percentage
of designers who would have their own store
on Webflow, if you know what I mean.
So looks like this is where I'd see all of my orders
as they come through, that's good.
Let's go back to the main site though.
Okay, what should we check out next?
So the Webflow team did let me know
that some things are still being worked on
because obviously, this is in beta still.
So there will be some things still coming,
I think the cart design is one of them,
but what we could do is set up
a product page and see how that'll work.
So, it's made, this is like the template,
I suppose, for my product page.
So, ooh, gives me a new component
that I can drag in when I'm on a product page
so, that'll be my like add to cart button.
Anyway let's just drag some stuff in here and get started.
So if I add a heading and then
we'll get the text from the name, cool.
It really does seem like it works
exactly like a CMS collection does,
which is super cool so basically as I add an element,
as you just saw, I can choose to either
add an image myself, or I can get it from
the product item that I have here.
Let's just start adding this add to cart button
in case and one you know wants to buy my screenshot.
Okay, so this will show me the quantity
and this is like set up as a field,
and then I assume I can just style this button however
I wanted, so I have a button style on my site already?
Seeing the quantity here makes me think that,
well I know the team told me that
another thing that's not quite ready yet is
variance, I think that's the word.
So like, you know different sizes of T-shirts
or something like that, different sizes of print.
I would assume that once that feature is ready
that would be included as part of this add to cart thing.
I know this design looks really shitty
'cause I just literally dragged some stuff in
to see how it's working but,
this is making me feel quite excited
about the possibilities for my online store with this.
One of the frustrations that I had
when I was getting setup with my previous online store,
was the limitations that all the templates had
like pretty much everything looked the same right?
You're gonna see, usually, picture of the product
on this side, and the description
and the add to cart on this side.
Obviously there's value in that consistency
and that's what we've trained people to see,
especially these days, so many stores use Shopify.
And so with a lot of online stores,
we're seeing a very generic and similar looking template.
It's not a bad one, like it makes sense
but I think it's really exciting for me
to think that I can design my product pages
however the heck I like, and it's gonna be
really easy for me to do that because
it's just like designing any other page in Webflow.
So let's take a look now at putting together a page
for like displaying all of my products.
I wonder if it has made one for me.
I wonder if it's this categories page.
This, I would assume will get
everything that is in my Prints category.
Let's, again, just do a quick thing for that.
Then, I would assume that I can drag in
a collection list to get my products,
yes, this is seeming like it's right.
Yeah, cool, okay, so that does work
exactly how I thought it would.
So if I put more in this Prints category,
it would like put them all in there.
Actually, let's go add another one
and just see how that functions.
I might just duplicate this one actually.
Is that a thing I could do, can I duplicate?
Yes, yes I can, cool, yeah so it's put the two in there.
If I look at this getting started checklist so,
obviously the things that are coming
that aren't quite ready for me to demo yet
and like try out in this video,
is designing the cart that you're gonna
be able to place anywhere, I assume
there'd be something like this special component here
that will show up on any page where,
yeah someone can access the shopping cart from.
And also the checkout page, like I said,
the team already let me know that wasn't quite ready yet.
What I don't see in this checklist is
designing like your store front I suppose,
obviously I'm gonna want a page where
it shows all of my products, right?
Like a page listing out all of the categories.
So let's just quickly see if I can
make one myself, I suppose I could add a collections list
and, right, see what I really wanted to be able to do
was to show like, all the prints or T-shirts
whatever it is I decide to sell
and fetch them automatically.
Ooh, another way that I just had a thought
that I could do this though,
I'm just gonna add another div and try again.
Cool, that's what I was hoping it would do,
os I can set this collection list to only show products
with the category that contains Prints.
So, that's one way that I think
I could layout my store front, that makes sense.
I think I would've liked them though,
to, in the pages that they make for you,
the category page and product page,
I think it would be cool if they added
a like store front page as well for you to work from,
and I expect we'll see checkout appearing
in this list as well once that's ready.
So I feel pretty confident that I love
the design capabilities of this,
because it really does just seem like it's
adapted from a CMS collection which
there's loads of tutorials online for
using them in Webflow and they're pretty powerful
with what you can do with them.
Something I didn't check though,
I wonder if somewhere I could add my own
like fields to this, if there's something else
that I wanted to have in there.
Ooh, yep, I can add custom fields.
So if I said I wanted to add a video link for example,
then come back into the product,
sweet, there's my custom field, nice.
Let's just poke around the settings
and see what I'm gonna need to do here.
Alright so I connect Stripe,
I wonder if it can add other
payment providers in the future,
Stripe is actually my favorite though.
My current store platform that I use
has got PayPal or Stripe, but yeah,
I prefer Stripe so that's all good.
Shipping zones, okay, cool, so,
it looked like, from the product page,
I could put in dimensions and the weight of a product,
so I would assume that this is gonna do something
automatic to calculate the shipping cost
like based on rules I tell it, which is how Shopify works.
So let's just say heavy package.
I can set shipping rules per region, which is good,
'cause that's how like the UK Post Office works.
So it's nice to be able to select
a whole group of countries
rather than having to manually select all of the countries
in Asia for example, I could just tick that.
But yeah let's just see Europe,
I feel like they could've collapsed this list a bit,
if you were doing like a rest of world thing,
it's gonna be a long thing to scroll down
to get to the shipping methods.
Yeah cool, so it's based on price percentage,
weight, whatever you wanna do.
That's, yeah, I really like that,
that's lots of good options there.
'Cause I would set it to be weight-based.
Let's look at taxes, okay, so,
it will show you the tax calculation
for countries that you ship to.
I wonder if it knows that as someone in the UK,
I have to charge VAT to people in Europe.
I would really like it if this tax,
view our tax guide, if that was a link
'cause I do wanna see and learn about how that works.
Ooh emails, okay,
right so this looks like the email
that I will get when someone places one.
Then, cool and this is the email
that a customer will get when they order.
I wonder how much I can customize this,
looks like it's just adding a logo
and changing the colors, which is fine
'cause this is a nicely designed email.
Oh cool yeah and changing what all the text says.
I'm really excited about this overall.
I think this is a super powerful addition to Webflow
it's gonna make you know, a lot of people
more suitable for using Webflow for their website
when they could also build the store in it
and like all of the same classes and things
that I use on my main website,
are also available within my store because
obviously, it's on the same site.
Right now for my store I had to kind of
hack together a style sheet to target
classes on the, you know store template
to match them to my website design
and that's just not a good experience,
it's not easy, this feels like it's gonna make
getting a good-looking store that matches your brand
and like being more creative with the layout,
seems like it's gonna be a lot easier
so I'm excited about that, as a user myself
because I will be building my store out on my website.
In a couple months time, when I do
finally get around to making my online store
I am going to be releasing a video series
about the full process in depth
of how I design and build it and how it all works
so if you are interested in seeing that
then please make sure you subscribe to my channel
so you'll be notified when it goes live
and if you enjoyed this video,
if you liked hearing my first impressions
on Webflow Ecommerce then please
give this one a thumbs up.
Alright, thanks for watching, hope you have a good day
and I will see you in the next video, bye!
(upbeat music)