Nowadays, anyone who wants to develop and market digital products will find various ways to offer and sell them on the internet. If you use Webflow as CMS or your website for your company, there are also several possibilities to integrate and sell digital products. In the following, I will go into more detail on the individual points.
In addition to the normal CMS, Webflow also offers a shop system. This has only been in development for a few years and so the range of functions cannot quite keep up with other e-commerce providers. Nevertheless, all functions are available to sell physical and digital products. When it comes to design, however, the Webflow online shop is clearly ahead of its competitors. Similar to normal Webflow websites, the e-commerce experience can be 100% customised without having to get into programming. Competitors such as WooCommerce (WordPress) and Shopify also offer design freedom with the help of so-called page builders, but this is much more limited in scope.
However, the e-commerce component of Webflow has a few weaknesses when it comes to complying with German guidelines for the processing of sales. Specifically, this concerns the sending of invoices, general terms and conditions and revocation instructions after the purchase. Without the integration of third-party tools and the associated additional costs or the manual dispatch of the documents, this cannot be handled directly via Webflow without further ado. Those who have access to the Webflow API, i.e. the programmable interface of Webflow, with their account are theoretically able to exchange data via this and transmit it to other service providers. A connection to the All-In-One merchant solution from Billbee would be conceivable here, for example. Although Billbee does not yet support the Webflow API, the connection could be programmed by a service provider. This could then be used to transmit orders and automatically send the corresponding documents via Billbee.
Another and much simpler solution for selling digital products via Webflow is the connection to Digistore24. Digistore24 is an online sales platform that allows you to sell digital products. On the platform, digital products can be created and uploaded and a complete checkout process including download can be created. The invoice, terms and conditions and cancellation policy are automatically made available to the user after a purchase. Digistore24 offers all common payment providers and processes the sales. Use is free of charge until a sale is made. Then 7.9% of the sales price + €1 for the transaction is due (as of November 2020).
The order form for the digital product created by Digistore24 can be easily integrated into your Webflow website via a link. This way, the interested party is forwarded directly to the order process from your website.
Memberships have become a popular business model. You can also implement these quite easily with Webflow. There are providers such as MemberStack, Memberful or Outseta that can be integrated into Webflow.
Several tariffs can be created in the respective applications, which can include different functionalities and accesses. This way you can make different subpages of your Webflow websites accessible only to registered members. At the same time, the membership applications charge membership fees at a cycle of your choice. Compatible payment providers such as Stripe also allow you to automatically send invoices after purchasing a membership or debiting the fee.
Another option is the integration of Shopify Lite. Shopify Lite is a slimmed-down version of a Shopify online shop. With Shopify itself, you only manage the "back end", such as product and shop management as well as order and purchase processing. A "frontend", i.e. a real online shop in the conventional form, does not exist. Instead, you get a "Buy" button from Shopify, which you can integrate anywhere on your Webflow website. This button then leads directly to the ordering process for a product you have chosen. If you want to combine the advantages of Webflow and Shopify, this is the perfect option. Shopify Light costs $9 per month and, together with the CMS tariff from Webflow, is still below the costs of a real online shop from Shopify or Webflow.
