Webflow's problem of underserving customer needs
None of the main products and features of the last two years is appropriately delivered yet. Neither CMS, Blog, E-commerce, Memberships nor Logic ist state-of-the-art. Not even close.
CMS
- Still no state-of-the-art filtering?
- Still no state-of-the-art sorting?
- Still no state-of-the-art search?
- Still no next/previos for pages?
- Still very limited API access?
- Still no seamless sync with external databases?
Blog
- Still no proper state-of-the-art editor?
- Still no way to add products to blog posts?
- Still no way to add advertising to blog posts.
- Still no way to calculate and show reading time?
- Still no way to add advertising to blog posts.
- Still no way to add symbols to blog posts.
- Still no way to add like, save-for-later, or share buttons to blog posts.
Ecommerce
- Still no professional dashboard for shop administration?
- Still no professional dashboard for shop analytics?
- Still no way to have different layouts for products of different categories? (And no, loading but hiding elements is NOT a solution)
- Still no way to have buttons/links instead of drop-downs for product variants? BTW you are breaking your marketing promise "Complete layout control - without coding" for your ecommerce product here. And you did not fix this, although people have been asking for it for two years now!
- Still no state-of-the-art filtering?
- Still no state-of-the-art sorting?
- Still no state-of-the-art product search?
- Still no way to add like, remind-me-when-back-in-stock, or share buttons to products?
- Still no seamless Shopify sync
Membership
How much sense does this product make if you can't show/hide/restrict on cms-item or page-element level based on subscription type?
Sure, it's still in beta. But there is not much happening since the beta started.
Logic
Seriously? This is what you call a beta? It's not even an MVP yet. Not even close. Minimal Viable Product. Yes, it has minimal functionality, minimal capabilities, minimal documentation, and many other things are minimal as well. But it is far away from being a product, and even farther away from being able to survive on its own in this state and shape. It's not viable. It's embarrassing.
No-Code
Webflow's communication stresses the term no-code over and over again. But is Webflow a no-code tool? Or is it still an online WYSIWYG website editor?
Without knowledge of HTML/CSS, Webflow leads to quite limited results. Will customers be able to use Logic without knowledge of JSON, webhooks, and how to communicate with APIs? I doubt this. Stop calling it no-code.
So what can Webflow be?
- The Webflow CMS is too limited for content-heavy business models.
- The Webflow Blog is too limited for professional blogging or publishing.
- Webflow E-commerce is too limited for professional e-commerce business models or to make it an alternative to Shopify.
- Webflow Membership is still beta and far from covering professional business cases or making it an alternative to Memberstack or Outsetta.
- Logic is still beta and far away from covering professional business cases or making it an alternative to Bubble.
Will Webflow just stay the best WYSIWYG online web editor to build good-looking marketing pages for people with HTML/CSS skills?
I hope I'm wrong, but it looks like Webflow is abandoning the improvement or completion of existing product features to announce and ship new features in a bad state and shape to have a longer feature list to show to investors.
Or, with their last 400 Mio investment, they bite more than they can chew with talking about enterprise, and now they implode to the pressure of their investors.
One last thing.
Please hire more user interface and interaction designers. You can't realize the functionalities of E-commerce, Memberships, and Logic with the same user interface components, panels, and design system as your web editor. It does not work!
