Building a Marketplace in Webflow is tricky but worth it.

Now there are a few NoCode solutions to building marketplaces like Circle etc so why use Webflow. Well, I believe the extra time and effort put into creating a marketplace with Webflow is well worth it to help you create your marketplace's brand identity by giving you complete design freedom.

The Frontend

The biggest adventure for building this way is the look of the site. With Webflow the frontend will be as custom as you can imagine which other marketplace builders do not give you. Now let’s circle for example. Their sites, though practical, all pretty much look like circle sites. You can tell there are made with Circle pretty much straight away and though the content is different, the look and the feel of the site is Circle. Now don’t get me wrong, Circle is a great resource and if your new to NoCode and you have a great idea or you just want to create your product and don’t really care about the look of it, you just want it functional, then applications like Circle or WordPress are your best bet. But if you have the time, care about the look and the design then building your site with Webflow might be the best bet.

The Backend

Now for storing your site information before it goes into your site's CMS (Content Management System) you will need a way to filter out any rogue sign-ups or posts. This is where the power of Airtable comes in. With Airtable you can simply set up an approval system like this which then sends this record into another view, a view which is filtered by what records are checked - easy. By using this method easily keep a check on the information coming into your site from outside and feel safe in the knowledge that no one is misusing it.

Creating Memberships

Unfortunately, Webflow does not come with its own custom membership gateway though I believe one is in the pipeline. For now, though, we have Memberstack. Memberstack is a 3rd party system that unfortunately requires extra payment (this reminds me this method might cost a little more but that is what you get for complete design control) but is really easy to implement and again gives you complete design control.

The Glue - Zapier

Now holding all this together and helping your site connect with these 3rd party systems is Zapier. This, unfortunately, requires payment again and can be very tricky to set up especially if you want to link multi-reference fields (Check my mini-course on this subject on NoCoded.co.uk) but on the whole, it is a very straightforward system to implement, they’re a lot of guides and hints and tips out there for beginners. Another advantage of creating your own workflows is that you can add warnings in for the administrator, for my own site, I have a warning system set up which emails me when I have a new member profile awaiting to be checked in airtable.

On the whole

As you can see there a lot of great advantages to creating your marketplace through Webflow but not every project you may encounter will need the extra capabilities that Webflow offers. It all depends on the importance of the design, the timescale, and the cost. If anyone does need support implementing a Webflow marketing place please reach out and contact us at NoCoded.co.uk