Shopify Unlocks New Creative Freedom with Flex Sections

Shopify has listened to merchants and is finally launching one of the most requested features – an intuitive page builder to customise online store layouts. With the upcoming launch of flex sections, Shopify is bringing the flexibility and ease of building unique pages to match their platform’s power.

Competitors like WordPress, Squarespace and Wix offer drag-and-drop page builders right within their platforms. These tools allow anyone to quickly create stylish, custom layouts without coding expertise. Shopify has lagged behind in providing merchants with an equally capable built-in page builder.

Instead, Shopify merchants have had to rely on clunkier third-party apps to achieve advanced custom layouts. The most popular option, PageFly, gets the job done but still leaves much to be desired in terms of creative freedom and ease of use.

We all hope that flex sections can be that problem-solving solution from Shopify to give full visual control over store design without compromising ease of use or performance… Although, like all Shopify releases we don’t expect the initial release to be the holy grail to all of our issues.

 

How Flex Sections Will Work

Flex sections derive their power from leveraging CSS Flexbox under the bonnet. For those less familiar with web development, Flexbox represents a modern approach to controlling layouts fluidly across varying screen sizes and devices.

Shopify is baking Flexbox directly into its platform so merchants can harness its responsive power simply by dragging and dropping, resizing, and arranging page sections. No more faffing about with code or clunky workarounds!

With flex sections, we can expect:

• Multi-directional layout options to create distinct designs not possible before. Sections can flow vertically, horizontally, or reverse order entirely.
• True responsiveness. Layouts and content rearrange intelligently across screen sizes. No more rigid desktop-only designs, or having to compromise to get mobile right!
• Precision alignment options to dial in positioning of elements exactly where you want them.
• Grouping of elements to move and customise together while maintaining layout independence.
• Re-sizing flexibility to adapt sections on the fly.
• Nesting sections within sections for complex multi-layered pages.
• Above all, an intuitive visual interface to do all this without touching code.

Fingers crossed, Shopify merchants will be able to let their creative juices flow rather than fight against technical limits. Allowing smaller businesses to make front-end updates seem possible.

 

A Game Changer for Merchants

We are all hopeful that Flex sections will be a game changer in several respects for Shopify merchants:

• Unique brand expression. Visually distinct pages that accurately reflect a brand’s image and style. No more cookie-cutter.
• Perfect mobile responsiveness. Layouts that display stunningly across devices to capitalise on mobile traffic.
• No reliance on external apps. Flex sections comes included in Shopify rather than a costly add-on.
• No learning curve. Shopify leverages drag-and-drop and visual editing Shopify merchants already understand.
• Speed. Built directly into the platform, flex sections performs faster than any app could.

This is what we love about Shopify. The platform continues to elevate capabilities for merchants in meaningful ways. The timing couldn’t be better with more small businesses relying on ecommerce than ever before. As ever, kudos to Shopify for empowering online retailers to turn their stores into true individual storefronts.

We’ll be eagerly awaiting the flex sections rollout! When released, we’ll follow up with hands-on guidance, tips, and tutorials to help merchants hit the ground running.

Is now the time to move your eCommerce store onto Shopify? Contact us for a free consultation.