Squarespace Commerce

Founded in 2004, Squarespace is a website builder that stands out from the pack for its elegant, award-winning designs and feature-rich editor. Geared towards users who want to create blogs, portfolio sites and online stores, millions of websites around the globe are hosted through Squarespace.

Alongside their robust website builder, Squarespace offers a fully-integrated ecommerce solution. It is estimated that about 100,000 Squarespace websites use commerce tools. Combining this versatile function with Squarespace’s already stunning design templates makes it great for users with all levels of sitebuilding experience.

Squarespace ecommerce is a top of the line solution for online store design. Its sleek templates put the emphasis on your products, and are easy to customize. On the not-so-bright side, we can say that there’s a bit of a learning curve, but strong features and a huge inventory system make it worth the effort.

• Excellent design options, better than any other ecommerce website builder.
• Flexible product variants.
• Huge range of industries and products represented by Squarespace’s ecommerce templates.
• Affordable paid plans.

• No Multi-Channel Selling.
• Takes some time to get comfortable navigating.
• Limited Library of integrations

Starting an online store using Squarespace eCommerce is as easy as they explain in their website and that's not a small thing. In just a few steps you can have a store ready to sell to everyone, everywhere:

• Find an ecommerce template and start your free trial.
• Register or transfer your business’s domain name.
• Set up your online store by adding products and connecting a payment processor.
• Or, if you sell services, you can set up appointments through Squarespace scheduling.
• Customize your online store categories and content with the website builder.
• Grow your online store with email marketing and SEO.

As we said, Squarespace can be complex at the beginning, but taking some time to get comfortable with its interface is well worth the investment. Additionally, if you have doubts Squarespace has also created a helpful how-to video series for managing an ecommerce website, so you’re not alone at all.

One of the most amazing qualities of Squarespace is their huge number of templates. We are talking of hundreds of templates that can be highly customized so your website can still look unique even if there are other Squarespace members using the same model. Of course, there are certain templates that are better suited for ecommerce sites than others. You can preview any template with a demo before choosing it for your site, and you can instantly change your template with just a few clicks.

If you are still undecided, we suggest you purchase a Squarespace template from a third-party designer/developer. Squarespace has a list of developers they endorse to help point you in the right direction.

The integration with Square POS is also unique. The two companies have worked to integrate Square's in-person point of sale expertise into Squarespace's ecommerce platform — allowing you to track real life sales and online sales seamlessly.

Of course, you'll need to be on one of Squarespace's Online Stores plans and have a Square account to access the system. You'll also need a Square card reader but, again, these are easy to get hold of. At the moment, the Square-and-Squarespace integration is only available in the US to users with iPhone devices. Android and iPad support .

Squarespace Customer Support is available 24/7 over email and Twitter and offers a live chat from 4am to 8pm Eastern Time, Monday through Friday. Across all of these modes of communication, Squarespace promises that you’ll always talk to real people instead of impersonal chatbots.

Squarespace doesn’t offer free plans, but it does give users a two-week free trial (no payment information needed) - and offers users a one week extension if the initial two weren’t enough to get a feel for the platform. This means that you can build your site, see how it will look and add features and content - all before putting down any money.

Point of Sale is available with a Squarespace Commerce Basic or Commerce Advanced plan. You take payments at the standard rate charged by the payment processor, Square. Squarespace does not charge any additional transaction fees.

Squarespace offers four plans for regular sites and online stores, each with unlimited bandwidth and storage, and a custom domain.

Website - Personal Plan: Squarespace charges $16/month if you pay monthly or $12/month if you pay annually. The Personal plan, best for portfolio sites or blogs, comes with 2 site contributors, 24/7 support from the Customer Care Team, SSL security, mobile optimization and website metrics.

Website - Business Plan: At $26/month if you pay monthly or $18/month if you pay annually, you’ll get an integrated eCommerce website with all of the features of the Personal plan plus unlimited contributors, $100 in Google Ad credit, professional Email from Google, premium integrations and blocks, advanced metrics, an unlimited product inventory, promotional pop-ups and more. Squarespace also offers product subcategories, giving merchants more control over how their store is organized, and improving the store navigation for their shoppers. Their easy-to-use inventory management tools make it easy to add, arrange and manage products. Important: Squarespace does charge a 3% transaction fee - to eliminate transaction fees, upgrade to one of the online store plans.

Online Store - Basic Plan: When billed monthly, the price tag is $35/month - annual billing gets you $26/month. This plan includes all features from the Business Plan, but with no transaction fees, mobile-optimized checkout, ecommerce metrics, customer accounts, checkout on your domain and the possibility to sell in-person with the Commerce App, accept payments through Square and keep your inventory, customers and sales analytics in sync (available in the US only).

Online Store - Premium Plan: At $54/month if you pay monthly or $40/month if you pay annually, you’ll get all of the features in the online store Basic Plan, plus abandoned cart recovery, the possibility to sell subscriptions to products and services, gift cards, advanced shipping options and the option to build custom integrations to third party systems to handle your back office and ecommerce needs (amongst other features).

Squarespace offers excellent sales features to help you build an online shop that not only looks great, but works well too. The best part:  all for a great price.

Products: Squarespace ecommerce allows you to sell unlimited physical, digital, and service-based products on your site. This makes Squarespace a great choice for any business looking to sell a variety of products. It is really easy to manage products from the backend, with tags, categories, and a drag-and-drop sorting tool. You will have the chance to add product descriptions, embed images and videos, and link internally to related products to give your shoppers the best browsing experience.

Squarespace Scheduling: This tool will let you quickly and easily add appointment scheduling to your site. Squarespace Scheduling allows clients to view your real-time availability and book their own appointments or classes. The feature gives the chance to pay online and reschedule with a click. Additionally, you can get notified when a new appointment is booked and sync upcoming appointments with the calendar you already use, like Google, Outlook, iCloud, or Office 365. 

Checkout and payment: Squarespace offers simple yet powerful payment and checkout options. Take online payments via Stripe, Paypal, and Apple Pay and offer customers the option to buy now and pay later with Afterpay (available in US, Australia, and New Zealand) or in-person payments with Square hardware. This makes selling products a breeze, as customers have many different options  to buy your stuff. Use the Squarespace Checkout Style Editor to customise the colouring, logo, and headers to match the aesthetic of your site, and make the checkout experience your own by adding customer surveys or the option to share a gifting message. It might seem trivial, but consistent branding throughout the payment process helps to maintain trust.

Shipping: Supported by UPS, the Squarespace shipping enables you to automatically calculate shipping rates for different regions. You can also sync your orders with ShipStation and print shipping labels for all major carriers. Or use the Commerce APIs to connect your store to third-party tax and shipping tools.

Sales analytics: Squarespace has a nice range of analytics available through its sales overview dashboard, including revenue, order volume, and conversions. It also allows you to track the purchase funnel, and break down what percentage of people who viewed a product went on to buy it.

Security features: Squarespace offers to their users a comprehensive range of security features, including free SSL certificates, secure customer accounts, and Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance.

Squarespace has grown a lot in recent years and has shown a continuous interest in improving and offering better features to its customers. Squarespace's track record shows that it will only get better in the years to come, which we think is an excellent choice for your online store.

Squarespace stands out for its 24/7 support, customizable templates, and endless sales features. Its social media integration is pretty good, too.

Squarespace is definitely the best option for small businesses. If you want a simple site and have a few products, Squarespace is just great.