How to Start an Online Store with Squarespace Shop?
Updated on November 3, 2022 in Ecommerce by Nishant Shrimali
When looking to start an online store, you may have come across various store builders among which Squarespace might have been the most attractive one. And that’s why we came up with this Ultimate Guide on How to Start an Online Store with Squarespace Shop.
Here, let us be clear that “looks” are not the only asset on Squarespace Shop. Some of the best features of Squarespace are:
- High-quality Site Features
- Value for Money Pricing
- Easy to use
- Excellent analytic tools and inventory system
- Highly Reliable with a strong Uptime
- The free Domain name and SSL with a purchase of an annual plan
The benefits are fairly clear and make it really amusing to start an online store with Squarespace Shop. In the following article, we will be discussing:
- Which is the best Squarespace Plan for you
- Which are the best templates for your eCommerce Store
- How To add products to your store
- How to Set-up payment options for your customers
- Setting up your shipping settings
- And Shopify vs Squarespace
We got a lot to cover, so without wasting any more time, let us jump right on to the steps.
Steps to Start an Online Store with Squarespace Shop
1. Signing Up and Choosing the Best template for your eCommerce Store
Squarespace has made eCommerce store creation fairly easy, simple, and direct. To start an online store with Squarespace shop, go to Squarespace Online Store templates. These are especially hand-picked eCommerce templates made to make it easy for you to sell your products online and grow your eCommerce store.
Preview your options and Start with your chosen eCommerce templates. Some of the best eCommerce templates by Squarespace are:
- Adirondack
- Avenue
- Supply
- Brine
- Galapagos
Squarespace offers a 14-days free trial, hence you can create you create an online store and see if you like the way it looks or not. Note that, until you upgrade your store the Url won’t be your store name, but a gibberish. If you are satisfied with the way your eCommerce store looks, you move on to the next step.
2. Choosing the best Squarespace plan
In order to start an online store with Squarespace shop, you would have to choose from the three Squarespace plan.
Business
- Costs you $216 for a year with the additional 3% fee taken by Squarespace for every sale you make on the platform
- Promo Pop up
- Discounts codes option available but the code will have to be entered manually during checkout
- Announcement bar
Commerce Basic
- Costs $312 for a year
- Includes all Business plan features
- No additional cost is taken from the Squarespace
- Allows customer to create their own account
- Allows integration with Xero for accounting, and Shipstation integration for shipping private labels.
- Additional eCommerce store analytics
Commerce Advance
- Costs $480 for a year
- Includes all Business and Basic Commerce plan feature
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Allows you to sell Gift cards
- Automatic discount applied during the checkout
- You get the option to calculate the shipping cost by shipping carriers like FedEx+USPS, UPS, etc.
- Allows the integration with Printful for Dropshipping
Let us do some math here. The Business Plan is $96 cheaper than the Basic Commerce Plan. Note that the Business plan also takes 3% of additional fees on every sale.
This means if you are just starting out and are unsure if your business will make more than $3200 then the business plan is the best choice for you. Whereas if you are looking to make more than $3200, the Commerce plan will be much more profitable.
To purchase your preferred plan, Go to Settings > Billing & Account > Billing.
Here, you will be able to see the number of days left in your trial. Just below you would also be able to see the Upgrade. Click on it and you will be taken to plan’s page. Choose the plan you decided on above.
3. Adding your Products to Squarespace Shop
Squarespace shop allows you to sell 4 types of product, which are:
Physical
These are the actual physical products that you will have to ship to your customer, like clothing, jewelry, home decor, etc. If you are selling physical products, you would have to add at least one Shipping option, along with the weight and dimensions to the details of your product.
Digital
Digital products are the one that is shared or sold online like an eBook, songs, templates, etc. Here a customer would receive a mail once he purchases the product along with a download link inside. Once the link is clicked your customer will have 24 hours before the link expires
Service
These are online services like classes, workshops, events, consultation,s, etc. Squarespace shop allows you to hide the quantity option here so that no one could buy more than one service at a time.
Gift cards
The following option allows you to sell digital gift cards in your online store. When a customer purchases it, a link is sent to their recipient email with a code, that they can use when they checkout on their site.
This option is only available for Commerce Advance plan.
To add these products, here are a few simple steps that you would have to follow:
- Go to your editors home menu and click on pages. Here you would find a (+) button. Click on it to add product page.
- Set the title and press enter to continue to your next step. You can even change it later, but in order to add products and start an online store, you would need to add at least one product page.
- Go to the page and click (+) button to add products. Choose the type of your product (Physical, Digital, Service or Gift Card)
- Here choose the type of product that you would like to sell and continue by filling in the details as asked by Squarespace about the product.
If you already have an online store and want to grow your eCommerce store with Squarespace Shop to Start an Online Store you can import your products through Big Cartel, Etsy, Shopify, or CSV files.
(Note: Each of your product pages can contain 200 items, each product can have up to 100 variants and your store can have 1000 products in total)
4. Setting Up the Payment Process
Squarespace allows payment through three major Payment getaways, that is, PayPal, Stripe, and Apple Pay. You can choose any of them but do make sure that the option you choose is available in your country.
5. Setting up the Shipping for your Online store
For your Physical products, you would also need to set up the shipping process when you start an online store with Squarespace shop. You can create an automatic shipping option that includes flare rate, rates by the weight carrier calculated, etc. For this Go to Home Menu>Setting >Shipping.
If you have multiple options, they all will show up during the checkout with the cheapest option selected as default.
6. Customization
Squarespace is a platform that allows you to customize your site as per your own vision. With tones of options, you can start an online store, make it look as per your wish, and grow your eCommerce store to new heights.
You have got 14 days before the trial end and we surely recommend you explore each option at an individual level. Try out new things and see how you can make the most out of your Squarespace online store.
Bonus Read
As of now, you are all set to start an online store with Squarespace shop. We have already discussed the process of signing up, choosing a template, choosing the best plan, adding products, payment, and shipping options.
The last thing we would like you to take away from the article would be the importance of your product images. According to a study, 75% of conversion on an online store depends on the product image and how they are edited to be presentable.
In order to make your products stand out, you can always get yoru product images edited by professionals like PixelPhant. We are among the best product image editing services, helping eCommerce stores around the globe. But more on us someday later. Get your free product image editing trial and experience the best service by yourself.
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