Everything You Need To Know About Selling On Squarespace
16 Minute Read
Squarespace has a whole host of different features for selling your lovely wares to happy customers.
Having worked in, and studied, retail and eCommerce for the last five years I know what helps, and hinders, a selling experience for both businesses and customers. In this post, I am going to introduce you to some of the many features that Squarespace has to keep you happily selling online.
Item types on Squarespace
Whether you are selling large paintings, art classes or an ebook Squarespace has you covered with the following item options…
Physical item - This means anything you are going to be packaging up and sending in the post. Big or small, you can integrate the dimensions and weight with your shipping set-up to make sure customers are being charged the correct amounts for shipping and you are not losing out. You can set up all kinds of shipping fees to cover the postage of large, fragile or heavy items.
Service item - Examples of a service item would be a landscape garden consultation, a collection of flowers to be set up in a venue or a ticket to a life drawing class. Service items do not include postage.
Digital item - Whether you are selling your latest book as a beautiful digital download or a step by step guide for customers to follow, a digital download is a great function to have on your Squarespace shop. As soon as customers purchase the item they will receive a download link and have the file in their hands faster than you can say ‘That’s clever!’.
A useful function of a digital download can be using the file as a vessel for a secret URL or page on your site. Perhaps people want to buy into your online tutorial series, they can buy it as a digital download. When they open the PDF there will be a link for them to follow which will lead them to your secret web page full of tutorial content like videos and guides.
SKUs = Options
SKUs
Think of a SKU as ‘another version’ of one item. For example, a beautiful print of an artist’s most popular work might be the item and the SKUs would be the different sizes that the print comes in. In fashion different SKUs are usually colours or sizes. A pair of jeans would be the item and then the colour and size combination would be the SKU. Complicated but fantastically useful for businesses selling different variations, sizes, flavours and colours of an item.
On Squarespace, you can have up to 100 (phew, that’s a lot) SKUs under one item. These SKUs are presented in a drop-down selector underneath the main item.
Stock management as standard with Squarespace commerce
For all of the three-item types, you can set availability for the stock. This means you will always have the stock to meet a customer’s orders. When an item sells out it will be automatically marked as such on the store. You can set availability by SKU as well, so if a size or colour of an item sells out then it will no longer be available to purchase on our site.
Squarespace also offers the option to add a waitlist.
Sold out of your bestseller but know you will have more in any day now?
Add a waitlist to the sold-out item!
Customers can add their email addresses and be notified the moment you restock. They get the goods and you get the sales, win-win!
You can also label products as ‘Limited Availability’, this is a great prompt for customers to buy right away when they really don’t want to miss out.
Stock categorising in Squarespace shop
Businesses with a wide product range will appreciate the item categories and tags feature. Say you sell a wide variety of artwork. You can use the categories of ceramics, canvases or textiles to differentiate your items. This allows customers to search by item. It also means you can create summaries in different places around your website which feature specific categories...
Example
Say you are running a discount on ceramics on your store.
You can pull out a summary of all the items categorised as ceramics on your home page, add some copy talking about your promotion and sit back as people are led to explore your range of textiles!
Subscriptions on Squarespace
Help keep customers topped up with your awesome offerings using the rolling subscriptions function. Whether that is a monthly chocolate bar delivery, new colours of paints and pastels or monthly lessons, you can easily set up physical items and services as rolling subscriptions. This is a great way to keep customers engaged with your offering. It is also an attractive gifting option!
Interested in learning more about subscription services and how they could be great for your business and desired by your customers, read all about it in a post that answers just that question here.
Promotional banners for Squarespace
Got something you really must share with all your site visitors and customers?
Then the answer is a promotional banner. Whether you want a full-screen pop-up or discreet slide down strip at the top of the screen, whatever big news, launches or discounts you need to share, everyone will know within moments on your store.
This feature has been very useful during the era of CV19. Real-world customers coming to your site for updates can immediately click through to all the relevant information they may need.
Customer accounts in Squarespace shop
Basic and Advanced Commerce Plans (more on those later!) all accommodate customer accounts, This can be great if you sell items that people keep coming back for. Customer accounts mean they can check out faster, you can build relationships with customers and you can gather info on what items customers are buying.
Squarespace even do gift cards!
Gift cards can be a great option for customers who want to spread the word of your business but may not be 100% sure on what the recipient of the pressie really wants. Gift cards can be bought online, sent via email and redeemed through your online shop at check out.
Instead of presents that don’t quite fit the bill, gift cards mean people can choose their own presents. This saves you time processing exchanges or returns.
The gift card function has been a great way for customers to support independent businesses during the pandemic of 2020. Many businesses found their supply chains faltered through no fault of their own. With income, from gift cards, businesses were able to get by and customers could buy into the products as soon as they arrived at a later date, using their gift cards.
Utilise discount codes with Squarespace
Discount codes are a fab way of rewarding loyal customers, generating interest and catching momentum during big sales periods. For example, boxing day sales don’t have to mean people crushing on the high street. It could mean them purchasing your work online after getting an attractive discount code in their inbox.
Simple stuff, but really effective!
Discount codes can be set by % or at a fixed amount of orders or specific items. If your business partakes in charitable work or offers free items to select people you can generate a 100% off code. This code can be set at a fixed number of uses and customers can benefit from your goods without having to share their payment details.
Collect donations on Squarespace
Raising money can be made super simple and smooth with a donation function on your site. As easy as choosing a donation amount and entering their card details, all payments are safe and simple. This increases the change of patrons contributing to your cause.
You can also generate bespoke donation confirmation emails. This is the perfect place to offer your heartfelt thanks to people who have donated and offer them the option to sign up to your mailing list to see what their donation has been used for.
Linked payment processors and functions to Squarespace
Bored with sending people your bank details, waiting for BACS payments and losing customers and time with a complicated selling system?
Thought so…
Squarespace has a huge range of compatible programmes and the shop function is no exception. Use Stripe to allow customers to securely pay with their cards. For an even faster check out, connect PayPal business to your store. This additional level of security is another incentive for customers to buy from your Squarespace store!
Another useful plugin is the accounting, finance and stock management tool Xero. If you have been using it before you will know how smooth it is at integrating those three areas, managing the money side of your biz and saving you time!
Once connected to your store you can manage your stock, sales and profits through the integrated programme.
Fulfilling your Squarespace orders
Orders that flood in (aim high!) are all presented in the orders area of your site. Easy to manage, gather and mark as fulfilled - Squarespace is here to make sure you can manage your stock and get those items out to happy customers asap.
If you have special shipping and share tracking details with customers, this can all be entered when you mark the item as fulfilled. This automatically generates an email to the customer letting them know the shipping info and that their lovely order is on it’s way to them!
Updated customers = Happy customers!
Refunds through Squarespace shop
If ever you need to refund an item for any reason, you have two options at your fingertips to quickly refund the value you desire. Option one is a full refund, this includes the cost of the product, any taxes or shipping fees and also Squarespace transaction fees.
The second option is a partial refund. This means you can decide what amount you would like to return to the customer. If you are using a Squarespace commerce plan (explanation about plans coming soon, I promise!) which includes a transaction charge then you will also be refunded a proportion of the transaction fee.
The different Squarespace payment plans
Which is right for you?
There is a wide variety of helpful tools and features that Squarespace cover in their plans, but here comes the useful bit…
Choices, choices!
Which Squarespace plan is the right one for you to sell online?
In a nutshell, there are three different plans which allow for transactions. Depending on whether you would like a basic shop or a fully-fledged retail experience is up to you.
All you have to do is click here, have a look at the features offered on each Squarespace plan and decide which is right for you!
There is however one thing to note - and bear with me guys it gets a bit mathematical now…
The most affordable transactional plan is called the ‘Business’ plan. This plan charges 3% on all of your transactions and costs £15 per month. The next plan up is called the ‘Basic Commerce plan’. This plan charges £20 per month but offers a host of additional features (customer accounts, selling on Instagram and analytics stools to name but a few. The biggest benefit of the Basic commerce plan is that it does not charge any commission.
So, and here begins the maths…
If you are selling more than about £160 of goods through your store on a monthly basis then the more expensive plan actually pays for itself as you are saving on the 3% commission. If all of this sounds a little overwhelming, do not worry, that is why I am here!
As part of all my Squarespace website design experiences, we chat over your business, sales plans and from there choose the best option for your business. Did I mention you’d also get 20% off the first year of your square space fees? Well, as I am part of Squarespace’s professional network, I can offer you just that. Every little helps right
Scalable - Switch up your Squarespace plan to suit your business
All Squarespace plans can be switched up to reflect the needs of your business. If you grow, it can grow with you and keep making sure your customers are having a great online shopping experience, with awesome features, through your beautiful website.
Say your business is starting with baby steps right now. You don’t need big monthly investments just a working, simple online shop, then Squarespace has you covered. Once you start growing your range, generating a loyal customer base and selling subscriptions and integrating selling with Instagram then, you just scale up. Simple!
Intuitive, Squarespace shop is easy to use!
Although setting up a business and selling your awesome goods, skills and services online can be daunting, it shouldn’t be difficult. Squarespace’s commerce functions are simple to use and intuitive to manage. As part of my Two-week Website experience, I teach clients how to run, update and manage their online stores.
I am always thrilled when I see how quickly clients become fully independent. Whether that is listing new products, setting up subscriptions or recategorising their stock - they're in full control of their online shop presence!
To Summarise, just some of the features I love about…
Selling with Squarespace:
Different item types
SKUs
Stock management
Different stock categories and tags
Subscription plans
promotional banners
Customer accounts
Intuitive to use
Gift cards
Discount codes
Donations
Linked payment and management processors
Easily fulfil orders
Refunds through the shop
Scalable
Different plans for different needs!
I hope you have found this outline of Squarespace’s shop functions useful!
It really is a great platform for selling.
If you are interested in chatting about selling your creations, items and services online get in touch and we can book a consult call. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Feel free to share this with anyone considering Squarespace as their website platform of choice for selling.
Let me know if there is anything else you want to see on this list!
Ottilie Xo