Squarespace Commerce launched on Valentine's Day, and how sweet the powerful new features are! Feast your eyes on Squarespace's hot new e-commerce engine and these flip-worthy features.
17 Powerful Squarespace E-Commerce Features
Squarespace partnered with processing service Stripe to provide an alternative to the traditionally sub-par options customers have had to sell their wares directly through e-commerce functionality. Third-party tools such as Ecwid and Shopify have performed nicely in a pinch, but not until lately did Squarespace users have something to get excited about in the world of e-commerce.
1. Guided Setup Process
The new Squarespace commerce system starts users off on the right foot with a four-step guide that walks through product setup, shipping options, connecting with Stripe for payment processing, and publishing your new store.
Squarespace makes your store setup and Stripe vendor configuration a snap with a simple guided tour.
2. The Squarespace & Stripe Payment Partnership
Squarespace partnered with Stripe for payment processing on any commerce sales on your site. Stripe charges and affordable 2.9% and $.30 per transaction, and configuration for payment through your Squarespace website takes less than five minutes.
Working with Stripe for payment processing is as easy as working with Squarespace.
3. Robust New Product Workflow
Adding new products to your online store through Squarespace's e-commerce platform is as intuitive as creating a blog post. Set pricing, multiple images, product titles and descriptions. You can even schedule and publish new products.
Manage all facets of your product within Squarespace's intuitive user interface.
4. 100% Customizable Product Pages
Squarespace's product pages are just as easy to customize as any other page type in Squarespace. Using LayoutEngine, you can customize the position and appearance of text, images and videos within your product pages.
Squarespace 6, the most current release of Squarespace, comes with drag-and-drop design blocks powered by LayoutEngine.
5. Simple Inventory Management
Inventory management for physical goods through Squarespace is intuitive. Inventory levels change as sales occur, and it's easy to set new levels, change prices, and adjust weights as needed.
Manage inventory levels with Squarespace's e-commerce tools.
6. Sell Digital Products with Ease
Selling your digital works couldn't be easier. Drag-and-drop files into the Squarespace Commerce interface, and buyers will be sent a link to a secure download that lasts for 24-hours upon checkout. Never again worry about a link to your files getting out on the Internet.
Selling digital products such as ebooks, audio files, and videos is a simple drag-and-drop process.
7. Add a Shopping Cart with No Development Costs
The amazing part about e-commerce on Squarespace is that a developer isn't needed to build a product catalog, shopping cart, or checkout process. The entire process is built into the fabric of your existing templates, and are managed by the same intuitive controls that are used to configure any existing Squarespace website.
Squarespace's built-in shopping cart matches your existing template design.
8. A Seamless Checkout Process
Clunky checkout processes can deter customers and potential business. The checkout process with the Squarespace/Stripe integration is smooth, secure, and seamless. Your customers will enjoy doing business with you and look forward to future transactions.
Squarespace's Stripe-powered checkout process is slick.
9. Flexible Shipping Options for Physical Goods
Squarespace provides all of the shipping options you'd expect from any robust inventory management solution, including the ability to set weights per product, flat-fee shipping rules, and weight-based shipping rules.
Squarespace supports multiple shipping options.
10. Offer Coupon Codes Like the Big Boys
Want to give out specials to VIP customers or during certain times of the year? Squarespace offers the ability to give discounts on any order, orders over a certain value, on products within specific categories, and on individual products. You can also set the durations of your promtions so that coupon codes expire when promotions finish.
Offer a wide range of coupon codes with Squarespace e-commerce tools.
11. Squarespace Provides the ONLY SEO-Friendly Squarespace E-Commerce Platform
Third party tools such as Ecwid and Shopify are nice, but they typically work against your efforts in attracting search engine traffic from Google. Squarespace's SEO-friendly e-commerce platform allows you to create a page for every product with its own URL with ease, giving you the chance to put more content for your products on your own website.
Boost your SEO efforts with Squarespace e-commerce tools.
12. Stay Compliant with Uncle Sam with Built-in Sales Tax Support
Squarespace wants you to stay on the right side of the law with your online endeavor, and has built in a sales tax engine with customizable rules. Look up the tax laws in your state, then make a few quick tweaks to make sure you're taxing per federal, state, and local laws.
Calculate sales tax on sales through Squarespace.
13. Customize Communications with Customers
Squarespace continues to promote the balance between ease-of-use and power with customizable order confirmations, shipping messages, and more. E-commerce on Squarespace is going to make many people very happy.
14. Opt Customers in to MailChip Newsletters
If you have an existing integration with MailChimp and Squarespace, why not add an email newsletter opt-in to all of your transactions? Squarespace allows you to easily select your MailChimp newsletter subscriber list to integrate with your checkout process for maximum impact on your email marketing efforts.
Squarespace Commerce integrates seamlessly with MailChimp.
15. Squarespace Products Integrate with Facebook
Did you want to push your entire product catalog to Facebook? Squarespace makes it possible to add any product gallery or page as a tab on your Facebook page in just a few clicks. Get your products some love from social media with this slick feature.
Squarespace and Facebook play nice together with your products.
16. Squarespace Commerce Integrates with Google Analytics
Squarespace confirmed that all transactions that occur with Squarespace Commerce will show up in the Google Analytics E-Commerce reports. This feature alone puts businesses utilizing Squarespace websites on par with many mid-size companies, and allows business owners to track opportunities and transactions to the sources that matter most.
17. Customizable Policies Provide Polish
Last but not least, Squarespace's new Commerce engine provides the abilities to tailor your return policies, privacy policies, and your terms of service to provide you with the legal protection and flexibility your business requires to succeed.
Succeed with Squarespace E-Commerce Tools
What Squarespace Commerce features excite you the most? Have you had a chance to build any products or configure any inventory controls? I'd like to hear your thoughts on where Squarespace really hit the mark on these new tools and where they have a chance to grow their e-commerce offering even further. Be sure to check Squarespace Commerce out, and then leave a comment with your thoughts below.