Its approach to setting up site navigation and its superb 'layout engine' (which allows you to drag and drop content into pages in a very user-friendly way) make it very straightforward to use. And, because your POS hardware is linked to your store, your inventory and stock count remain automatically synced. Let’s take a look at the options on this front. It comes with more built-in email marketing tools, and gives you access to many marketing apps. The first screen sets the stage and tells the user something important about the software. We were able find several apps in Shopify’s app store that showed our orders on a map so we could pick and choose which orders we would deliver ourselves. For example, let’s say you want to change the font color and size in the navigation. In terms of what domains are available to buy direct from either Squarespace or Shopify, you'll find that they don't offer as many top level domain (TLD) options as you'd find with a dedicated domain name provider (for example, you might not find that your country's TLD domain is catered for). You might also find the below articles / resources on Shopify and Squarespace useful: information about our Squarespace development services, general advice on how to make online stores. I recently started this ecommerce website and used Squarespace to design this unique product page with a product 'trailer' front and center. There is a huge library of third party apps that work with Shopify and extend its functionality significantly — although some integrations are available for Squarespace, you won't find a similar catalogue of apps to beef up your site / store. In software, you could say the first “scene” is the first screen a user is shown after logging in. You can access this via this link. (It’s important to note that you have to be based in the USA to use it.). You'll receive e-newsletters containing all our latest advice and reviews: essential stuff for kick-starting your business. With Shopify, unless all your images have a consistent aspect ratio, they will be laid out in a pretty incoherent manner: visitors to your site will see a mish-mash of differently sized image photos in the product catalogues (see video below). When your business sells a digital product to consumers in EU member states, VAT MOSS ('VAT Mini One Stop Shop') requires you to charge value added tax at the rate due in the consumer’s country. Verified providers can sell their themes in the Shopify theme store. While both platforms enable online selling, choosing between Squarespace eCommerce VS Shopify largely depends on what type of business you have. On the face of it, Shopify and Squarespace look like similar products: they let you create a website and they let you sell products (even if you don’t have any design or coding skills). If you are hoping to build a content-focused website or a blog and sell a couple of products on the site as well, then Squarespace is probably still your best bet, so long as you are happy to sell in one currency, and aren’t dealing with too many different tax rates. Squarespace’s has the best theme customization tool of any website builder. Both integrations are great and are particularly helpful for bloggers who need to find strong images quickly to accompany their posts, or Squarespace designers who are working on sites for clients who have not supplied any photos. For a start, there are quite a few apps in Shopify's app store which provide GDPR-compliant banners and cookie consent functionality. But you can also go deeper and create custom palettes and themes. So what can you actually sell in Squarespace and Shopify? In terms of the the credit card fees, the rate is determined by either Stripe or Paypal (the two options provided by Squarespace for processing credit cards). The key takeaway here is that if you are planning on hosting thousands of products or blog posts on your site, or envisage migrating to another platform in future, Shopify is the safer option. That said, Shopify has made strides recently to provide functionality that enables you to present your content in multiple languages — you can create 5 different language versions of your website on any Shopify plan; and the enterprise-level Shopify Plus plan lets you create versions of your site in up to 20 languages. Changing the font color and size of your navigation will require CSS editing. If your primary aim to build an attractive website to showcase content, then out of the two products here, Squarespace is your best bet. But if you opt for a third-party, paid-for template, you may have to deal with the designers of that template if you run into trouble. Shopify also offers a few other POS features that are not available with Squarespace yet, namely staff accounts, pins and multiple location options. There's definitely a 'wow' factor with certain Squarespace templates that sets them apart from similar website builders and e-commerce platforms. Shopify’s first screen is a newsfeed of what’s happening in your store: Shopify's first screen is a newsfeed for your store. As things stand Squarespace doesn’t let you do any multi-currency selling at all — Shopify does, however. Squarespace has put a lot of thought into their template customization— which makes sense, Squarespace is all about beautiful websites. By contrast, Squarespace offers just two main payment options: Paypal and Stripe. Unverified themes are for sale on other marketplaces like Theme Forest, which has over 900 Shopify themes. If you use a third-party payment gateway to process your credit card transactions, you will pay Shopify a percentage of the transaction: 0.5% to 2% depending on plan. Shopify provides you with live chat, email and (crucially) phone support — Squarespace offers only live chat and email support. Blogging is an often-overlooked, but extremely important aspect of running an online store. Let me give you an example. Interestingly, if you prefer the general vibe of Squarespace, or have an existing Squarespace site that you're really happy with but like the sound of Shopify’s e-commerce features, you could also consider using Squarespace AND Shopify in conjunction with each other: you could use the 'Shopify Lite' Plan to integrate the Shopify Buy Button, cart and checkout onto a Squarespace site. In a previous post, we identified Wix as as the winner in Wix vs Squarespace, but the platforms are very similar in terms of their e … So, if creating a multilingual website or store is an important part of your project, out of the two options here I’d definitely recommend Shopify. What’s nice about Shopify is that you can use its ‘Buy Button’ feature to embed products on any sort of online presence that permits you to add a snippet of code to it. In fact, I recently started a new ecommerce store and ended up using Squarespace for it instead of Shopify— why? You can view a full list of the products we receive commission on here. Squarespace has many power users and is definitely customizable by code but their theme customization tools are built to be used by anybody. Of course, of the two products under discussion, Shopify still technically offers the cheapest way into online selling, with the $9 Lite plan. It also means that it’s hard (if not impossible) to add a GDPR-compliant cookie banner to your Squarespace site (I discuss the fun issue of GDPR in more depth later on in this review). Key differences between Squarespace plansSquarespace offers four monthly pricing options: You can also make use of a two-week free trial (with extensions available if you need more time to finish your site). Finally, the ‘Scheduling’ apps are designed to let you manage appointments with your clients (‘Scheduling Admin’) or let your clients book and manage ones with you (‘Scheduling Client’). There are also pre-designed sections that let you get up and running quickly. Shopify vs Squarespace, 10 Factors to Help You Decide 1. If you’d like to learn more, check out my full Shopify review. And, because you can only sell goods using Stripe from certain countries, Paypal is left as the sole payment processing option for a lot of Squarespace users. That said, you can get around the product option limitation in Shopify, so long as you are prepared to pay for a third-party app to do so (an example being the Infinite Product Options app). So, when it comes to sales taxes, it’s a big win for Shopify. Read more ». Although both platforms could perform much better where GDPR is concerned, it’s fair to say that merchants wishing to have a high level of compliance on their website will find that this is considerably easier to achieve with Shopify, especially in the area of cookie consent. ), but the key ones for prospective Shopify and Squarespace users are probably as follows: Display adequate privacy and cookie notices on your website, Get explicit consent from people signing up to mailing lists that it is okay to send them e-newsletters. The key benefit of using Squarespace Email Campaigns is that you can manage both your website and mailing list — arguably the two most important online assets of any business — in one place; and, to a degree, your emails will be consistent with your brand (depending on which typeface you use on your site — not all will be available in Squarespace-created e-newsletters). This is chiefly because you can do more with the blog content — you can drop it easily into any page or sidebar of your site using attractive and flexible 'summary blocks'. Despite the shortcomings of the Squarespace CMS when it comes to SEO, it should be noted that it is definitely possible to optimize a Squarespace site well for search engines — see our Squarespace SEO tips for some important advice on how to make a Squarespace site rank in search results. Professional reporting features only become available on the $79 Shopify plans and up. However, you will need to invest in an $89 per month add-on to avail of most of this functionality. The Shopify point of sale kit comprises a barcode scanner, card reader, cash drawer and receipt printer — you can buy any of these items individually or as a package — or alternatively, use compatible third party hardware. There are 64 paid Shopify themes to choose from, most of which contain several variations. I can see the rationale for this, but I think that many (most?) One thing that I feel is handled considerably better by Squarespace than Shopify is product images. App Store — Shopify was also the first store builder to launch an app store. Moving elements can have unexpected results and adjusting spacing or adding columns is not possible. With the addition of e-commerce to Squarespace’s feature set, and an increase in the number of content-creation apps available for Shopify, the two tools have become increasingly similar and technically, you can now use either to create a content-driven website or sell products online. These plans are pretty cheap by comparison to the plans available from dedicated email marketing solutions (especially at the top end of the pricing scale) — and allow you to dip your toes into the world of online direct marketing without a significant outlay being involved. Squarespace was initially conceived as a solution for building and maintaining content-based websites, whereas Shopify was specifically created as a solution for making an online store. The plus side of this business model is that it doesn't involve much investment to start your business; the down side is that margins tend to be quite low due to high levels of competition, and it’s hard to be sure of the quality of dropshipped goods, or whether they were produced ethically. The first scene sets the stage of any movie— they’re an opportunity for directors to tip off the audience on what you can expect. And they have changed the way we live. For excellent free resources on all aspects of running an online business — from website building to SEO to email marketing — make sure you subscribe to our updates via email. Shopify's Point of Sale kit, for selling your wares in a 'real' shop. It’s an excellent all-purpose website builder that can power a variety of websites. Written By Erica Hartwick . You can use Printful to sell printed products on demand, but that’s about it. In the end if you really want a custom Shopify theme you’re not going to be able to do it without jumping into code or hiring a Shopify theme expert. None of this is a knock on Squarespace. The Simple Map app show your orders on a map. On top of the standard pricing plans, there are transaction fees and credit card fees to consider. I've had more experience of Squarespace’s customer support than Shopify’s, and it's varied from being brilliant (when dealing with technical issues to do with SSL) to dreadful (when dealing with Squarespace GDPR related enquiries). If you intend to sell products in-store or at events, you will find Shopify's Point of Sale options extremely useful — Squarespace’s offering is currently very limited on this front. If you’d like to watch a video review of Shopify, we’re pleased to say we recently published one — see below. Third, Shopify handles URL redirection better than Squarespace. It’s a good choice for small stores. 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