Why Squarespace is the Best Ecommerce Platform in 2022?

This Squarespace article covers every aspect that makes the product the best eCommerce platform in 2021. We've also provided reasons why you should use it for your web design project.

There are currently many web apps in the website builder market with claims of being the best. Some of the top names in the website builder business are Squarespace, Weebly, Ecwid, Hubspot, and Getresponse.

We'll provide points to show that Squarespace beats all the other options available in the market. Some of the points we have covered include the following:

• A detailed overview of Squarespace and how it works
  
  
• A review of the key features and template
  
  
• What makes Squarespace the best
  
  
• The different pricing plans
  
  
• Other alternatives
  
  

At the end of this article, you will agree that Squarespace is the best eCommerce platform in 2021.

Try Squarespace for free here!

Squarespace Explained

Squarespace is a web builder platform that was designed for small businesses. The tool was also designed with the aim of offering a solution to people who lack the skills to build and manage a website.

Today, it powers about 3 million online stores and sites, and the platform is globally known for beautiful templates.

This drag and drop website builder also has many outstanding features, including its curated, thoughtful and intuitive design.

When compared with other website builders, it offers the best podcasting, audio players, photo galleries, scheduling, and blogging.

How it Works

Squarespace runs its servers, implying that you don't need any software to use the product. With this hosted solution, you can create sites without coding.

All you need is the internet and your web browser. The content management system is user-friendly, which allows easy editing.

Squarespace offers a style editor and templates that allow you to construct your site online. Therefore, you don't need any web design package like Dreamweaver that churns out different codes.

You can select any template and use the style editor to make changes to suit your needs. Editing background and changing colors is made easy with Squarespace.

Squarespace is ideal for people who don't want to tinker much. Also, it is a software as a service tool (SaaS). Therefore, you'd pay fees before you can use the web builder.

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace pricing is grouped into two, depending on how you choose to pay.

• Pay Monthly
  
  
• Pay Annually

In general, there are four plans available for the two payment options.

Pay Monthly

The monthly payment for the four plans is as follows:

• Personal: $16
  
  
• Business: $26
  
  
• Basic Commerce: $30
  
  
• Advanced Commerce: $46
  
  

Pay Annually

You can decide to pay upfront for a year. With that, your monthly payment for the four plans will be:

• Personal: $12
  
  
• Business: $18
  
  
• Basic Commerce: $26
  
  
• Advanced Commerce: $40
  
  

Try Squarespace for free here!

Squarespace will let you have a taste of what it offers before you decide what plan to use. The platform offers a two-week free trial for users to try.

The platform recently added a new plan called Squarespace Select, and it has the following features:

• Available in early access and it's directed at enterprise users.
  
  
• Features priority support, consultations on web design and SEO, and an account manager.
  
  
• Negotiable pricing based on requirements.

Squarespace Design Features and Templates

Templates Quality

Squarespace offers about 120 templates, all of which are attractive and with a contemporary look and feel. This is a better offer compared to what's obtainable with other hosted web building platforms.

Squarespace is more generous when compared to web building tools like shift4shop and and Shopify.

With Squarespace templates, you only need eye-catching and professional photography. Therefore, you'd need to invest in the pictures that you upload to your site.

Stock Images

To enjoy the templates on Squarespace, you'd need high-quality images. Interestingly, Squarespace will give you access to Unsplash's image library. This will give you access to many royalty-free images, and you directly add them to your website.

You can also buy images from Getty if you are not satisfied with the image quality of Unsplash's images. However, that will cost you $10 for each image you use.

Typeface Selection

There are so many web fonts included with Squarespace. The platform offers 600 from Google and 1000 from Adobe. This offer is more than what you'd find on other web building platforms.

Appearance on Mobile Devices

Squarespace offers templates that are fully responsive. Therefore, your site design will automatically adjust to appear correctly on mobile and desktop devices.

This full responsiveness will improve your SEO and also make your site accessible to more users. The platform will late you to enable Accelerated Mobile Pages to boost your site's speed on mobile devices.

With this, you can make your pages load faster on mobile devices. It will also allow you to reduce your bounce rates.

Editing Template Design

Squarespace allows its users to edit the template design with ease. There are different styling options to use, and this will let you adjust how displayed components appear. You can also adjust colors, fonts, and website width.

Squarespace is better than most of the available website builders when it comes to the editing template design.

Video Backgrounds

One thing we like about Squarespace is the stunning video background features it offers. You can use these features to increase the beauty of the templates.

Also, you can use the feature to create looped video background for your site with Vimeo URL or YouTube.

Designing Logos

Squarespace features an amazing logo designing app. The app has many typefaces and symbols that you can use to create a logo.

Try Squarespace for free here!

What Makes Squarespace the Best?

Content Management in Squarespace

Squarespace offers different approaches to make content management a lot easier, unlike other platforms.

Here's a brief of how it works:

• Content Sections: The layout engine of this platform is simple to use. You can drag and drop content sections anywhere you like. It enhances the attractive and flexible presentation of content. This is one of the best web builder interfaces in the market.

Another amazing thing is that you can easily tweak the position of each content section. The bottom line is that the content management system of Squarespace is excellent. Some other competitors are now introducing the drag and drop editor, which proves that Squarespace is good.

• Images: Squarespace will let you enjoy working on images. One of the strongest features of the platform is the image management and manipulation tools. With this, you can crop, rotate, or resize the images you add to your website.
  
  
  The platforms make it possible for users to pick a focal point. With this, you can be sure that your images will automatically adjust to fit any device. Squarespace handles images better than any other web-building site available.
  
  
  
• Blogging Features: Squarespace also outsmarts other competing platforms. With Squarespace, you can have as many blogs as you wish, unlike other completing platforms. The platform will also let you create summary blocks with ease.
  
  
  Most competing website builders will only let you use tags, but Squarespace will allow you to use tags and categories.
  
  
  
• Charts: This function is not a common one, and you won't find it on most competing website builders. With the charting functionality, you can add data to Squarespace and create a bar chart, line chart, and pie chart with the data.
  
  
  

Integrations with other apps

• Built-in Integrations: Some of the integrations you'll find on Squarespace include Google Drive, Dropbox, Pinterest, Mailchimp, and many more.
  
  
  
• Extensions: This was recently introduced. Squarespace currently has 20 add-ons, and you can link your site to different admin apps with the add-ons.
  
  
  
• Zapier Integration: This option is perfect and comes in handy whenever you don't find your desired integration. You can find them on the Squarespace-Zapier integration.
  
  To get the best out of the Zapier integration, you will need to get the premium Zapier plan.
  
  
  
• Plugins: You can enhance the functionality of your site by purchasing code snippets. The snippets are now referred to as Squarespace plugins, and they will let you increase your site's functionality.
  
  Plugins are available for different applications. For example, creating bespoke lightboxes, adding sidebars, enhancing video backgrounds, and more.
  
  
  
• Integration with Social Media: You can easily connect Squarespace to social media accounts. All you have to do is add your account, and you can do this in the website settings. Squarespace will handle relevant feeds and icons.
  
  Some of the social media platforms already taken care of include LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
  
  
  

Data Capture and Forms

We are currently in an era of inbound marketing, where data capture is a must-have feature for any website. Having a strong and reliable approach to data capture is key, especially if you want to generate leads.

Squarespace offers one of the best data capture system, and here's how it works:

The platform uses two approaches for data capture.

• Integrating email marketing service with code blocks: This approach offers much flexibility, but you will need to add HTML forms to your website. You'll also need to style them with CSS to make them appear aesthetically pleasing.
  
  
  
• The second approach is by using newsletter block or form block to build forms with ease. You can send captured data to Zapier, Mailchimp, Squarespace's Email Campaign tool, and Google Sheets with both blocks.
  
  
  You can also send the captured information to any email address. What's more is that the forms are very easy to set up.
  
  

Squarespace Email Campaigns

This feature was recently added to the platform. You can use the feature to capture email addresses and send letters to them. This is an offer that you won't find in other competitors. Only a few like Getresponse have this feature.

There are four different email marketing options to choose from on Squarespace.

• Starter: $7 monthly. You can send 500 messages and 3 e-newsletters with this option.
  
  
• Core: $14 monthly to send 5,000 messages and 5 e-newsletters
  
  
• Pro: $34 monthly to send 50,000 messages and 20 e-newsletters
  
  
• Max: $68 monthly to send 250,000 messages and an unlimited number of newsletters.
  
  

When compared with other email marketing alternatives, the core and starter plans are the cheapest. You can begin with these plans if you don't want to spend much creating a newsletter and capturing data.

Another benefit of using the Email Campaigns offered by Squarespace is that it will let you manage your mailing list and website. These two are key online assets that every business should have in one place. Also, the email templates are mobile-friendly and attractive.

Editing CSS and HTML on Squarespace Website

CSS – Styling your site

Adding custom CSS to a Squarespace website is easy. However, this is not completely encouraging because it can break your design, and you might not get full support afterward

HTML – Adding code blocks and widgets

Squarespace allows users to add code blocks to their websites. With this, you will be able to add third-party forms and widgets to your site.

Squarespace SEO: Performance of Squarespace sites on search engines

Google loves everything from Squarespace. Sites created with Squarespace have the following:

• Good security
  
  
• Clean HTML markup
  
  
• AMP features
  
  
• Mobile-friendly interface
  
  
• xml file, which is generated automatically.
  
  

With Squarespace, you can tweak key SEO elements, including page title tags, meta descriptions, headings, and website title.

Another amazing thing that increases the performance of Squarespace websites is the loading speed. Google gives more preference to sites that load fast, and Squarespace doesn't fall short.

Users can enable SSL on Squarespace websites for free. Google also gives more preference to sites that use SSL certificates.

Try Squarespace for free here!

E-commerce with Squarespace

Squarespace has a robust eCommerce functionality that allows users to create and edit products and product catalogs. With this, you can easily create and manage online stores.

Here are the features you'd enjoy:

• You can sell digital goods, subscriptions, services, and even physical goods
  
  
• User-friendly shopping cart system
  
  
• There's no limit to the number of products you can sell
  
  
• Commercial plans offer zero transaction fees.
  
  
• Discount codes and gift cards.
  
  

Squarespace handles product images better than most competitors. You can apply image ratios automatically, and this saves a lot of time.

Another strong feature of the platform is the subscription functionality. With this functionality, you can easily accept recurring payments for your products.

A new feature was recently introduced, and that's the members area feature. With this feature, you can create a private area on your site and charge users to access this area. It is a nice way to sell exclusive content, online courses, and more.

Interface and Ease-of-use

Squarespace is the best website builder to use if you are looking for a platform with a user-friendly interface. The platform offers detailed layout options, which enhances the presentation of content on the site.

No other website builder has a straightforward and slick interface like Squarespace. Building and editing a website with this platform is super-easy.

You won't run into any problem with this platform. Squarespace offers the most intuitive content management systems.

Customer Support

Squarespace is your surest bet if you are looking for a platform that provides support via live chat and email. The customer services are also available 24/7, and the customer support team is friendly.

They value their customers so much, and they'd go the extra mile to ensure that they provide answers to your queries.

Another amazing customer support feature of Squarespace is the knowledge base. This will also help you solve some problems.

The knowledge base contains online articles and videos that will help you to understand the platform better.

Another way to know the site's basic things is by contacting the customer support team to help.

GDPR Compliance

The General Data Protection Regulation is a feature every website building platform should have. It is what will guarantee data and privacy protection.

Squarespace will help you get the GDPR basics right. It has a robust data security system, making it easier for users to add privacy policy, cookie notices, and terms of use.

There are certain rules that GDPR requires every website owner to follow. These rules are with respect to the cookie consent of the site, and they are as follows:

• Explain why and how cookies are used
  
  
• Log consent of cookie usage
  
  
• Allow visitors to withdraw usage consent
  
  
• Let site users know that cookies are used
  
  
• Allow visitors to consent cookies (especially non-essential ones) before you use them
  
  

You can easily meet all these requirements with Squarespace. What's more is that you can also opt for a third-party tool to create cookies that are GDPR-compliant.

Benefits of Using Squarespace at a Glance

There are so many fascinating benefits of using Squarespace, and that includes:

• The platform offers an awesome in-built marketing tool
  
  
• Zapier integration to connect your website to other web applications
  
  
• Logo designing app to create professional logos with ease
  
  
• Nice integration with other popular tools like Opentable, MailChimp, and Google Apps. The platform will also let you share content to different social medial platforms.
  
  
• Squarespace offers a two-week trial to users so that they can experience what the platform has to offer
  
  
• Different design options to give you content an attractive appearance
  
  
• You can choose from different web fonts
  
  
• 0% transaction fee when you use Commerce plans
  
  
• Great video background features
  
  
• Different tools that will make it a lot easier for you to import content from various platforms.
  
  
• Excellent image management options
  
  
• Fantastic user-interface. Squarespace has one of the best and most user-friendly content management systems.
  
  
• Beautifully designed and contemporary templates. With this, you can create responsive online stores and websites. Also, the templates are all responsive on mobile and tablet devices.

Alternatives to Squarespace

Squarespace is undoubtedly the best website building platform, but there are a few similar platforms in the market. This includes 2checkout, Weebly, Ecwid, and Getresponse.

These platforms are also hosted solutions like Squarespace, and what this means is that you'd pay an ongoing fee to use them.

You might want to consider Getresponse if you are looking for another platform with a good and efficient content management system like Squarespace. Both platforms are beasts when it comes to providing good content management options for their users.

Getresponse is self-hosted, and it involves customization of elements and manual setup. Squarespace on the other hand offers a click and point style solution. Getresponse is an impressive tool and works like Squarespace, which makes it a nice alternative.

If you are looking for an e-commerce solution other than Squarespace, you might want to consider Ecwid and 2checkout. However, you must keep in mind that Squarespace offers slicker template designs.

Also with respect to building online stores, you can decide to use Squarespace to build the store but host it with a plugin like Shopify buy button or Ecwid. With these plugins, you can easily add a shopping cart to your site.

WordPress is also a nice option for building online stores, but you must be ready to spend time on configurations. E-commerce plugins like Ecwid can also be used with WordPress to boost its effectiveness.

Another option for people who do not want to spend much is Unbounce because it also offers features similar to Squarespace. However, whether you are on a budget or not, you need to check Squarespace pricing plans. Squarespace offers different plans, all of which are reasonably priced.

Try Squarespace for free here!

Conclusion

Squarespace is a strong and reliable website builder and eCommerce platform for individuals and businesses. You can use the platform to host a portfolio site or run a brochure website. The platform will let you let an image-focused website with ease.

Squarespace is mobile-friendly, which is great for small businesses, especially those that sell food. You can easily displace pictures of restaurant menus and various dishes on the site.

You should turn to Squarespace if you run a business and want a simple but detailed shopping cart system or online store. The platform is a hosted solution, implying that you won't have to worry about server updates. All you need to ensure is that you take the regular password and security precautions.

Finally, the free-trial feature that lets you explore the platform before you start using it is just amazing. The bottom line is that there are so many amazing features of Squarespace and different ways in which the platform beats its competitors.

Squarespace is undoubtedly the best eCommerce platform to use in 2021 and beyond!!!

Try Squarespace for free here!