Squarespace VS Shopify — which platform is better for an online store?
If you’re looking into building a website or an online store, you’ve probably heard of the web design platforms Squarespace and Shopify. And no doubt you’ve heard varying opinions on both, and you’re not sure which platform will be best for your biz.
DIY website platforms these days are being increasingly more common. I mean, why pay a developer $10k to build you a custom online store, when you can build it yourself for only a few hundred dollars?
Shopify and Squarespace are two of the leading DIY website platforms.
As a web designer, I have found that one of the questions that I get asked the most is “What is the difference between Squarespace and Shopify, and which is better for my business”?
Although both platforms have e-commerce capabilities, there are a ton of differences, and both platforms have their own strengths and weaknesses in different areas.
Note: if you’re just planning on building a regular website with no e-commerce involved, then I hands-down recommend Squarespace. The only time where Shopify should be considered is if you are wanting to incorporate e-commerce into your website.
E-commerce - what the heck does it mean?
Before we jump head first into the “which platform is better” argument, I’m going to break down what e-commerce is, who it is suitable for and how to choose the platform that is best suited for your business.
Simply put, e-commerce means ‘electronic commerce’, or ‘internet commerce’.
E-commerce refers to the action of selling goods or services digitally (online) rather than (physically) in an actual store.
To help break this down one step further; have you ever gone on a Black Friday spending spree, and ended up spending your entire pay check on skin care products and cute shoes? (guilty). If the answer is yes, then you’ve officially shopped online, and via an e-commerce store!
It is important to remember that e-commerce stores do not always need to be the giant that ASOS or Urban Outfitters are. An online store can be any size, and can sell as many or as little products as you like. E-commerce simply means to sell something online.
The Pros and Cons of Both Platforms
Shopify and Squarespace and both DIY website builders that have e-commerce capabilities. Meaning that you can set up an online store with either of them. There are other platforms that offer this two, but Shopify and Squarespace are two of the most popular.
Let me start by first saying that both platforms are amazing. If you know me and my business, you might think that I will be bias with this information, considering I work almost exclusively within Squarespace. However, Shopify has e-commerce features that Squarespace simply cannot compare to.
Squarespace originally started as a predominantly content-based platform for photographers, bloggers and small business owners. However, over time and due to demand, Sqaurespace has integrated e-commerce capabilities.
Shopify has forever and always been an e-commerce based platform. From the get-go, the sole purpose of Shopfiy has been to sell products and services online.
Squarespace
If you know Big Cat Creative, you know we’re obsessed with Squarespace. We live and breathe Squarespace, it’s true. It is hands down the best DIY website builder. It’s easy to use, affordable and simple. If you want to know why I recommend Squarespace to almost every small business owner, you can read my long list of reasons here.
But, in terms of e-commerce functionality, Squarespace is pretty good.
Squarespace allows for up to 200 products per page, which is quite a lot!
Squarespace e-commerce is incredibly simple to set up, it’s VERY user friendly.
If you want to have a beautiful site alongside your e-commerce store, Squarespace makes this really easy.
You are able to update each product’s SKU (we’ll get to this, hang with me!) with a decent amount of information before you reach the platforms’ limits. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with what an SKU is, a SKU is the serial number that is unique to each product. This tells the platform exactly what product you are selling, and how many variants each product has (ie a pair of shoes might be available in 4 different sizes and come in 2 different colours, each of which option will provide the back end with it’s own unique SKU code, all relatable to the product being sold)
You can upload product .CSV files which is helpful for large inventory.
Squarespace has very limited options to organise your shop. Their navigation menus are really simple and there’s no simple way to add a shop sidebar, mega-menu or filter multiple products. This feature is really only missed if you have a large inventory (imagine having 200 products and no way to simply organise them for your visitors to search.)
Squarespace only allows you to sell through the platform when you upgrade your website to a ‘Business’ account. You will pay a 3% fee on every transaction made through the website - which, really only becomes an issue when you are starting to push tens-of-thousands of dollars worth of sales regularly. This may not seem like a lot, but 3% on, say, $60,000 annually is $1800. (Which could be spent elsewhere, such as on FB ads to promote your store!) This is a good plan to start on if your store is only small, as the subscription cost for a ‘Business’ plan is less than an e-commerce plan.
If you are planning make quite a few sales, my suggestion would be to sign up to the ‘Advanced Commerce’ plan, which comes in at $46 USD per month. This might seem like a lot, but if you’re making so many sales that the 3% cut is adding up to more than $46 per month (this is easy to miss!) you should definitely upgrade. Plus, on this plan you get the abandoned cart feature, multiple discount codes and gift cards functionalities
Shopify
Shopify is great to use if you have an online store that sells a LOT of products. Especially if your products are customizable and have multiple variants to choose from. Shopfiy is a very powerful e-commerce platform, one that has the capability to push a large volume of orders through.
Shopify has all of the functions that Squarespace has, and lots more:
One of the major functionalities that Shopify has that Squarespace does not, is that Shopify has the capability for integrating a wholesale log into the back end of the website.This is great when you are selling your products to other businesses, and in large quantities. (ie - you are selling your clothing to a local clothing store who wants to purchase 60 pieces from you to stock in their store).
Having a wholesale section of your website will allow wholesalers and buyers to have their own login details that links to their very own account within your website. This is extremely helpful when finding the need to bulk upload hundreds or thousands of products, as Shopify has the capacity to streamline this process in a timely manner.
Shopify’s ability to integrate with a number of third party applications. This is another functionality to factor in when choosing between Shopify and Squarespace. While Squarespace plugins are limited, Shopify is powerful enough to integrate with some great apps to help run your store!
A few of our favourites are SEO plugins for assistance with optimizing your site’s SEO, and Facebook Shop Channel, which allows you to sell your products via your store’s Facebook page.
Shopify has the ability to accept payment in multiple currencies. Although Squarespace offers this feature via Stripe or PayPal, this feature is limited dependent on which bank you are with. Shopify makes multi-currency really simple. It’s as simple as choosing which currencies you want to accept from a list. Easy!
Shopify makes it easy to Dropship.
It also gives you tons of options for Shipping.
It has extensive options for sidebars and menus, depending on what template you choose.
Basically it has ALL of the e-commerce features you could ever need.
The one main CON when it comes to Shopify:
It can be a little hard to use. Though it is intended to be a DIY platform, there’s quite a learning curve.
From a design perspective, you can choose templates and edit them to an extent, as soon as you want to do anything slightly custom, you have to use custom coding. Also, if you want regular pages on your site like an About Page or a Blog, the customization for these pages are really limited and end up being VERY basic.
Using the shop features can be a bit tricky too. Because it offers so many advanced features, it can be pretty overwhelming to try and figure out how it all works.
Pricing
In terms of pricing, Shopify can be cheaper than Squarespace. At only $29 per month, you can access all of the functionality that Squarespace charges you $46 per month for.
Though this is the Shopify starting point, and if you need any features that the Shopify advanced plan offers, you’ll be paying anywhere between $79-$200 per month.
Also, Shopify is trickier to set up and manage yourself than Squarespace is — meaning that the need for a developer is probably something you need to factor in.
You can view all of the pricing details here:
So, Squarespace ...or Shopify?
At the end of the day, it all comes down to functionality. What type of functionality are you looking at for your website, and how many products or items are you planning on selling.
If you have a startup or small business with a smaller volume of products and expected profits, then Squarespace is probably the best option.
Squarespace is easy to use, is relatively cheap, and offers all of the basic functionality that you would require were you to run a small online store.
Shopify is hands down the better option for larger businesses and stores.
If you are expecting to sell large quantities, wholesale, dropship or offer your customers the option to customise their order, then Shopify is the way to go.
I think both of these platforms are great, but they both have different strengths, and I hope this clarified the two for you, and helped you make a decision!
Want more tips? Check out the blog posts below!
Squarespace VS Etsy. Which is the better platform to sell your products online?
How to Leave Etsy and Start a Shop with Squarespace (and why you should!)
How to add a shop to Squarespace - step by step walkthrough (7.1 and 7.0)
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