7 Critical Reasons Why You Should Choose Shopify Over Squarespace
Shopify is an e-commerce platform with robust features to help businesses grow and scale. It is a perfect web solution for established businesses to grow even further. But in my opinion, it is also a good option for small business owners, here is why
Localized Payment Gateways And Shipping Options
If your business is not based in the USA, Shopify is definitely a better option as Squarespace has very limited payment gateways and shipping options.
Squarespace only supports payment gateways, like Paypal, Stripe, etc. If these companies do not provide services in your country, it will be difficult to get the payment.
In addition, what is the most common way of payment for your customers? Like I am based in the Netherlands, iDEAL is the most common way of payment for the Dutch market, Squarespace does not provide that, so Shopify is the best option.
Shopify is an e-commerce company, so they work with local payment gateways and shipping companies to provide the best solution for business owners.
So, it is not just about which platform is more affordable, or more user-friendly, let’s get down to the basics, can your customers pay the way they want to? Or can business owners accept the payments?
Tax Calculation Is More Complete
Shopify has very extensive options to calculate taxes, especially if you sell internationally.
If you are a business owner in Europe, it is one of your goals to sell to other European markets. Every country in Europe has different rules and it is important to have a complete tax calculation system, so Shopify is your best choice.
Dynamic Blog Layout To Promote Your Products
From March 2023, you can create beautiful blog posts in Shopify and it is also possible to recommend your own product with their easy-to-use “related products section”.
Blog posts are not just about texts, a beautiful and easy-to-read layout can make your audience more engaged in your content, and it will increase their chances of buying from you with the “related product” section.
Squarespace has no feature specifically made for this, you need to use the gallery section and choose the products you’d like to promote.
Overall, Shopify and Squarespace users can have blog posts, but if you want a good-looking blog post layout, it is best to use Shopify.
Related Product Section To Increase Product Sales
On the product page, you have the option to add the related product sections. This way, you can naturally share more products that are useful to your customers and can increase your order value easily. This feature is via the free app on the Shopify store.
Squarespace also has this feature, but you cannot manually select the products for this section, you can only set it up by category, which is more complex.
Product Management Is More Complete
If you have more than 15 products, Shopify can save you a lot of time because they have a strong product management system. If you have less than 15 products, you might still want to use Shopify (please keep reading).
Product Page Design Template
You can create multiple templates for your store so that you can have different product designs for different types of products. So, selling a gift card is not the same as selling a product, right? So, you need a different template for it.
Section Design For Your Product Page
This is the reason why I recommend Shopify.
Shopify product page can create many sections on a page so that you can apply different background colors and your page won’t look all the same.
If a page looks all the same, it is difficult to communicate with the visitors as they easily get distracted or find the page boring. That is why all sales pages have different sections.
You cannot create sections on Squarespace, and this applies to all subscriptions. I love Squarespace, but this feature is the key reason I don’t recommend building an online store with Squarespace.
Bulk Product Update Is Easier
You can use the bulk product update function to easily update the product information, like changing the multiple tags all at once in the system. This saves a lot of time.
Squarespace does not have this feature, you need to first export a CSV file and import it with a new/updated file. Last, check if the information is correct.
Multiple-Language & Multi-Currency Option
If you sell internationally or accept different currencies for your products, Shopify is the answer as Squarespace only allows one currency for the site. Also, if you need multiple language websites for your site, only Shopify is possible.
Besides, you can directly maintain your multiple language information on Shopify, with no need to export and import your file.
Geo site redirection
A Shopify free app can detect the country of origin direct the customers to the correct country site and make your site more user-friendly.
Conclusion: Shopify is a complete online store platform
Squarespace was first known for building sites for service-based business owners, later they had more features designed for e-commerce sites while Shopify started as an e-commerce platform, there are more built-in e-commerce-based features and more payment gateway options.
Shopify or Squarespace? I believe you already have your answer.
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