Why I Moved My Digital Products from Squarespace to Podia

Updated Oct 2024

My journey with online course platforms has been quite the adventure, filled with twists, turns, and a fair share of "aha" moments. From Podia to Squarespace, and back again, here's the story of how I found the right fit for my digital products.

Picture this: It's late 2019, and I'm exploring the world of digital products with Podia. Life's good, ideas are flowing, and then... 2020 arrives with its, well let’s just call them unexpected challenges. Suddenly, my focus shifted to blogging and 1:1 services, and Squarespace seemed like the better perfect fit for those needs at that time.

As time went on, Squarespace introduced Member Areas and Courses and I was genuinely excited. The prospect of having built-in digital product tools on a platform I already knew and loved was enticing. It seemed like the perfect solution.

But here's the thing about shiny new objects - sometimes the shine wears off, revealing a few limitations underneath. Don't get me wrong, Squarespace is still an excellent platform for many projects, and I remain a proud Squarespace Circle member and Community Leader. However, I've always believed in using the best tool for the job, and for digital products, I realized I needed to look elsewhere.

In my search for the ideal platform, I've explored options like Kajabi and Teachable. Each has its strengths, but none quite hit that sweet spot I was looking for. It was starting to feel like I was on an endless quest for the perfect solution.

That's when I remembered Podia. Like an old friend who got a cool makeover, it had evolved. Improved blogging capabilities? Check ✅ Enhanced website builder? Double-check ✅✅ It was like Podia had been quietly improving while I wasn't looking, and I was intrigued.

So, why am I telling you all this? Because whether you're a fellow web designer juggling client sites or a DIY enthusiast trying to wrap your head around digital products, I've been in your shoes. I've wrestled with the platforms, I've navigated the learning curves, and I've experienced the joy when things finally clicked.

In this post, I'll walk you through my decision to return to Podia, comparing its features with Squarespace and explaining why it's now my go-to platform for digital products. We'll dive into the details - the advantages, the considerations, and the "why didn't I think of that before?" moments.

Whether you're team Squarespace, curious about Podia, or just trying to make sense of the digital product landscape, this post is for you. Let's explore together and find the right platform for you.

Why Podia Won Me Over

1. Reliability and Ease of Use

One of the biggest draws of Podia is its reliability and ease of use. While Squarespace is known for its user-friendly interface, I found myself spending more time troubleshooting and tinkering with layouts than actually creating content. With Podia, things just... work.

Key benefits:

• Less buggy experience compared to recent Squarespace issues

• Intuitive web builder with consistent design across all screen sizes

• More time for content creation, less time spent on technical issues

Personal experience: A particular pain point with Squarespace was (and is) the tablet view. While I've developed some workarounds, none are perfect. I really dislike having to tinker with mobile view separately on Squarespace when things should just stack beautifully with perfect spacing and no overlapping content. Podia solves this issue effortlessly, allowing me to focus on creating valuable content rather than endlessly tweaking layouts.

2. Comprehensive Feature Set

Podia offers a robust set of features that cater specifically to digital product creators. Here's how it compares to Squarespace:

• Unlimited video storage (Squarespace has limitations depending on the plan)

• Built-in communities (not available on Squarespace)

• Easy upsells and bundling options (either not available or limited on Squarespace)

• Built-in customer chat (extra cost on Squarespace, using a third-party tool)

• Integrated affiliate program (extra cost on Squarespace, using a third-party tool)

Personal take: These integrated features have streamlined my workflow significantly. No more juggling multiple platforms or paying for additional tools – it's all right there in Podia.

3. Superior Digital Product Management

When it comes to managing digital products, Podia truly shines:

• Cohesive "storefront" for digital products

• Intuitive course platform with less tinkering required

• Easy creation of bundles and payment plans

• Ability to sell subscriptions and options for digital products

My experience: On Squarespace, I felt like I was constantly cobbling together digital product blocks, trying to create a cohesive offering. It was technically possible to do some of these things, but it required stringing together multiple features in a way that felt clunky. With Podia, I can focus on creating content rather than moving blocks around, and the ease of creating bundles has noticeably boosted my sales.

4. Enhanced Customer Experience

Podia provides a seamless experience not just for creators, but for customers too:

• Clear, unified dashboard for customers to access all purchases

• Improved delivery of digital products

What this means for my customers: On Squarespace, it was often hard for customers to see everything they've purchased or have access to. With Podia, I can easily provide access to multiple files, larger files, and even provide supporting content for each download. It's a night-and-day difference in terms of user experience.

5. Integrated Marketing and Sales Features

Podia's marketing and sales features are where it really sets itself apart:

• Comprehensive email marketing integration

• Advanced features like tagging/segmenting and automated sequences

• Simplified, truly all-in-one solution

My journey: I was previously using ConvertKit for email marketing (and still really recommend it especially for their eCommerce integration with Squarespace), but when they announced they’re rebranding, I took it as an opportunity to just see what else was around. Squarespace's built-in email marketing platform (Email Campaigns) lacks features I need, such as tagging/segmenting and true automated sequences. Podia's email marketing is simpler than ConvertKit, but it offers all the features I actually use. Having everything built into one platform is a dream - it's what I wished Squarespace's Email Campaigns could be, but with Podia, it actually works!

6. Stellar Customer Support

One of the standout features of Podia is its exceptional customer support:

• Responsive and helpful support team

• Comprehensive knowledge base and resources

A real-life example: Recently, I noticed a small bug in Podia's color themes. The support person responded personally and quickly, acknowledging the problem, offering a viable short-term solution, and promising a complete fix within one business day. True to their word, the tech person followed up, and the issue was resolved promptly. This level of responsiveness and follow-through is refreshing, especially when compared to my recent experiences with Squarespace where bugs are often acknowledged half-heartedly and never actually resolved.

Pricing Breakdown: Simplicity vs. Complexity

Let's talk money, folks. One of the things that drew me back to Podia was its refreshingly simple pricing structure. They've got two plans and a couple straightforward add-ons. Squarespace, on the other hand, has a pricing structure that's about as straightforward as a corn maze. Let's break it down:

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Podia Pricing

Mover Plan

$33/MO (PAID ANNUALLY)

5% fees

Includes:

• 30-day free trial

• Unlimited download products

• Unlimited coaching

• Online community w/ unlimited members

• Unlimited courses

• Unlimited webinars

• Unlimited product bundles

• Free migration of up to 20 products

Shaker Plan

$75/MO (PAID ANNUALLY)

0% fees

Includes:

• 30-day free trial

• Unlimited download products

• Unlimited coaching

• Online community w/ unlimited members

• Unlimited courses

• Unlimited webinars

• Unlimited product bundles

• Free migration of up to 30 products

• Affiliates

Podia Add-Ons:

• Email Marketing: Free for first 100 subscribers, $7/mo for up to 500, $13 for up to 1500, etc. All plans include all features including unlimited emails.

• Teammates: Add 1 teammate for $16.67/mo, 5 for $41.67/mo, etc. Granular permissions mean teammates only see what you want them to.

ℹ️ For more about Podia features, check out this post.

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Squarespace Pricing

Business

$23/MO

3% fees

Includes:

• 14-day free trial

• Unlimited download products

• Unlimited contributors

Basic Commerce

$28/MO

0% fees

Includes:

• 14-day free trial

• Unlimited download products

• Unlimited contributors

Advanced Commerce

$52/MO

0% fees

Includes:

• 14-day free trial

• Unlimited download products

• Unlimited subscription products

• Unlimited contributors

Squarespace Add-Ons:

Courses & Memberships: On any plan above, sell unlimited courses & memberships for an additional 9% transaction fee. Alternatively, add a Digital Products subscription:

• Starter Plan: $9/mo (7% fees)

• Core Plan: $29/mo (3% fees)

• Pro Plan: $89/mo (0% fees)

• Higher plans also come with increased video storage limits.

Email Marketing: Free to collect subscribers, then:

• Starter Plan: $7/mo (500 email limit)

• Core Plan: $14/mo (5,000 email limit)

• Higher plans available for additional emails. All plans include unlimited subscribers.

Scheduling: Add booking capability for coaching sessions:

• Emerging Plan: $16/mo for 1 calendar & unlimited services/appointments

• Higher plans available for additional features.

ℹ️ For a full Squarespace plan comparison, check out this post.

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Now, let's put this into perspective with a real-world scenario:

Imagine you're an aspiring entrepreneur, ready to take the digital world by storm with a course, a few digital downloads, and some coaching sessions. You also want to build an email list and maybe dabble in affiliate marketing. Let's see how the costs stack up after a year:

Podia Path:

• Shaker Plan: $75/month x 12 = $900/year

• Email Marketing (assuming 500 subscribers): $7/month x 12 = $84/year

• Total: $984/year

With this, you get unlimited everything (courses, downloads, coaching, webinars), affiliate capabilities, and email marketing.

Squarespace Route:

• Advanced Commerce: $52/month x 12 = $624/year

• Digital Products (to avoid 9% fee): $89/month x 12 = $1,068/year

• Email Marketing (500 emails/month): $7/month x 12 = $84/year

• Scheduling: $16/month x 12 = $192/year

• Total: $1,968/year

And even with this higher price tag, you're still missing out on features like webinars and affiliate marketing.

The bottom line? Podia not only comes out cheaper in this scenario but also offers more features and flexibility. Plus, you're not nickel-and-dimed for every additional feature you need.

Of course, your specific needs might be different, and Squarespace could be the better choice if you're primarily focused on a content-heavy website with just a few digital products. But for serious digital product creators, Podia's pricing structure offers both simplicity and value that's hard to beat.

Remember, the best platform for you depends on your specific business needs. Whether you're a web designer looking to expand your service offerings or a DIY enthusiast venturing into the world of digital products, I hope this breakdown helps you make an informed decision.

Where Squarespace Truly Shines

While Podia is my new go-to for digital products, Squarespace still has its strengths and place in your platform lineup:

• Excellent for simple physical product e-commerce and service-based businesses. Squarespace is a strong alternative to Shopify for simple physical products and most small business eCommerce solutions.

• Superior overall website design capabilities - if you like to add custom code or want to tweak things Squarespace is the way to go.

• Ideal for businesses primarily focused on content creation and not offering any digital products.

It's worth noting that I've personally kept my main homepage and blog on Squarespace due to the domain authority I've built over time. If you don't sell digital products and are solely a service-based company, Squarespace is likely the better solution.

Additional reading:

• Squarespace vs. Shopify: Which is Best for Small Business?

• Why I Love Squarespace for eCommerce

• Maximizing Your Squarespace Site with Extensions, Plugins, and Code Snippets: A Comprehensive Guide

Making the Transition

Transitioning from Squarespace to Podia for digital products was surprisingly smooth:

• For those considering the switch, Podia's migration service is a game-changer. Depending on your plan, they can move a significant number of your products, and even transfer your email subscribers, tags, segments, and campaigns if you opt for an annual Podia Email plan.

• Podia offers the ability to embed Podia buy buttons on Squarespace sites for a hybrid approach. This could be a great solution for people wanting to stay on Squarespace but still have some of the advanced digital products capabilities of Podia. Like I did, this option would allow you to keep some pages on Squarespace for SEO benefits - a potential “best of both worlds” solution.

The Results: Why I'm Sticking with Podia

Since making the switch to Podia for my digital products, I've seen significant improvements:

• More time for content creation ⏲️

• Increased sales due to better upsell and bundling options 💰

• Improved customer satisfaction with the unified dashboard 🤩

• Streamlined workflow with all digital product tools in one place 🎯

The Bottom Line

Choosing the right platform for your digital products is crucial for your online business success. While Squarespace remains an excellent choice for many website needs, Podia has proven to be the superior option for my digital product offerings.

Remember, the best platform for you depends on your specific business needs. Whether you're a web designer looking to expand your service offerings or a DIY enthusiast venturing into the world of digital products, I hope my experience helps you make an informed decision.

Everything You Need to Know About Podia

Updated Oct 2024

If there’s an eCommerce trend that I don’t think is going away anytime soon (if ever!) it’s the continued productization of services. Customers love the ease of eCommerce and want interacting with other parts of their favorite businesses to be just as simple. For you, the business owner, making it easier for clients to book with you, learn from you, engage with you and even interact with your other fans is a great way to boost revenue or even create passive income. (I’ve even done this myself - learn about it here!)

The trouble I find most people have in getting started is just in the pure overwhelm of all the technology and tools out there to get the job done! (How to choose? Which is best? How to link everything together??)

With this in mind, I’d like to introduce you to Podia. Podia, meet business owner - they’re looking to create a course or launch a community or book webinars or sell digital products. 

Business owner, meet Podia. The (nearly) all-in-one tool to do all of the above and more. 

What is Podia? 

Podia started off back in the day as a simple course-building platform that also had some cool features if you sold digital products but it has evolved into a really well-built platform with a range of capabilities for all types of businesses that have digital products. This could be anything from an ebook to a webinar, full-fledged course or even an online community.

Here’s a high level overview of the main features: 

• Website Builder - Podia’s website builder is SIMPLE. As in, it doesn’t hold a candle to Squarespace or any of the other builders out there. BUT. It is easy to use and there’s a case to be made for simplicity. If what you’re needing is just a simple sales page or landing page for your stuff to live on, Podia is going to make that super easy. For everything else, I would recommend checking out the section below on how to integrate Podia with Squarespace. 

• Email Marketing - Much like the built-in website builder, Podia’s email marketing platform is simple and easy to use. It’s another feature that I would lean on for simple updates for products within Podia itself such as notifying students of course updates, etc. Personally, I think email should be such an integral part of any eCommerce marketing strategy that most people will be better served by another platform. (Check out this post for my faves - and note that ConvertKit integrates supremely with Podia!)

• Digital Downloads - Ok, now we’re getting into where Podia really shines! Digital downloads can be pretty much any file type you can think of so you can sell ebooks, templates, audio files, video files, spreadsheets - whatever your little heart desires. Selling digital products on Podia is a dream and has some powerful capabilities that Squarespace doesn’t. The biggest of these is that customers are able to access a history of all the digital products they have purchased from you by logging into their account. On Squarespace, they need to go back to their inbox, find the original order confirmation and request the download be resent to them (original download links expire after just 24 hours). Other notable features are the ability to create bundles, add upsells, do pre-sales or use digital products as free lead magnets. So many possibilities!

• Coaching - Podia makes it easy to “sell your knowledge” via consultations or other session types. The built-in coaching tools are perfect for any type of expert that’s been trying to use a traditional scheduling tool to book and get paid for their time. Now, I do really enjoy Squarespace Scheduling for this type of set up as well but just like with digital downloads above, there are some features in Podia that may tip the scale in its direction. The biggest of these is that it’s just a really great customer interface! Not that Squarespace Scheduling isn’t - just that I do think customers really like using Podia. And, just like with digital downloads, coaching products can be bundled with any other product or used as upsells (or with an upsell). This makes marketing your coaching options or consulting services a breeze!

• Communities - I’m going to throw a curveball out there and say that this may be one of my favorite features of Podia? I know, I know - weird, right? Well, you know I’m no fan of social media and I will tell everyone who will listen that they need to do all they can to make sure they actually own their audience and the interactions they have with them. Think of the community feature on Podia as a Facebook group that you set up except for you own everything about it and you don’t have to compete for your audience’s attention while engaging with you or one another. Communities can be free (like a private FB group) or paid (more like a VIP slack channel). You can also use a community similar to a Patron or Substack where it’s a place you release exclusive content or provide VIP access to you or your products. You can even set up things like subscription tiers with communities, giving some members more exclusive access than others. 

• Courses - Courses are where Podia got its start and I would say that it’s probably what most people know them for. Podia’s course builder is just like everything else they offer: well-organized and straightforward. I personally find it less overwhelming to use than other products in this category such as Teachable - which has a ton of features but is almost so bloated it’s unusable and not very intuitive to use. Podia has the features you need to set up and sell courses (bundles, drips, pre-sales, pre-launches, upsells, bundles, quizzes, etc.) but somehow just makes all those things so accessible and easy to use. Of course another strong selling point on using Podia as your course platform is that it integrates with all the other features you may also have there like digital downloads or coaching products so it’s easy to use the different parts to leverage off of and support one another.

• Webinars - If you’ve been using YouTube Live or Zoom to host online workshops, webinars on Podia are a huge win; no more anonymous views or losing people to someone else’s competing content. If you offer paid webinars you can even earn passive income through replays of your content, automatically stored by Podia. 

• Affiliates - The last big feature worth highlighting is Podia’s built-in affiliate management capabilities. If you’re looking at adding an affiliate program (as you should) and you have everything on Podia anyways it’s nice to know that you won’t have to add a third-party system to the mix.  

Are there any Podia alternatives worth trying?

As I mentioned above, there are quite a few platforms that you could look at if you’re just interested in one specific aspect of Podia and not all the others: Squarespace Member Areas, Squarespace Scheduling, Slack, Teachable, Peach’s, etc. All together though, Podia could in theory replace all those extra subscriptions except Squarespace + your email marketing platform of choice which I think are still best handled independently. Together, those three could become your ultimate tech stack!

The only other platform that I’ve come across that has similar all-in features as Podia is Kajabi but I personally find Kajabi to be a headache to work with and not worth the hefty price tag. Compared to the closest plan possible, you’ll save up to $2400 per year by skipping Kajabi in favor of Podia! Speaking of pricing…

Which Podia plan is best? 

Podia has two simple plans. Here’s how they compare: 

When selecting a Podia plan, the most significant factor to consider is the transaction fees. Podia has recently updated its pricing structure, simplifying it to just two plans:

1. Mover: $33/month with 5% transaction fees

2. Shaker: $75/month with 0% transaction fees

Let's break down which plan might be best for you based on your monthly sales:

• If your monthly sales are less than $840, the Mover plan is more cost-effective, even with the 5% transaction fee.

• If your monthly sales are $840 or more, the Shaker plan becomes more economical due to the absence of transaction fees.

Here's a quick calculation to illustrate:

• At $840 in monthly sales:

  • Mover: $33 + (5% of $840) = $75

  • Shaker: $75 flat fee

Beyond the cost considerations, there is one other key feature to take into consideration: affiliates. If you're interested in using affiliates to promote your products, you'll need to opt for the Shaker plan, as this feature is not available in the Mover plan.

Summary:

• Choose the Mover plan if:

  • Your monthly sales are less than $840

  • You don't need affiliate marketing capabilities

• Choose the Shaker plan if:

  • Your monthly sales are $840 or more

  • You want to use affiliate marketing

Remember, as your business grows, you can always upgrade from the Mover to the Shaker plan to take advantage of the 0% transaction fees and affiliate features.

Who is Podia a good fit for? 

Anyone who has knowledge to share, is an expert in their field or creates things! I’ve also seen so many of my “traditional” eCommerce clients look to add features like those that Podia offers as a way to transition some of their services into products or add a human touch to an otherwise very transactional experience. I also think Podia is a great fit for anyone who has been running a private (or public) Facebook group, allowing you to take control of your audience and message, build community and cross-sell your other products. 

How to integrate Podia with Squarespace 

Since I recommend you keep all of your main content on your primary domain for SEO purposes, I would suggest linking out to Podia from your Squarespace site via buttons and text links placed strategically throughout your site. Here’s a quick checklist of where and how to do that: 

1. Podia Account Login Link - Add a link to the top level navigation on your main site for existing clients to login to their podia accounts. This makes it so people only have to remember your main domain but can then easily access their purchased products via Podia. 

2. Links to Products - Use the provided checkout embed codes from Podia to send people directly from a sales page on your website to the Podia checkout for that particular product. Again, this allows you to keep all that great keyword content on your main site (good for SEO!) and still take full advantage of all Podia’s features. 

3. Links Back to Your Site - Even if you keep the majority of your content on your main site, customers and clients are still going to end up on your Podia site as they interact in your community, work through courses or access digital content, etc. To keep people from ending up down a dead end road, be sure to also add a link back to your home page in the navigation area of your Podia site. You can also add links in Podia to any other frequently visited pages on your main site such as your blog. 

I’m sure there are lots of other places you can think of to organically link content back and forth between Squarespace and Podia but the three things above are the must haves! 

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The Bottom Line

Podia is an awesome nearly all-in-one platform that people looking to sell digital content, offer workshops or webinars, sell courses, build communities or even sell coaching or consulting services should definitely check out. It’s an affordable solution that can help simplify things for both you and your customers while still being super rich in features and tools. For some, it could even replace a website builder and email marketing provider but for most I think of it as a perfect addition to those platforms. 

9 Ways to Recession-Proof Your eCommerce Business

Times of economic uncertainty can undoubtedly be the cause of sleepless nights. And, c'mon - it would be weird if worries about customers' ability or willingness to spend and other general financial concerns didn't get to us! 

But savvy entrepreneurs have a way of always getting creative when times seem the toughest. This is where brands, especially smaller ones, get to show off their flexibility and ability to pivot in ways that giant corporations simply cannot. 

For small eCommerce brands specifically, there are some quick changes you can make to your online store to ensure you can weather any financial storm that may lie ahead. In this post, we'll explore practical ways to recession-proof your eCommerce website. We will discuss strategies for rethinking marketing, focusing on customer retention and inventory management. Bonus: these are all relatively easy-to-implement, low or no-cost ideas you can implement immediately to boost average cart values, deal with lower conversion rates and cope with less traffic to your site. Let's dig in!

1. Add subscriptions to your mix. If you find that customers routinely return to your shop to buy the same products repeatedly, make it easy for them by offering those same products as a subscription. Offer a discount versus paying for the same products or services piecemeal. Not only will your customers enjoy the savings and added convenience, but you'll also be able to add recurring revenue to the books.

2. Don't give up on your free shipping offer. I cannot preach enough about the importance of a free shipping offer. If you must rethink pricing, preserve and protect your free shipping offer with your life. Price-sensitive customers hate feeling like they were nickel-and-dimed over shipping fees and like thinking they're getting a great deal. Better yet, a free shipping option for orders over a certain amount helps boost your average cart values and reduce abandoned cart rates by people surprised by shipping costs.

3. Focus on customer loyalty. You know that saying about how acquiring a new customer costs more than keeping an old one? It's true. With the prospect of smaller average cart values or less traffic overall due to tightened budgets, focus on customer loyalty first and foremost. You can do this in many ways, such as setting up a loyalty program that allows customers to pay for purchases with earned points or perks. 

4. Rethink marketing. You can reduce wasteful spending and boost revenue by cutting back on digital paid spend and going straight to the horse's mouth. Rather than continuing to invest in expensive paid advertising, consider shifting your focus to utilizing customer data to guide your marketing decisions. Consider leveraging the power of small influencers (or even your own satisfied customers!) to help spread your message. Another idea is to explore collaborations with relevant brands and creators and consider offering products as gifts to small influencers to help build brand awareness.

5. Manage inventory better. Does it seem like there's always either too much or too little stock on hand? If you need help with the former problem, try focusing on building industry partnerships or collabs to introduce your products to new markets. If the latter is more of your issue, it might be time to start looking for new suppliers closer to home or sourcing from multiple suppliers. And for all, try adding a custom label to products you can keep consistently in stock and ready to ship so customers know they can get those items right away. I've seen a few brands do this or even create whole "Quick Ship" categories, and I think it's such a great idea!

6. Focus on your brand. To make the most of limited resources, prioritize establishing a solid brand. This involves ensuring consistency in your message, tone, and visual identity, as confusing branding can hinder customer conversion. Additionally, take time to evaluate and improve your customer service and clearly understand your target audience. Remember that you can't appeal to everyone, so focusing on a segmented marketplace actually allows you to best serve your core customers.

7. Boost customer confidence on the product page. Optimizing your product details pages can impact your bottom line in two ways. First by increasing customer confidence in their purchase decisions and second by reducing costly returns. Be sure to include detailed and comprehensive product descriptions that accurately convey the features and benefits of the product. Incorporate video - especially 360-degree views that allow customers to thoroughly examine the product from all angles and better understand what they can expect. Also, ensure you're displaying customer reviews, as they can help build trust and provide valuable insights into the product's performance and suitability. (For more tips on optimizing your Squarespace product pages check out this post!)

8. Incorporate user-generated video. Studies have repeatedly shown that videos (especially short videos that answer the question "Why should I buy?") are great conversion tools - but video production can be overwhelming and expensive. Luckily, videos from past customers are just as helpful as content you might produce on your own - acting as part social proof and part explainer video all in one. 

9. Expand local pickup & delivery options. If you're an online seller that also offers in-person buying opportunities, the Venn diagram of online customers and in-person customers probably has a ton of overlap. Offering local pickup options (and/or delivery if you can swing it) has a few benefits. First, it's generally faster and cheaper than shipping goods, which can appeal to shoppers on a budget. Second, it allows you to build stronger personal relationships with your customers and invite them to explore other offerings they may have yet to consider. Don't have a brick-and-mortar location? Try teaming up with another local business that does and see if they'd be open to allowing your customers to pick up from their location - this could be a win-win for both companies! 

Silver Linings

Looking at the list above, I see a few themes that may just be the silver linings. One of the biggest is that, in many ways, while eCommerce opens up the whole world to us, locality still matters. Whether we're sourcing products from suppliers closer to home, building relationships with micro-influencers, or offering ways to bring online convenience to brick-and-mortar shopping - I love to see it! 

Also, let's be honest: only some businesses have the strength or fortitude to ride out a downturn. While that's definitely sad, it also opens up opportunities for newcomers to the market to step in and fill in the gaps. Starting a business in a downturn can help you seize market share and build a strong foundation coming out the other side. If you've been sitting on a big idea, this may be just the time to take your shot. 

Upcoming Privacy Laws and How You Can Protect Your Business

Note: This post is regularly updated to include the latest data privacy laws. (Most recently updated in Februrary 2023)

I used to pick on FAQ pages for being one of the least alluring pages on a website but I was wrong. When it comes to the ugly duckling of web pages, privacy policies and terms of service take the cake. Usually buried in teeny tiny links at the bottom of websites, only clicked on by lawyers, and almost never actually read word-for-word -- the legal pages of your website are probably the last thing on your mind every day.

So why does every website need these pages filled with what looks like gibberish and legalese? Well, #1 because it’s just good business and #2 because there are current laws - and many proposed new ones coming down the pike - that could equate to fines for violations of privacy laws starting at $2,500... per website visitor 😱 Don’t do the math on that, it will def make you sick to your stomach. And that’s just the start. In this post, we’re looking at what a privacy policy is, why it’s important that you have one that’s always kept up to date, and what I think the best solution is. 

What is a Privacy Policy?

In short, a privacy policy is a document that discloses what personal information you collect on your website, what you can do with that information, and who you share it with, among other things. Your website needs a privacy policy if you use it to collect personal info such as names and email, which is pretty much every website out there. I mean, I’ve never made a website that doesn’t collect this type of information and more ever. Basically, if you even have a contact form or an email newsletter signup form on your site, you need a privacy policy.

Why is a Privacy Policy Important

Having an up-to-date privacy policy on your website can help you avoid fines and lawsuits. Remember what I said above about the only people really checking these pages out are lawyers? Well, I wasn’t exaggerating. Currently, there are a number of laws in the US and EU that require websites that collect personal information to have a privacy policy. These include: 

• European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

• The California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA)

• The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

• Nevada’s Revised Statutes Chapter 603A and SB220

• Nevada Senate Bill 260 - signed into law June 2021

There are 6 new laws that are going into effect in 2023 that will cover even more ground:

• The California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA)

• Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA)

• Colorado Privacy Act (SB190)

• Utah Consumer Privacy Act

• Connecticut SB6

• Quebec Bill 64

These laws all are designed to protect consumers of those states and countries - which is good - but these laws are not in place to protect online businesses like yours. What this means is that these laws can apply to businesses outside of those states and countries and may apply to you if you collect the personal information of or enter into transactions with consumers from the EU, California, or Nevada. With eCommerce being a truly global endeavor, there’s no way to prevent people from anywhere accessing your site and exposing you to some level of risk. 

Why You Need to Keep Your Privacy Policy Up to Date

In addition to the laws above, several US states have proposed privacy bills that, if passed, would require websites that collect personal information to have a compliant Privacy Policy. This is all well and good but things get tricky when you consider that these bills all have different requirements for the disclosures that need to be made in a Privacy Policy and would impose heavy fines for failing to include those disclosures. 

In fact, some states are proposing to allow consumers to sue businesses directly for not having a compliant privacy policy. This boils down to the fact that if your website gets inquiries or does business across state lines (and let’s hope it does!) it’s not enough to just have a privacy policy; you need to have a privacy policy that complies with multiple state privacy laws. Yikes. Now, I’ve done a fair bit of research into privacy policies and website terms of service and I know for sure that I don’t have the bandwidth or legal acumen to stay on top of all of this myself. 

The Best Solution I Know Of: Termageddon

Termageddon is an auto-updating privacy policy generator. This means that it will automatically update your website’s policies any time laws change, making sure you are always 100% in compliance. It works through small snippets of code that are added to your privacy and terms pages and uses information from a simple questionnaire that you only have to answer once at setup. It’s also fun to know that it is the only privacy policy tool listed as a trusted privacy technology vendor by the International Association of Privacy Professionals. 

A super affordable solution:

Most people aren’t looking to spend thousands for a lawyer to draft these types of documents up for them which means that most people are out there unprotected from risk. The thing I like about Termageddon is that for just $10/mo or $99/yr, you receive the following expert-prepared policies to protect your site: 

• Privacy Policy

• Terms of Service

• Disclaimer

• End User Licence Agreement

Why they’re awesome:

I mean beyond the tech magic that makes sure your site is always in compliance, you can set up your policies in 15 mins or less and the team at Termageddon is top-notch. You’ll basically have access to the best of the best when it comes to privacy and data protection if you ever have any questions. Their team has already helped some of my clients that have some pretty unique setups ensure they are protected now… and in face of whatever future laws may bring. Privacy matters a ton but so does protecting your business need to continue to do business online confidently. 

BONUS: You can use this link or code KRISTINE for 10% off your first-year payment on your Termageddon subscription!

How to Sell Bundles & Kits on Squarespace

In this recent post, I sang the praises of bundles. They’re a great way to simplify the buying process, add value, reduce friction and boost sales - all total wins! But how do you actually sell bundles and not feel like you’re constantly having to babysit your inventory and stock levels? I mean, think about it:

Say you sell both Product A and Product B by themselves. But since you know that bundles are a great sales tool, you also sell a bundle that contains both Products A & B together. As is, every time you sold one of your bundles you would have to go in and manually adjust the available stock levels for the individual products so that you don’t run the risk of overselling them. The same would work in reverse if there was a run on Product A because it became super popular. Without manually adjusting the stock level of your bundle someone may purchase it without you actually having enough inventory on hand to fulfill it. No good.

The solution is a super simple tool called Trunk. I love Trunk and wrote about it in this blog post as a great way to sync inventory levels between programs such as Squarespace and Shopify, or Squarespace and Square, or any other number of platforms that Trunk integrates with such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Faire, and Quickbooks Online.

But the secret is that it does more than just sync things up between platforms - it can also be used to sync things up on the same platform. Which makes it perfect for keeping your inventory in tip-top shape even if you’re only selling on Squarespace.

Advanced Bundling & Kitting

I explained above a simple bundle that contains two items that are also sold individually but you may have a scenario that’s a bit more advanced such as:

This kit could contain the box, the string, the liner, AND all the individual chocolate pieces.

• If you sell the same items in multiple quantity packs. An example of this might be if you sell candy bars and provide the option to buy a single bar, a pack of 5 bars, or a pack of 10 bars. In this case, once your inventory drops to 9 you would need to make the 10-pack unavailable but still offer the 5-pack and individual options. Trunk can do this for you. Bonus - even if you decided to no longer offer the single bars (who only wants one candy bar anyways?!) you could set that up as a hidden product so that the availability of your other options still depends on how many individual bars you have in stock. This brings us to:

• If you sell gift boxes or bundles and need to keep track of all the pieces, materials & supplies. Gift boxes and subscription boxes are really popular with customers but they can be a lot to manage as a merchant! How many boxes or bundles you can sell ultimately depends on the component in your bundle with the lowest available quantity. And components don’t need to be publicly available goods, either! Just like in our candy bar example above, you can add all the parts you need to fulfill an order as a component: the box, the fill, the pack-ins, and all the actual items included in your gift box! Think of how much easier it would be to sell gift boxes that contain similar but not exactly duplicate items; no more last-minute inventory crunches or overbuying just to be on the safe side.

Q: What about “build your own” bundles or boxes?

This is a popular topic and one reason why some people look to Shopify over Squarespace, where the functionality exists but only if you’re willing to pay for no less than 3 third-party apps to the tune of $$$$ per month. Needless to say, I’m not a fan. Don’t worry - emulating a custom “build your own” bundle experience on Squarespace is easy if you just set your products up as variants instead of main products. This is made so much easier because on Squarespace each product can have up to 6 options and up to 250 variant combinations whereas on Shopify you’re limited to 3 options and 100 variant combinations.

So, for example, if you want to sell a gift box that contains six items you would just set up each set of items as variants of your main gift box product. Customers would choose your gift box product, then select the items they’d like to add to the box using the drop-down menus for each option set. Using Trunk, you could easily sell the same options in multiple different gift boxes without losing your mind trying to keep up with everything!

Related Post: To sell even more advanced customizable products with more complex pricing, you could also always build a custom order form for Squarespace.

Try Trunk

If you’d like to see what it’s like to streamline your inventory tracking when selling bundles & kits, you can try Trunk out free for 14-days. The trial includes all the features you need to make this happen but after that, you will need to be on the Pro Plan which starts at just $39/month and scales up based on the number of orders you have each month. Simple.

How to Manage eCommerce Returns on Your Small Business Website

It’s one of the #1 eCommerce rules: if you’re looking to boost online sales, offer (free) returns & exchanges. Not only is this just great customer service, it’s an excellent way to build trust with new & returning customers while also reducing abandonment rates. I mean, people can get more than a little nervous about buying something if they think they’ll be stuck with it if they decide it’s not for them for whatever reason. I know I’ve personally chosen not to shop with companies that don’t offer returns or exchanges on more than one occasion!

However, for as great as having a generous return/exchange policy is for customers it can admittedly be a bit of an admin headache for you, the business owner. You don’t really have time to be fussing with return authorization requests and managing return shipments. And, to be fair, most customers these days are used to being able to manage their own returns via automated systems offered by big guys like Amazon or other large retailers. Need more proof? 47% off shoppers indicate that an easy-to-print return label as the key element in the best returns experiences. So what’s a small biz to do?

Solution: Aftership Returns

I’ve done a quick review of Aftership Returns in my Minimalist’s Guide to Squarespace Shipping Extensions post here but I think it’s probably one of the most underrated and underutilized apps that every Squarespace eCommerce site absolutely needs so I decided it needed a post all it’s own! 

Sample Aftership Returns Experience

Sample Aftership Returns Experience

Sample Aftership Returns Experience

Sample Aftership Returns Experience

Aftership Returns Overview

Aftership Returns allows customers to automatically process their own return/exchange requests and generate their own shipping labels to send products back to you. It also allows Squarespace business owners to set up automations and rules about returns and exchanges including which products are eligible for return/exchange & which aren’t, how to route return shipments, and a robust analytics panel allowing you to keep track of everything. 

It’s a great solution even if you have only the sporadic return request since just having it shows future customers that it will be easy for them to manage returns if they need to. This makes the free plan (which allows for up to 3 returns per month) an option that I think everyone should have if only just for appearances sake! If no one uses it - great! They love your products and you’re out nothing! But, again, this is the case of really just having it being such a trust builder and conversion booster that even if you sprung for the $9/month plan to get some of the more advanced options it would be money well spent!

Here’s a full breakdown of the current Aftership Returns pricing plans: 

The Essential plan starts at $9/mo for 20 returns and goes up to $29/mo for 100 returns. 

The Pro pan starts at $99/mo for 400 returns and goes up $599 for 3,000 returns. 

I think most small businesses and startups will get everything they need out of the Essentials Plan which includes: 

• An interactive self-service returns page with automated approvals and label generation that makes things fast and seamless for customers. 

• A returns management portal so you can have oversight of everything happening in one place - plus integration with Aftership tracking (if you use it). 

• Proactive email notifications to reduce customer service emails and also keep you in the loop.

• Discounted USPS labels with no required minimum shipping volume or choose from FedEx, UPS or other preferred carriers.

• Customizable everything: set custom return windows, define your own return reasons so you can learn why products aren’t working for customers and define any non-returnable products.

• Custom routing rules to ensure items are cost effectively sent back to the right place.

• Allow for alternate return methods such as: in-store returns, eco-friendly “green” returns to reduce return shipping costs, or FedEx Easy Returns which allow customers to simply show a QR code to return their order at specified FedEx Office or Walgreens locations without needing to print a label!

How to Set Up An Automated Returns System for Squarespace 

1. Start by signing up for a free Aftership Returns account here!

2. Then, when logged in to your Squarespace site go to Settings > Extensions and search for the Aftership Returns extension. Click Connect and then follow the prompts on the following screens to connect the new Automizely account you just created.

3. On your new Aftership Returns account dashboard, you’ll be automatically walked through a few onboarding questions asking you about your return policies so that things are customized to your business - don’t worry, you can always change things later in settings! 

4. Customize your returns page by clicking on Returns Page in the left navigation area. This is where you can set up the url for your returns page, customize the colors & fonts to match your brand, and add any other static content that you’d like to appear on your customer-facing returns page. 

5. You can customize any other settings to suit your business and policies by clicking on the other areas under Customize on the left.

6. Try a sample return! On your dashboard, you can click on the Demo Return button to walk through the return experience for yourself so that you know how it works as a customer. 

7. When you’re ready, copy the Returns Page url and add it to your site’s navigation. I recommend adding a link in your footer but you may also want to add it to your FAQs and contact page just so people can find it easily from more than one place! 

That’s it! Your Squarespace site now has a self-service returns portal! Be sure to include information about your return policy at checkout (Commerce > Checkout > Checkout Page: Store Policies > Return Policy). 

Like I’ve said before, I think that every eCommerce shop should take the few minutes to set up a returns portal like this. It is such a confidence builder even if it rarely gets used and when it does it will make life so much easier for customers and shop owners alike!

How to Sell Your Services on Online

Updated September2021

eCommerce doesn’t have to just be for physical products; if services are your business you should definitely think about how to make it easier for your clients to book with you or buy from you online. Luckily, Squarespace makes it easy with lots of built-in features that are made for way more than t-shirts and art prints. If you’ve been thinking about “productizing” your services it’s definitely time to actually jump on this idea because it’s for sure not just a trend.

The concept here is simple: take service-based work that’s difficult to conceptualize and convert it into a defined product with a price tag. There are a few great reasons to consider this approach:

• It can help you define a niche. A lot of business owners are afraid of niching down their services. Maybe this is you. You’re afraid of saying no to work and the idea that you might not appeal to everyone is a little scary. I get it! I went through this phase as well and as it turns out, saying yes to anything and everything will do nothing but buy you a one-way ticket to burnout.

• It allows you to create systems and processes that are repeatable and scalable. This allows you to work smarter, not harder. Never again feel like you’re reinventing the wheel with each new client you take on. The objection many service-based biz owners have to productization is that they feel that their offering is just “too custom” to define. If this is truly the case, you should probably be charging a lot more for your work! Productization doesn’t mean that your work isn’t personal to each of your clients, it just means that the process you take them through remains (generally) the same. You can document it, define it, rinse and repeat it.

• It helps your clients or customers know exactly what they’re getting. People outside your industry or organization are not always in the best position to understand exactly what it is you do. What they know is that they have a problem and (hopefully) your services are the key to solving it. Defining your services as “packages” or products helps define the value that you offer in terms your target demographic can understand and buy into.

Productization in 3 Easy Steps

1. Define - The first step may require you to open up a Google sheet and making a master list of every.single.thing. you do as part of your core service(s). Account for every hour you put in, all the menial tasks that you do that you normally don’t really get paid for. Document everything.

2. Refine - Group like with like. Maybe your signature offering could really become two different products? Maybe you realize that what you were billing as three different services is actually one base product with some additional add-ons? Seeing the details of the work you do in this way will also help you discover your niche. Is there a way you could organize the work into a deliverable that your target demographic could identity with best? Again, think about the value you offer and the problem your service solves for your client.

3. Do the Math - The best part about productization is that you really only have to do the math once! There are a few pricing methodologies you could use but my favorite is tallying up the number of hours a typical project takes you, giving your calendar an honest look, and figuring just how many projects you could reasonably do in a month. I say this because you know what amount of money you need to bring home on the first of the month and you know how much time you want to work each week. The rest is just easy math. The bonus here is that this gives you a hard sales target to shoot for each month - just like tracking inventory!

Tools to Make It Happen

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Try…

Service Products

If You Sell…

Consultations
Signature Service Packages
Events
Workshops
Meetings
Group Classes
Service Subscriptions

Read More →

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Try…

Squarespace Scheduling

If You Sell…

Appointments
Classes
Tours
Packages
Workshops
Recurring Events

Read more →

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Try…

Squarespace Member Areas

If You Sell…

Courses
Virtual Training
VIP Content
Gated Access to Services

Read More →

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Try…

Digital Products

If You Sell…

PDFs
eBooks
Audio Files
Video Files
Whitepapers

Read More →

Legal Checklist for New eCommerce Businesses

Starting a new business, especially an online shop or an eCommerce business, can sometimes feel like heading out for an exotic vacation. You’re excited to get where you’re going and you have a ton of cool ideas of how things are going to go once you get there but you arrive at the airport pretty much convinced that you’ve forgotten to pack something critically important. You just have that anxious feeling that no matter how well prepared you thought you were that you’ve somehow left something behind. And the anxiety over this can sometimes be enough to ruin the whole trip! 

Well, consider this your packing checklist for setting off on the right foot for your eCommerce journey! As someone who’s started multiple small businesses myself, I definitely wish I had come across something like this that was complete and <b>trustworthy</b>. I even thought about putting together a list myself but {newsflash} I’m no lawyer. So I was super excited when an email from Paige Hulse of Paige Hulse Law and the Creative Law Shop recently came across my inbox on this exact topic! 

In her post, Paige details all the steps on how to legally start an online shop. You should definitely click through to her post to get out all the legal specifics but I’m going to summarize most of them here, along with a few additions and notes that I think will help specifically ensure that you’re set up for eCommerce success! 

1. Run a Name Search - This seems obvious but there’s a reason why it’s repeated over and over - and why it’s number one on the list! Paige rightfully mentions that most people check whether the domain they want or the social media handles that match are available and often do little else but that’s not the only error some new business owners make when it comes to naming. What I’ve experienced is that too many people fall into the trap of thinking too small when it comes to their name. They either don’t make their search wide enough when looking for any potential conflicts or they settle for a super limited local name just because the domain is available. For more domain name tips, check out this post (hint: #4 is all about domains). 

2. Get Any Required Licenses & Permits - The exact list is going to vary widely depending on what you’re selling and where you’re located but it’s worth seeking out someone who is familiar with 1) your industry, 2) your area and 3) eCommerce for guidance. That last one is super important because even though selling online is still a little bit like the wild, wild West there are changes and new laws cropping up all the time. Also, just because you work from home does not mean you are somehow exempt from licensing. The last thing you want is to get shut down or see some major fines in the future because you didn’t have the right credentials in place or pay the proper fees. 

3. Legal Contracts Are Your Friend - Don’t sleep on this step! Not only is it super important to set up the required privacy policies and terms of service for your eCommerce website, but it’s also really become more affordable than ever to make sure you’re protected. Check out this post that includes two of my favorite options. This is really a non-negotiable and not something you can opt-out of and just “take care of later.” If you plan on selling online, you need these legal policies and clauses in place. (If you’d like to learn even more about GDPR compliance, check out this post from Style Factory!)

4. File Your LLC - Obviously, you may want to check with your own lawyer and maybe even loop in your tax dude on this decision but the point really is that you need to make sure that your business assets and your personal assets are not one and the same. A DBA does not cut it. An LLC is the most popular route to take to make sure that you're protected. In the words of the late, great Notorious B.I.G.: keep your family and business completely separated. 

5. Get Your EIN Number - Surprisingly, this is one of the fastest tasks on the list! Who knew that a solution featuring irs.gov would ever be so easy?!

6. Open a Business Bank Account - Remember: no mixing things up. Personal money 👉 personal account. Business money 👉 business account. Simple. 

7. Get Insured - This is another situation where it pays to seek out someone familiar with your business/industry and eCommerce in general. Even if it’s just a general liability policy, you want to be protected.

8. Website Stuff - I do think that you can do a little more in this step beyond just making sure that your legal policies and copyright are linked in your website footer, although both of those are super important! One of the more intricate things that comes up with each and every client I work with is sales tax. And it’s no surprise to me that everyone is confused - it can be super complicated! Everything from the exact rates to how sales tax should be displayed and collected on your site can vary based on what you’re selling, where you’re located, where your customers are located and everything in between! You definitely want to confirm the specifics for your own case with your accountant or tax professional but the thing that I would recommend to everyone is planning on utilizing the automatic tax rates feature on Squarespace to ensure that sales tax is calculated correctly for each and every online transaction. 

9. Register Your Copyright or Trademark - This is super important if your business is anything other than your name but check out Paige’s post for all the details! I think this is especially important if you’re selling your own custom products such as t-shirts with your own designs or prints of your own photography work, etc. We’ve all read those horror stories about independent creators having their ideas stolen by big brands without credit. Again, don’t think small here; you’ll be thankful that you took care of these things early on! 

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Bottom Line

Getting started with your first online shop doesn’t have to be an overwhelming experience! Use guides like these to help you feel confident in setting off on your eCommerce journey without worrying that you’ve left something behind or forgot to turn off the stove! 🔥 Once you’ve taken care of the things on your legal list, you can confidently turn your attention to the fun stuff, like web design. For those next steps, check out: A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Set Up Your First Online Shop.

How Not Having Online Ordering is Costing You Sales

Updated August 2021

This is the tale of two Mexican restaurants and it should be prefaced by telling you that I love Mexican food. A lot. I would eat it probably every day if my husband didn’t object so strongly to the idea. Chips + salsa + a spicy margarita = happy Kristine. Pretty much my entire family feels the same way and it’s probably no surprise that one of my high school jobs was working at a popular Mexican restaurant mostly so that I could eat for free and because I was there all the time anyway so I might as well just work there? 🤷‍♀️

Anyways, flash forward to the present day and I’m going to pick on two local restaurants that shall remain nameless to protect the innocent. I am not going to put them on blast just so that I can have enchiladas at the touch of a button but I am going to be super brutally honest: not having an online ordering system is costing one of them sales. And you, too, if you aren’t currently offering your customers a way to buy from you without sending a fax, making a phone call or -gasp!- showing up in person. 

Recently, while doing the “what should we have for dinner” dance, I was reading online menus and had narrowed the choices down to two places. When dining in person, I slightly prefer the atmosphere and ambiance of Restaurant A but consider the food and drink on par with Restaurant B. The restaurants are priced about the same (one isn’t significantly higher or lower priced than the other), both are about equidistant from where I live, both have similar menu choices. if I wanted to eat in, I may prefer Restaurant A otherwise the two options are very comparable.

With one giant exception. 

Restaurant A does not offer online ordering while Restaurant B does. 

That’s it. That’s the difference. And you know what? I went with Restaurant B - almost without hesitation. Why? 

Because it was just so easy. Online ordering reduces the friction of a phone call and increases customer loyalty, satisfaction, and average order value. My own personal takeout purchase history is a testament to this.

Side note that if you’ve read this far and you’re not a restaurant or cafe owner, don’t think this doesn’t apply to you. Pretty much every business out there can benefit from allowing customers or clients to not just explore what they offer but take immediate action when the chances of conversion are the highest. It doesn’t matter if I’m browsing a taco menu or a menu of services, once I make my mind up on what I want you should be doing everything in your power to make it as easy and frictionless as possible to close the deal. Every hurdle you put in your customer’s way is going to reduce conversion rates. (For more on the psychology behind this, check out this post on 12 Ways to Build a More Empathetic Brand.)

Now, I can’t conceive of any reasons why a business wouldn’t want more sales and increased loyalty, and happier customers but there are still websites out there that don’t have even basic online ordering functionality so here we are. Also, just know that when I say “online ordering” please know that I am simply referring to the “checkout” process of allowing website visitors to self-serve, selecting their preferences, and paying you entirely online. This could be for food but could just as easily be for services or appointments or access to digital goods. 

If I’ve been describing you and your business here, I’m going to go out a limb and guess that one of the following false assumptions is holding you back. 

False assumption #1

You think it’s too expensive.

Done right, setting up an online shop should be considered an investment, not an expense. Sure it costs a little upfront to get things going but this is one of those “you’ve got to spend money to make money” situations. Also, once you consider the cost of your time (or your employee’s time) manually taking orders and factor in all the lost sales by not doing anything, this should be a no-brainer.

Helpful read: What does it cost to start an eCommerce Website?

False assumption #2

You think it’s too hard to set up.

Most online ordering systems are super easy to set up and intuitive in how they function. They are meant for people who are busy running businesses like yours that may not be super “techy”. If you can fill out a form, you can set up your inventory online.

Helpful read: A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Set Up Your First Online Shop

False assumption #3

You think it’s too hard to manage.

Again, you do not need to be a super technical person to be able to manage an online shop. Most of the work is in the setup and then just nailing down some simple business processes and systems on the back end. Once you get going, you’ll find that it’s actually so much easier to allow the majority of your customers to take care of themselves so that you can focus on the few who may need a little extra TLC. It will be so much easier to let automation and technology do a lot of the heavy lifting for you so that you can focus on what you do best and creating a great experience for your customer or clients.

Helpful read: Built-In Features to Help You Sell on Squarespace

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Bottom Line

I told you this was the story of two Mexican restaurants. One that got my business because they created a way for me to order online and pick up curbside and the other that lost my business because they didn’t. Sure, it cost a little and took some time to set up but now that it’s done, the restaurant with online ordering can sit back and reap the benefits while the one that didn’t will mostly be wondering why the phone isn’t ringing. You don’t have to be in the food game to benefit from bringing your services or products online though; every business out there has something to offer that they can make available to customers. Providing the opportunity for clients and customers to serve themselves, even if it’s just a portion of what you do, is a great way to add incremental sales to your books. 

How to Launch Your Website… Even If You Don’t Have Anything to Sell Yet

Updated July 2021

There’s that saying that sometimes progress matters more than perfection and I have to say that it really rings true when it comes to launching a new website. I often see new entrepreneurs struggle to know when to “go live” with their idea or find out that they’ve been putting off launching a website because they are waiting until everything has all come together to do so. 

The beauty of modern web platforms like Squarespace is that they are infinitely scaleable. This means they can grow with you but this also means that they’re ready to work even if you don’t have anything - or everything - ready to sell just yet. You might be wondering what to put on a website for a business that is still in the pre-launch stage in which case… keep reading! The best news is that these methods are proven to help you:

• Get more customers,

• Charge higher prices, and

• Generate more leads when you are ready to flip the “eCommerce” switch! 

First Step: Set up a Coming Soon Page with an Email Opt-In Form

A coming soon page with a simple description of who you are and what you’re all about makes for a great stand-in for a full home page. After all, people do business with other people so there’s no time like the present to introduce yourself. 

The secret to making this successful is to include an email/newsletter opt-in form so that the page isn’t a complete dead end. Email marketing is the highest converting sales channel above all others so start building your list and come launch day, you’ll have a long list of people who are already eager to buy what you’re selling. 

Don’t overthink what needs to go on this page. A few sentences about your or the company + a rough overview of your general industry and how you plan on being different than the rest are all you need. The goal is to create a place that your business can start to call home.

Create A Freebie or Lead Magnet That Previews Your Product or Service

You’ll have a much better time getting people to give you their email addresses if you also include the promise of a small freebie or offer. This would be most effective if this is a small teaser of your future product or service but it could also be a coupon code that they can use once your store launches or a resource that your target demographic would find helpful. 

Setting up an automated email to deliver your freebie doesn’t have to be an expensive or complicated process. My preferred tool for this is built right into Squarespace: Email Campaigns! This is a great option because it’s completely free to build your list of any size and when you are ready to start sending emails you can send your first three for free.

Send Regular Updates of Your Progress

Not only is this great accountability to help keep you on track and focused on launch day, but it can also help create a sense of excitement and community around your brand that you can build on later. Remember, email is the #1 tool in your sales arsenal so any work you do building your list on the front end will pay dividends after you go live. 

Helpful Email Marketing Tips for Beginners

• Consistency is important so if you email your list every Friday for 3 months and then ghost them for the next three, they’re going to retaliate by marking your messages as spam when you decide to show back up. The frequency that you send messages out doesn’t matter as much as just creating a schedule you can commit to. 

• Use your emails as a way to casually poll or gauge interest in your products or services. Basically, if you want to know what your target audience wants, just ask them! Most people will gladly provide you with feedback or answer a simple question or two if they feel like they’re helping you create a solution that solves their problems. 

• Give behind-the-scenes updates and previews of what’s happening in your business even if it feels mundane or overly personal. Remember, people are there because they’re interested in what you have to offer. Show them what you’re working on even if it’s not perfect yet! 

• If all else fails and you don’t feel like you have much to say of your own yet, start training subscribers to look to you to be the expert in whatever it is you do by sending industry updates or links to other information on the web you think they’ll find valuable. This will help build trust with future customers that you’re willing to share about products and services that aren’t your own in order to help them.

Start a Blog

Blogging seems like it’s going to be overwhelming but it’s a great strategy to adopt for any new business. There’s no time like the present to get in this great habit! Use some of the same advice from the emails section above and create a consistent posting schedule that’s something you can stick to. Post on industry topics if you don’t have much of your own stuff to share just yet.

I’ll also tell you that there’s a secret behind-the-scenes bonus to getting your website live early even if it’s just a coming soon page + a blog: you’ll start building domain authority and SEO street cred right away! This is awesome because SEO is definitely a long game proposition. Any head start you can give yourself will really take the pressure off trying to get noticed once you launch your site and have the added pressure of needing to see the sales start rolling in. 

Create waitlists for products or offer pre-sales

Pre-launching products by letting customers know that they are coming soon is a great way to validate your ideas and build on that growing email list you’re already working on. It also can generate a little bit of buzz - similar to when people excitedly wait for the release of the latest book in a popular series or try to score early access to concert tickets. 

You have a couple of different options for this and I think the best one depends on how close you are to launch day. If you’re pretty far out, Squarespace makes it easy to create product waitlists where customers can sign up to be notified by email when products they are interested in become available. Once you get closer to launch, you could allow people to actually preorder - just make sure you are super clear about when products will be shipping to avoid frustration or confusion!

For more on the built-in selling tools available to you on Squarespace, check out this post.

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Bottom Line

The bottom line here is that it’s ok to launch a super small, scaled-back version of what your future website will actually be. Doing so allows you to start building your audience, testing ideas, getting feedback, and building habits that will help ensure your success whenever you are ready to fully launch. Remember that progress matters more than perfection and just start! Every eCommerce business started as someone’s simple idea and it’s ok to flesh it out bit by bit as things come together. Since adding features and content to a website is so easy these days, there shouldn’t be any fear about waiting to get all your ducks in a row before just diving right in. 

Which Squarespace Plan is Right for You?

Updated April 2024

Like most software these days, Squarespace offers several different plans to pick from based on your exact requirements and needs. The SAAS model frustrates some people because they don’t like the idea of paying for something every month (or year) but I think it’s great! It allows much smaller businesses than ever before to have access to the same tools and resources that used to only be available to big power players. All subscriptions come with world-class technical support and Squarespace is incredibly stable and easy to use and maintain. Lots of wins! So which plan is best for you? Let’s quickly work through each option, ruling out ones that won’t work until we have a clear winner! 

Plans Overview

Squarespace has four plans, two are called “website” plans and two are called “commerce” plans: 

—— Website Plans ——

Personal

$16/mo (paid annually)
$25/mo (paid monthly)

Business

$23/mo (paid annually)
$36/mo (paid monthly)

—— Commerce Plans ——

Basic Commerce

$28/mo (paid annually)
$40/mo (paid monthly)

Advanced Commerce

$52/mo (paid annually)
$72/mo (paid monthly)

Looking at these options, I’m going to narrow it down really quickly to just a couple of choices for us to examine in depth. 

• Monthly vs. annual subscription - unless you only plan on being in business for a few months, just pay annually. It saves you up to 31% and it’s just taken care of for the year. 

• No business has any business being on the personal plan. It’s called personal for a reason. You can’t sell on it. You can’t add any custom code. Analytics are limited. Don’t do it.

• Do the math on transaction fees. The only thing that’s somewhat misleading about the way the plans are positioned is that you can technically also sell things on the Business plan. BUT on that plan, you’ll have to pay a 3% transaction fee (in addition to your merchant processing fee). When you do the math on that, it means that if you have more than $1700 in annual sales coming in from your website that you should definitely go with one of the Commerce plans. That’s a pretty low number so we’re going to rule it out as not viable. 

Alright, so pretty quickly we’ve ruled out all monthly plans and both of the Website plan options. This leaves us with either the Basic Commerce plan or Advanced Commerce plan - paid annually.

Both of these plans have all the basics in common such as no transaction fees, secure checkout on your own domain, mobile-optimized checkout, eCommerce analytics, customer accounts, and more. So really we just need to look at the features that are only available on the Advanced Commerce plan to see if those are valuable to us. 

Squarespace Features Only Available on the Advanced Commerce Plan: 

• Subscriptions - can be either products or services that you can set up to bill on a recurring basis

• Abandoned cart emails - automatically send a branded email when people don’t complete checkout to recoup lost sales

• Advanced shipping tools - use real-time, carrier-calculated shipping rates from UPS, USPS, or FedEx; set up advanced shipping zones down to the Zip Code (US) or FSA level (Canada)

• Advanced discounts - set up more flexible discount options including automatic discounts or limit discount usage

• Commerce APIs - use the Commerce APIs to build custom integrations to connect Squarespace to anything

The Verdict

If you ask me, all of the additional options on the Advanced Commerce plan are super valuable to any serious eCommerce business. Sure, they’ll cost you an additional $14/mo but I could argue that your abandoned cart recovery alone would more than make up for that. But here’s what I would say: 

• Choose Basic Commerce if you’re just getting started and are in super cost-saving mode. You can switch plans at any time so you can always upgrade later. This plan is probably also sufficient for smaller sellers whose primary income isn’t generated online. 

• Choose Advanced Commerce if your eCommerce website is the centerpiece of your business. The advanced tools really are what’s going to help you compete most effectively and they come at a pretty reasonable premium over the Basic plan. Just like other plans, you can downgrade later if you find you’re not using the additional features to their full potential but a pro like me would 100% make sure you are!

Bonus: Use code KRISTINE10 for 10% off your Squarespace subscription.

Now that you’ve decided on a plan, finish getting started with this Step-by-Step Guide on How to Launch Your First Online Shop!

Using Squarespace as Your CRM, Part 2: Crash Course on Updated Member Profiles

I love checking out my blog’s analytics because it tells me what you are interested in learning and one of my most popular past blog posts is this one all about using Squarespace as your CRM. There have been quite a few notable updates and improvements to how customers are managed and organized so I thought an updated version was called for! All of the info in the original post is still possible, but it’s pretty quick and surface-level compared to this deep dive. Check out that post for an overview of CRM-like activities you can take on Squarespace and then come back to this post for a crash course on how to take things to the next level! 

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When it comes to eCommerce, there’s lots of info out there about things like pricing, shipping, inventory, and marketing but less on what really matters: customers! One of the great things about Squarespace is that it offers one place where you can see everything about your customers, mailing list subscribers, and members or donors so that you can really dig into how people are engaging with your brand. 

The built-in tools in the Squarespace Profiles panel are so powerful but I think they are probably underutilized by most shop owners. In this post, we’ll dig into the details so that you can learn how to view, understand and manage your relationships with your website visitors and customers. Armed with the right information and strategies, you’ll be able to more effectively grow your business. Let’s dig in!

How to Get There & Main Panel Overview

From the home menu > PROFILES. From here you can choose to see everyone all lumped together in one list, or filter the view to see just subscribers, customers, members, or donors. Keep in mind that some people can be subscribers but not yet be customers and vice versa. You can also see on the main list who has opted in to receive marketing from you and who has created an account on your site without needing to click into anyone’s individual profile. (One thing to note throughout this post is that all info about “subscribers” assumes that you use Squarespace Email Campaigns, which you can learn more about in this post.) 

Individual Profiles

Each person who has interacted with your site in one of the following ways automatically gets a profile created for them: 

• They make a purchase of any kind (regular product, subscription product, membership, etc.)

• They create an account 

• They sign up for one or more of your mailing lists

• They opt-in to receive marketing messages from you

• They make a donation

If you click on someone’s name, you’ll get into their individual profile. This contains the following info:

• Name

• Email Address

• An overview of engagement with your site

• Tags

• Notes

From inside an individual profile, you can also click on the customer or subscriber cards to get more details. 

Customer Details

The Customer Details card

For people who have bought from you, a Customer Details card will be visible in their profile. 

Clicking into it will show you the following info: 

• Total amount spent 

• Date of their last order

• Average order amount

• Total number of orders

• Last addressed used

• Default payment method (if they have one)

• A listing of all their orders, which is clickable through to the Orders panel where you can do things like mark orders as fulfilled, resend notifications, add specific order notes, etc. (For more on what you can do there, check out this post.)

Note: if you are using Member Areas, anyone who purchases a membership will also show up as a customer! This is helpful to know because you can technically then access this person on both your “Customer” and your “Members” lists; they are just going to give you a different look at the same interaction. The Member Details card contains their membership status, the date they first became a member, how many member areas they have access to, and a list of exactly which member areas those are. 

Subscriber Details 

If people are subscribers, their profile will include a card just like the Customer Details card above except this one will drill into details like: 

• Subscriber status 

• How long they’ve been a subscriber

• How many lists they are subscribed to

• Exactly which lists they are subscribed to

From this panel, you can also manually unsubscribe someone from any of the lists they are subscribed to by clicking REMOVE.

Profile Notes

For each profile, you have the ability to add private, internal notes so just to be super clear your customers cannot see your notes!! Like I said above, you also have the ability to add notes in the Orders panel so, in order to keep things organized, you’ll want to determine for your business when notes should be added to specific orders and when they should be added to the whole profile. 

For example, if a customer emailed and asked for a certain order to be left with their neighbor because they weren’t going to be home for delivery -- order note. If the same customer included some specific delivery info such as gate instructions or to always leave packages in a certain location -- profile note. Make sense?

Notes are helpful especially if you’re working with a team and want to log interactions or other info that might be helpful to document for reference later on. The thing about notes though is that they are not searchable and you can only see them by intentionally clicking into the specific profile or order info. For this reason, some things that you may want to include as notes would actually be better off as tags! 

Tags

Think of tags as quick notes that many different customers, subscribers, or members have in common. These are attributes that can help you organize profiles, analyze trends, and drill into specific niches in your audience. Tags are also searchable (more on that below)! 

You’ll want to use tags instead of notes any time you’re thinking about putting someone into a group along with others. So, say you have a subset of your customers that are social media influencers. You could definitely add a note to their profile indicating as such but this would be lost data. You would have no way of pulling together everyone onto one list that contained a similar note. But you could do this by adding a simple “influencer” tag! 

Other ideas for tags are things like: 

• VIP tag - for people who are your best customers, spend the most, have placed the most orders, or have been around the longest, etc. 

• Tags based on preferences - for example, you could create a tag for each of your product lines or for specific brands and tag based on what customers like

• Tags based on customer info - you could create a tag for each month of the year and tag customers based on their birthday month 

• Tags based on dates - for example, a tag for all members who signed up for a specific membership before or after a certain date

Remember that just like notes, tags aren’t visible to customers in any way!

Creating Filtered Searches

Here’s where the magic really happens and where all of the above starts to come together! With filtered searches, you’ll really start to see the power of Squarespace to help you have more insight into your audience and also better communicate with them. Filtering narrows down your list so that only see people who fit certain parameters. 

Filter By Tag

One of the most obvious ways to filter your list is by tag because tags are already a way that you’ve set up as important to your business.

Filter By Other Criteria

Squarespace has provided a super robust range of built-in filters that you can use for segmentation. Here’s an overview of all the things you can filter your list by drilling down to just very specific profiles: 

• Whether someone has an account or not

• Subscriber details: 

  • Whether they’ve agreed to accept marketing or not 

  • By specific mailing list 

  • By subscriber date (users who subscribed either before or after a selected date)

• Customer details:

  • Customers who’ve spent a specific minimum or maximum amount over their customer lifetime

  • Number of orders (max or min)

  • By last order date (customers who ordered either before or after a selected date)

  • By how long they’ve been a customer (either before or after a selected date)

• Member details:

  • By specific member areas

  • By how long they’ve been a member (either before or after a selected date)

Combine Factors for Super Specific Searches!

Getting fancy here but you can combine any number of the factors above to create super specific segments. For example, if you want to just see people who are tagged that they love XYZ brand and haven’t ordered in a while you can do that. If you want a list of only your biggest spenders who have also opted in to receive marketing messages AND who have a May birthday? Go wild. 

Creating Saved Segments from Searches

Being able to filter your list down by all sorts of criteria for your casual browsing pleasure is fun and all but before you can do anything with the info, you’ll need to save the search as a segment. When you’re satisfied with the list you’ve created by applying all the filters you want, just click on Save Segment and give it a name. Now you can refer back to it quickly any time you want and use it as the basis for email campaigns or other marketing or reporting activities. 

Hint: Something to keep in mind is that if you choose a profile type (i.e. just Subscribers or Customers) in the left panel before applying search filters, the resulting segment will only include users of that type. For example, if you click on subscribers and then filter down and click Save Segment, the segment will only ever show Subscribers. This may be your intention but if not, be sure to always start your searches from the “All” list. 

How to Put This Info to Work

Up until this point, sifting through all this user data has just been for you. But when you’re ready to start thinking about how to put this info to work, here’s how! 

In one of my hypothetical examples above, I mentioned the idea of creating a tag for each month of the year and tagging customers based on birthday month (you could use a simple form to gather this info). As each month approaches, you could create a Saved Segment for that month, create a special coupon code and then send them a special birthday offer! 

You have two options for how to do this: 

1. Squarespace has made it super easy to jump right into drafting an email campaign where recipients will just be people that are in that segment by clicking the Create Campaign button. 

2. If you don’t use Squarespace Email Campaigns, you can also export your profile info as a CSV and then use Google Sheets to manipulate your list and import it into your own email marketing platform.

I’m hoping that this crash course has you thinking of how you can grow your email list, cultivate your relationships with customers and build your brand by creating super-specialized content that’s catered to each of your saved segments! 

Squarespace Profile FAQs

• Can you delete user profiles? 

  Nope - they are there as a record of the activity of each unique email address on your site. 

• Can a user have more than one profile? 

  Not unless they have more than one email address. It’s a user’s email address that is used to link everything together: account info, order info, subscriber info, etc. That being said if a customer placed an order with a different email address than they used to previously sign up for your email newsletter that would result in two different profiles. 

• How many tags can I create? 

  250 (that’s a lot!) - I would recommend not having more than you could reasonably scan through. Maybe a dozen or so max?

• Can you tag or update profiles automatically? 

  Split answer: Right now you are not yet able to auto-tag customers :( I’m hoping this will be a feature that is added soon! However, you can add or update other profile information automatically using the Squarespace Commerce API. More on that here!

• What are the differences between how paid and free members are treated? 

  Users that create accounts and purchase a membership are automatically tagged by Squarespace as “accepts marketing.” Members of free member areas will be sent an automated opt-in confirmation after signing up that they will need to click on to confirm that they want to receive emails from you.  

• Any other exceptions to the rules? 

  People who are customers through Squarespace Scheduling are not pulled into the Profiles panel. However, you can manage customers, set up automated emails, and do similar CRM-like activities for scheduling customers from within the Scheduling area. For more info on this, check out this post: How to Use Squarespace Scheduling as an eCommerce Tool

• Can you view profile info on the Commerce App?

  In addition to being able to view and manage customers from the Profiles panel you can also see some customer info in the Squarespace Commerce mobile app. Check out this post for 5 Squarespace Commerce App Tips & Tricks!

What eCommerce Platform am I Recommending Most These Days?

This post was inspired by some questions I’ve received lately from past clients and subscribers to my weekly eCommerce newsletter. A lot of these are folks who’ve been around for a while, even some from way back in the day when I ran a design agency where I was the creative director and project manager on hundreds of website projects. We’ve built relationships over the years and they’ve stuck with me as we’ve all grown and our businesses (and the world!) have changed. 

The questions I often get are things like: 

• “When we worked together a few years ago you had originally recommended X and I guess it works okay. Do you still think it’s a good fit?”

• “I read that you thought that X was better at {{insert feature here}} than Y but I thought it used to be the other way around. What gives?”

• “Are you no longer recommending XYZ? I think I read this on your blog somewhere?!”

• “If your recommendations change, how can I feel confident making a decision about what to go with now? What if something happens and you no longer recommend it?! I can’t decide what to do! Help!”

That last one is more from newer clients than old ones, but still - a totally valid question! And, look, I get it and I agree with how confusing it can all be! The world of technology changes super fast and what’s in one day can quickly be out the next. For you, the small business owner just trying to find your way online, it can sometimes cause things like analysis paralysis, decision fatigue, and even a fair case of buyer’s remorse. These are all also totally valid feelings. 

Oddly, the exact thing that drives a lot of clients nuts is probably what I love most about my job. I love trying out all the new technology and learning new ways to continue to improve things for you. So, think of me like your little technology guinea pig; I’ve tried it all so you don’t have to :) 

In this post, I’m going to give you a rundown of what website platforms I’ve used and recommended over the years. (I built my first full-fledged eCommerce website way back in the early 2000s so it’s quite the history!) Then, I’m pulling back the curtain and letting you in on some of the behind-the-scenes factors for why my recommendations change from time to time. Finally, I’m revealing which platform I am without a doubt, definitively giving my stamp of approval to most these days. Let’s go!!

The History 

(A Very Rough, Somewhat Incomplete Timeline of What Platforms I’ve Used & Recommended Over The Years, In Order of Preference)

2002 - WordPress 

2011 - (1) Wix (2) Weebly (3) Squarespace 5

2012 - (1)Squarespace 6 (2) Wix

2015 - Squarespace 7 

2017 - (1) Squarespace 7 (Distant 2nd) Shopify

2018 - (1) Squarespace 7 (Distant 2nd) Shopify (Distant 3rd) Webflow

2020 - (1) Squarespace 7.0 / 7.1 (2) Shopify (3) BigCommerce

2021 - (1) Squarespace 7.1 (Distant 2nd) Shopify

As you can see, I’ve dabbled in them all. Some platforms, like WordPress, stuck around for a long time but have been outdated since the late aughts as far as I’m concerned. Other platforms, like Webflow, seemed kinda cool when I first tried them out but didn’t have much staying power, and for one reason or another and I quickly ruled them out as viable options. Squarespace has had my heart the most over the past 10-ish years although there have been others (namely Shopify and BigCommerce) that I have used and recommended recently. 

Why My Recommendations Change

• Changing economic conditions - 2020 was HUGE for eCommerce and has shifted things perhaps forever. So many factors here as you can imagine including what small businesses need in order to be competitive online and what price point makes they can afford. 

• Change is Good - I always want to recommend the best and that can fluctuate over time. If you check out my super rough timeline, I may have recommended WordPress to you in 2008. Sorry about that but it was a good call at the time! Change is good and I never want to feel stuck in a lane just because it’s “what’s always been done.” It’s a lot of work to stay up to date on all the latest technology and trends but it’s worth it to make sure I’m not just recommending something because it used to be the best choice. 

• It’s my prerogative - lol this last point is rather selfish, I’ll admit. But 40-year old me is willing to niche down into what I like to do in a way younger me would have been afraid to. It’s my prerogative to only take on certain projects or prefer working on one platform over another. I try to be as objective as possible and offer as much info as I can so you can decide for yourself what is best, but I obviously have my own opinions. While this means that my solutions are not going to be the best for everyone - a fact that I’m perfectly ok with - it’s worth noting that there's definitely a platform that I personally enjoy working on more than others.

What I’m Recommending Most These Days

DRUMROLL. These days, I am recommending Squarespace the most. Hands down. It’s true, we’ve had our ups and downs but this is the eCommerce platform I end up recommending for the majority of business owners I talk with. Here are the 3 biggest reasons why Squarespace is what I recommend for eCommerce in 2021:

• I realized that the grass isn't always greener - remember, I work on website stuff all day every day so sometimes various platforms look exciting because they are new or different. But tried-and-true wins out over shiny and new! I’ve had some projects that I’ve built on *other* platforms that I’ve actually ended up regretting for various reasons and wished I would have just stuck with Squarespace. Luckily, you can learn from my mistakes!

• I honed in on who my audience is to tailor my suggestions for them - large or even mid-market brands have way different needs from a website platform than small businesses and startups (the latter being my core audience). I put out a quiz for a while about whether you should use Squarespace or Shopify and after tons of responses, I started seeing some very significant trends in what people need and are looking for and Squarespace is clearly the best fit for the majority of them. (Depending on which metric I look at, between 80-98% of respondents are the best fit for Squarespace over Shopify based on their business needs - that’s huge!) 

• Squarespace has been rolling out eCommerce & platform improvements like crazy - basically eliminating the pain points that pros like me were feeling (they do listen and respond to what we ask for!). I want to always recommend the best and for a while, Squarespace was honestly lagging a bit on the eCommerce front. I can confidently say this is no longer the case! Some specific updates Squarespace has made that are my most favorite:

  • Automatic sales tax calculations!

  • Improved management of product variations in the updated product composer

  • Increase in product limits per store page from 200 -> 10,000

  • Addition of nested navigation (subcategories) in the shop 

  • Squarespace Commerce API

  • Member Areas

  • Addition of Afterpay as a payment option

  • Updated member profile management

  • Squarespace Scheduling as an eCommerce tool

There are other, more fundamental aspects that I also think are better but the items above are commerce-specific. For more on what I love about Squarespace check out here and here! 

Answering the big questions:

“If your recommendations change, how can I feel confident making a decision about what to go with now? What if something happens and you no longer recommend it?! Help!”

The honest answer here is that even though it seems like a MAJOR decision at the time that your website is more than the platform it’s built on. So you pick what’s the best today and be willing to change if it’s no longer working in time. I know that can be hard to hear when it seems like such a huge investment but technology changes fast and your business needs will be different in just a couple of years anyway. Squarespace is the frontrunner for me these days and if/when that changes, you’ll be the first to know!

“Do you still also use and recommend Shopify?”

Short answer: yes! Shopify is a great eCommerce platform and I always believe in choosing the best tool for the job. Sometimes that will be Shopify, sometimes it will be Squarespace, sometimes it will be something else completely! Here’s what I’ve experienced lately with Shopify though: clients moving there from Squarespace are quickly realizing that in terms of design freedom, ability to customize anything they want and not end up with a thousand paid plugins that the grass wasn’t greener in Shopify land. Shopify is very customizable - IF you know how to code and you have the budget for it.

The thing about advanced customizations on Squarespace is that a pro like me can help you get all those set up in the beginning but then you’ll be able to manage your site on your own from there. On Shopify, you may find yourself needing tech support for even simple things like creating landing pages or updating plugins; this is something that I’ve found discouraging to small business owners who would prefer to manage day-to-day updates on their own. There are certain types of shops and industries that 100% need to be on Shopify. They just need to understand all that comes with that, especially if they are moving from an environment like Squarespace where they’re used to a different level of freedom.

A Minimalist's Guide to Branding

I pin pretty brands to my secret Pinterest boards just like you do. Branding is fun and creative, and can make things feel really “official”. But it can also be a startup’s Achilles heel because while it’s true that all of the finer details of a brand are important to get right, branding is ultimately an art that's super subjective. This means that there really are no “right” or “wrong” answers. 

In true minimalist fashion, my take on brand design tends to lean towards getting something out there that works rather than getting mired in details that no one will ever notice. As a former brand designer, I have definitely seen lots of clients with great products and services miss their moment by spending too much time and money obsessing over whether they should go with the bold or regular version of a font. 

From a business perspective, the more time & resources you sink into your new brand, the less cost-effective it becomes and I can almost 100% guarantee that the finer details you’re obsessing over will be lost on customers. This is because branding is more than a design - it’s an experience. More importantly, a minimalist brand design can be powerful, adaptive, and even bold if you want it to be. Keep reading for more, plus my shortlist of the brand essentials you absolutely need.

Simple Is Powerful

Have you ever noticed that some of the most expensive products have some of the most minimal branding? Complicated design actually ends up looking pretty cheap, and cluttered labels or packaging can make it look like you don’t know what you’re doing or who you want to appeal to. Picking one or two fonts or one signature brand color shows confidence and is often all consumers need to be able to connect with a brand. Too many elements, doodles, illustrations, and colors are just noise that stands to distract people from your message. It’s also important to remember that legible matters more than cute so if your fonts are so ornate or swirly that people literally aren’t sure what you’re saying this is also a problem. 

Minimal is Adaptive

Sure having a 42-page brand identity handbook seems cool but let’s be honest - most new businesses and startups don’t have enough info to be able to know what will resonate with customers or what will perform well in their space. Not only does this make committing to a complicated brand design upfront not very smart from a business standpoint, it means that when feedback and analytics do start rolling in, the design system can’t pivot or keep up with all the changes. I always think it’s better to launch and iterate. Just make some initial decisions and move forward. You don’t have to live with them forever; things like logos, fonts, colors, even names - all totally changeable down the road. Being able to adapt quickly to market shifts, customer preferences or industry trends is a competitive advantage!

Refined Doesn’t Mean Boring

Minimal doesn’t have to be generic. Simple can be bold, colorful, or even edgy. Check out this post from Canva that has some great examples of minimal brands that are impactful and engaging. Some tricks to making a minimal design stand out are to play with scale (making things much larger or smaller than expected) or to use color in an expected way. This could be anything from going all-in with one bold signature color or using a refined palette that’s completely different from anyone else in your industry. Lastly, as I’ve mentioned before, consistency matters more than anything. You may be “bored” with a minimalist brand that doesn’t have a lot of elements to “play” with but that’s because you see it every day. Customers are bombarded with thousands of messages and brands every minute and need the simplicity and clarity of a consistent, simple-to-identity brand. 

What You Need

In this post on how to set up your first online shop, I included a quick list of what brand details I think you need at a minimum from a web design perspective. Here’s that same list, expanded with a few extra details and examples. 

Logos

• A primary text-based logo in just one or two colors

• A simplified square logo to be used as a favicon and social media profile pics. (This is often a monogram or icon.)

Colors

A simple color palette which consists of 3-4 colors:

• One dark color, preferably something neutral that will be used for copy and to use a background for white/light text

• One light color, used mostly for backgrounds

• One bold accent color used to attract attention for things like buttons, links, and other CTAs

• One softer accent color (optional), to be used sparingly for secondary CTAs and liven up the design

Fonts

There are lots of resources out there about picking great fonts. I really like some of the posts that GoLiveHQ has like this one or this one. Something that I really recommend when it comes to fonts that makes life wayyyyyyy easier is to make a list of all the software/programs that you’re going to be using and pick fonts that are available on all those apps. 

For example, Proxima Nova is a popular Squarespace font but it’s not available on Canva. This means if you use Canva to make your social media graphics that you’ll have to pick something close to but not exactly the same as Proxima Nova. A lot of programs do let you add custom fonts but many don’t and even if this is a possibility it’s often an extra tech step that most people would rather skip. 

Beyond making sure that the fonts you want to use are available on all the programs that are essential for your business, I recommend keeping fonts simple. Select one headline font, one complementary body font and if you really must, just one accent font that is used super sparingly.

• Headline Font

• Body Font

• Optional “Accent” Font

That’s it!

The key is to set some initial brand elements up so you have things to work with… but then build yourself in some flexibility to adapt and change your brand as your business grows and evolves!