How to Move Your Etsy Shop to Squarespace
Updated March 2022
If you’ve been selling on Etsy and landed on this blog post, my guess is that you know it’s time to make the switch and you’re wondering just how to move your Etsy shop to Squarespace. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t already thinking about it.
But I also know that it’s a big move that you probably have 1,001 questions about.
You’re wondering if you should choose Squarespace or Shopify.
You’re wondering how the math shakes out.
You’re wondering how to actually.. . you know, MOVE everything from one platform to another?
I’m going to answer all those things and more, but first - for anyone who’s still unsure about whether or not they should be selling on their own website vs. Etsy:
Why You Should Be Selling on Your Own Site:
So you can build your own brand, on your own domain. I’m guessing you didn’t start your business just to be known as another user on someone else’s platform. Having your own website is step one in building not just a business but a brand.
So you can own your contacts and build your email list. Your best future customers are people who have already bought from you. Using your own website to build an email list is one of the smartest ways to future-proof your business.
So you make your own rules. Don’t let someone else tell you what shipping options you can offer, how you can discount your own products, or limit how you market your own business.
So you can stop bleeding money in the form of fees - Etsy may seem like a good idea if you’re just getting started and want to test out new products or see what kind of traction you can get. But once you start selling? Hoo boy - it’s fees on fees on fees. (See my more thorough breakdown of the money math down below.)
So you can control the customer experience. On your own site, ideas you have for upsells or add-ons are easy and you can build a deeper connection with your audience through content and marketing.
So you can sell anything you want. Etsy is supposed to be a place that’s limited to handmade or vintage items but there are so many opportunities for you to increase your bottom line by augmenting your product lineup with other products. (Don’t worry, I’ve got ideas for you on that!)
So you can keep customers focused on your own work. Sure Etsy may get a lot of traffic but even if you can manage to show up on the first page on Etsy, you’re just another listing sitting right there side-by-side everyone else. On your own site, you can show off the quality and value of your work instead of being reduced to the seller with the cheapest listing price.
So you can sell to all the customers NOT on Etsy. There’s a myth out there that you just can’t quit Etsy because of “all the traffic” on the site. Well, what about all the people NOT on Etsy? What about them? I’m assuming you’d like to sell to them, too? Having your own website will help make your work visible to anyone on the internet searching for what you offer.
Why Etsy Sellers Should Choose Squarespace over Shopify
Imagine this is tea and I’m spilling it.
A lot of sellers moving from Etsy think they should make the leap over to Shopify. I think it’s because someone’s aunt’s best friend’s brother who works in “tech” told them so? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But let me tell you: that is not a good enough reason to choose a web platform.
I’ve used them all, tried them all, worked on them all for clients, and hands down I come back to Squarespace every time. Especially for sellers moving from Etsy. Here’s why:
Squarespace offers more design options and control than Shopify. I know you care about aesthetics and creating “cute” page layouts on Shopify is NO FUN. I mean, I spend almost all day up to my elbows in HTML and CSS and even I shudder at the thought of it.
Squarespace offers more marketing capabilities than Shopify. Thinking about blogging as a part of your marketing strategy (you should, it’s great for SEO!)? Good luck making that work on Shopify.
Squarespace is less expensive and requires fewer paid add-ons to work. Shopify looks all fun and games until you realize that if you want to add something as simple as a contact form to your website you’ll need to add a paid app. I mean, half the reason to get away from Etsy is that you’re sick of being nickel-and-dimed!
Bottom line: in my experience, there are so many clients who end up talking to me after they gave Shopify a try and regretted it. They wish they went with their instinct to move to Squarespace instead right from the get-go. Basically, when it comes to design freedom and the ability to customize and sell anything you want (all while not getting dinged by a thousand paid apps in the process) the grass is definitely not greener in Shopify land.
Let’s Do The Math
Not convinced yet that moving to Squarespace from Etsy is a great idea? Let’s take a look at the math! Before we jump into an example, here’s a quick review of the pricing options and fees associated with the different Squarespace plans vs. Etsy (yes, I made a spreadsheet for this):
Side-by-side it’s actually kind of hard to tell which plan is best because of the different pricing structures so let’s use a real example.
In this example, we’re going to pretend that you only sell one product that is priced at $40 (about the average of an Etsy item).
We’re also going to assume that you sell everything without needing to renew your listing so that you only pay the Etsy listing fee of $0.20 once. (This may not be the reality, which would only serve to make the Etsy costs even higher.)
Let’s pretend that you sell 750 units per year which works out to be roughly 60 sales per month or 15 per week.
Based on these numbers your gross sales would be $30,000 per year.
Running these numbers through all of our Squarespace plans and Etsy pricing, here’s what each platform and plan would cost you.
Squarespace Basic Commerce - $1,381.50 (4.61% of sales)
Squarespace Advanced Commerce - $1,645.50 (5.49% of sales)
Etsy - $3,307.50 (11.03% of sales)
Moving to even Squarespace’s most expensive plan would save over $1600 a year right off the top! But that’s not even the whole picture.
Etsy also has this sneaky little thing called their “Offsite Ads program” which you cannot opt out of once you have reached $10,000 or more in annual sales. This program means that they can (without your consent, approval, or oversight) place ads in search and on social media and then charge you an additional 12-15% in fees. This could end up costing you thousands — $3,600 in our example above to be exact!! The details on this program are super nebulous but you can get the gist of them here.
Basically, it’s easy to see how Etsy fees can really start to have an impact on your bottom line as your sales grow.
On Squarespace, the sky’s the limit when it comes to growth. You won’t pay more the more you sell and, in fact, as your sales grow the fixed costs of owning and operating your own eCommerce website will go down with each additional order that comes in!
Step-by-Step Instructions on How to move your Etsy shop to Squarespace
Step-by -step instructions on How to Move Your Etsy Shop to Squarespace
One of the reasons why you may have chosen Etsy in the first place is because it made it fast and easy to get started. But you can do the same thing over on Squarespace. Let me show you how!
1. Start With a Great Free Template
There are lots of great free and paid templates on Squarespace (check out some of my faves here and here).
But if you’d like me to cut to the chase and just tell which template I think would be a great start if you’re moving from Etsy, I say pick the Maru Template.
Here’s why:
It’s simple - in a good way! There’s not a lot of filler content to have to delete or write over and it has just the pages and elements you need to start.
It’s shop-focused - just replace the demo products with your own and you’re in business!
It can adapt to pretty much any style - so it doesn’t matter if your design is a little funkier or a little more conservative than the demo shows! Once your own fonts and colors are set, it will take on the perfect mood!
Get started by signing up for a free 14-day trial of Squarespace using the Maru template using this link and then clicking on “Start With This Design.”
2. Add Your Content - But Keep it Simple!
On Etsy, you have very little space to get to write about your business so moving to your own website can sometimes feel overwhelming because you have so much real estate to fill up! It’s like living in a tiny studio apartment and then moving to a huge mansion - there are so many empty rooms to fill!
With this in mind, I would encourage you to keep things simple. Start by just using the content areas shown in the demo and overwrite it with some words of your own. You don’t have to furnish the whole new house at once!
If it’s too much, I would also say to go ahead and skip the about page (you can always hide it from public view for now). Remember, even with just a simple home page, your shop, and a contact page you already have 3 more pages of your own online than you did on Etsy!
Just focus on getting a few things out there and you can always add on later.
3. Commerce Settings
Just like on Etsy, there are a few eCommerce settings you need to set up once, and then they are taken care of until something changes. Truly, set it and forget it!
Fun fact: when I first got started doing websites exactly 1,487 years ago, I basically just clicked on every single settings menu available no less than 32 times each to make sure I didn’t miss anything!
Why? Because it’s a lot and you can totally feel like you’re missing a tiny checkbox somewhere!
Or that somewhere there’s a hidden setting that’s going to have lifelong impacts on the stability of your business.
DO. NOT. WORRY.
All my clicking around and the core of eCommerce boils down to three really simple basics.
So even though there are lots of settings in the Squarespace Commerce section for now we’re just going to focus on how you want to get paid, what shipping options do you want to offer, and how you’ll handle sales tax. That’s really all you need!
I’m going to save you some headaches of your own and give you the simplest, most straightforward, get right-to-selling options to go with:
Payments - I recommend Stripe (+ Afterpay if your products are $100+)
Shipping - I recommend just offering free shipping to start
Taxes - I recommend setting up TaxJar and turning on automatic sales tax calculations
Related posts you may find helpful:
All of the settings above are taken care of in the Commerce panel (just click on Commerce from the left-hand dashboard menu). Remember, the goal here is just to launch. Taking care of payments, taxes and shipping will get you in business. You can always keep refining other settings and options later on as you grow!
4. Import Etsy Products Into Squarespace
Ok, you may be wondering how we could conclude the Commerce section above without addressing the most important thing - your products!
That’s because moving your shop from Etsy to Squarespace COULD NOT BE EASIER thanks in large part to the built-in import tool from Squarespace.
Your awesome products are what got you this far so I wouldn’t dare ask you to ditch what you’ve already worked so hard on!
Before we jump into the specific steps needed to import products, here are some quick tips:
What info does Squarespace import from Etsy:
Product titles
Descriptions
Photos
Inventory
Prices
Shipping dimensions of products
Note: Only active and sold out products are imported. (If for some reason you don’t have any active or sold old products then draft, inactive, and expired products will be imported.) Also, in order to import everything accurately be sure to temporarily turn off “Vacation Mode” on Etsy. You can turn it back on right after import which should only take a few minutes or so!
How to Import Etsy Products Into Squarespace:
Quick version: Commerce > Inventory > Import > Etsy > Get Started > then just follow the on screen prompts!
Full version: You can find complete step-by-step instructions in the Squarespace help center here.
After you import your products into Squarespace, there’s still a little work to do but I promise it’s 1,000 times easier than adding all your products one-by-one!
Tips & Tasks for After Import:
Review how your products look. Sometimes what works on Etsy seems out of place on your own site. For example: did you write really long, oddly detailed product names on Etsy so that you could stand out in search results? Yeah, you don’t have to worry about that here! Clean up names so that they are short and sweet and remove any references to Etsy processes from your product descriptions.
Add product categories & tags. This is so key in making sure your shop is easy to browse and that all products are super discoverable! (For more on how to use product categories & tags in Squarespace, check out this post.)
Add, delete or rearrange product photos. Put your best foot forward and make sure your product thumbnails are all the best pics you have and that they are consistent in style.
Add product variation images. This is one of the best things you can do to make your product page feel really interactive and really helps people have a crystal clear picture of what they’re ordering.
“One of the best things about moving from Etsy to Squarespace is that you don't have to lose what you've already built.”
5. Bonus Step! Import Reviews
One of the biggest reasons I hear that people want to stick around on Etsy is because they have some great reviews they don’t want to leave behind! Those are coming with us, too, though!
What Etsy Review Info Imports Into Squarespace:
Customer names & images
Product titles & images
Review text & dates
Star ratings
Notes & Tips:
You need to make sure you import products BEFORE trying to import reviews otherwise this won’t work!
Reviews aren’t synced so if you plan on continuing to sell on Esty and you get new reviews, you can repeat the process below to pull in fresh reviews.
Following the steps below will add ALL Etsy reviews you have to ALL products. Depending on your situation, this could be ALOT. If you’d rather just show some select reviews here and there I would recommend adding them to your new site manually.
Ready to import those reviews? Here are the steps:
Quick version: Commerce > Product Reviews > Import from Etsy > then just follow the on screen prompts!
Full version: You can find complete step-by-step instructions in the Squarespace help center here.
6. Launch Your New Site!
It’s finally time to launch your new site but there’s one last task that I would take care of first: be sure to add a newsletter sign-up box to your site!
After all one of the biggest reasons why you’re moving over is because you know how important it is that you own your own contacts. I would recommend adding a newsletter box to the footer of your site but you can also link to one in a popup or even ask customers at check out if they’d like to subscribe. Easy!
Subscribe & Launch!
When you’re ready to launch, you can just hit the upgrade button that should be at the bottom of your trial site or go to: Settings > Billing & Account > Subscriptions > Website > Upgrade and follow the prompts from there. (Not sure which plan to pick, see the FAQs below!)
Make sure you turn your site visibility to public so that everyone can see your work and buy from you! To do this to to: Settings > Site Availability > Public > Save.
Congrats! You’re in business! 🎉
At its simplest, these are the steps on how to move your Etsy shop to Squarespace and launch a new online shop for the first time. This will get you to a place where you can do business online on your very own website! There are lots of ways to continue to improve and expand from here whether it’s working on email marketing, SEO, automations, order management, shipping/fulfillment, promotions and offers… the list can really go on and on.
But the goal is just to start, to have something you can grow and build on. Congrats!
FAQs
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Now that you have your own shiny, new Squarespace website what should you do with your Etsy shop? Well, the way I see it you have a few options:
Option 1 - Use Etsy for what it is: as a glorified search engine & lead generator. Keep a handful of your best sellers active on your Esty shop but add a note in the announcement section promoting your new site. And since the best future customers are often people who have already purchased from you, you could even go a step further and include a card in all shipments from your Etsy shop promoting your website as a way to discover your full product line.
Option 2 - Put your Etsy shop into vacation mode. This will allow you to leave everything as is on Etsy while you give your new website all the attention.
Option 3 - If you’re fully ready to ditch Etsy, you can say goodbye and deactivate your account following the steps here.
FWIW, I recommend going for Option 1 for a couple months, then going to Option 2 for a bit and then finally Option 3. This will allow you to make a nice transition for your existing Etsy customers and also still have your info available in Etsy in case you realize you forgot or overlooked something on your Squarespace site.
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Sure - why not? I mean, to me they are two completely different audiences so if you feel like you have the bandwidth to manage both (and are willing to pay the fees to do so!) then you could definitely sell on both.
In this post, I review a product called Trunk as a tool to keep inventory in sync between Squarespace and Shopify but you can also use it to make sure that Squarespace and Etsy are always up to date!
If you do decide that you want to continue selling on Etsy alongside your new Squarespace site, I would highly recommend adding Trunk to your arsenal to prevent overselling on one platform or another!
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On Squarespace 7.1, you can import up to 300 products from Etsy.
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You can import up to 250 reviews from Etsy.
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If you’re not sure which plan to go with I would recommend checking out this post but the TL;DR is that most sellers should choose the Basic Commerce at a minimum.
Whichever plan you go with, I recommend paying for your subscription annually vs. monthly so that you can score a free domain name and free custom Google workspace email in addition to a few other bonuses!
