What Are All the Things You Can Sell on Squarespace?
Squarespace’s latest ad campaign is all about how “Squarespace has everything you need to sell anything” and that’s great because the average online seller these days is often selling way more than simple goods. Products are often sold as bundles or subscriptions. Business owners want to be able to provide the option for shoppers to customize or personalize their orders. Entrepreneurial service providers, consultants, coaches, and trainers all need to be able to sell their offerings, fill up workshops, or get paid for their time.
If you ask me, this is where it really matters which eCommerce platform you choose. Squarespace does so many things with absolute ease but when you add any complexity to the mix platforms like Shopify start to fall apart. Shopify can work ok if you sell simple physical products but - let's be honest - that’s just not what modern eCommerce looks like.
The Truth Behind the Shopify App Store
Nothing bothers me more than having to add a bunch of paid apps just to make things work, so it should come as no surprise that I have a very contentious relationship with the Shopify app store. Sure, possibilities seem endless when you start looking around but you soon realize that each app comes with its own limitations, its own varied level of customer service or support, its own technical hang-ups, and its own monthly subscription cost.
All of this is to say that one of the zillion reasons why I love Squarespace for eCommerce is that you really can sell just about anything and everything! And for the very few things that are paid extras, they’re designed as part of the platform so you never have to worry about whether they’re going to integrate with the rest of your website seamlessly or who to contact for support. So, without further ado, a comprehensive list of all the things you can sell on Squarespace:
Included
Physical Products
Physical products are anything that is a tangible good that is shipped. Products can be straightforward and simple or super complex - things are totally customizable! For complex products, you can add up to 6 product options with a max of 250 total variants.
Product options are things like size, color, or style but are completely customizable to whatever you need them to be. Product variants are just the max number of all the possible combinations of the product options.
You can also sell personalized or customizable products by using a combo of product options and custom product or custom checkout forms. (For super extreme cases you can also embed a custom order form into Squarespace.)
Digital Products
Digital products are things like printables, PDFs, eBooks, audio or video files, or any other file you want. The max file size is 300 MB but you can also sell access to multiple files as one product by zipping up the files into one folder. Customers receive a link to download the files in your product and have 24 hours to download before the link expires. Squarespace’s back end management tools allow you to easily do things like resend order download emails and manage customers.
Service Products
eCommerce isn’t just for shipped products! Smart service providers make it easy for their customers and clients to access their offerings by selling them online. Simple services can be added just like regular products. This works great for some things like consultations or flat rate services that don’t require someone to select a specific time for use at checkout. Services can be one-time or recurring and can also have custom product forms just like physical products (above).
Service products can also be things like events, workshops, meetings, group classes, or tours that occur at specific times. You have a couple different options on how to set these up - either as a combo of a service product (with or without the event calendar) or by using the Squarespace Scheduling add-on (detailed below).
Print On Demand & Drop Shipped Products
Squarespace has some great print on demand and dropshipping extensions that allow you to sell physical products in your shop without needing to carry any inventory or manage things like shipping and fulfillment. These include:
Art of Where
Printful
Printique
Spocket
For more details on Squarespace product & inventory extensions, check out this post.
Subscription Products
You can turn any physical or service product into a subscription product on Squarespace! This is a great option if you sell anything from food subscription boxes to recurring consultations. In addition to all the regular eCommerce options, you can set things like the subscription frequency (weekly, monthly, annually) and the billing cycle (anywhere from once to eternity).
Another great reason to choose Squarespace for subscription products is that it is so easy for customers to be able to manage their own accounts. Customer accounts allow you to focus on running your business since customers can do things like reset their account password, edit their next order date or subscription frequency, see their order history or update their billing and shipping information in their account on their own.
Gift Cards
I think every shop should have gift cards! These are super simple to add and each gift card is automatically issued its own unique code that customers can either send to their recipient (or themselves 😊). You can set up gift cards for any value(s) you’d like and the value never expires!
Other Kinda Commerce-y Things
Donations - You can accept donations of any amount you choose on your site using the donation block. Tip: you can also hack the donation block to sell products or services at pay-what-you-want pricing :)
Restaurant Reservations & Online Ordering - Squarespace has great extensions meant just for restaurants. Check out OpenTable and Tock to get started.
Things That Require a Paid Add On
Scheduling
Squarespace Scheduling is an add-on that works well for services and classes that need to be booked at specific times. But this tool is way more than just online booking & appointments! You can also use it to create packages, sell service subscriptions, book group classes and workshops, sell access to recurring events and more.
For a full review of all you can do with Squarespace Scheduling check out this post.
Memberships
Squarespace Member Areas allows you to create gated content that people need to pay for access to. Everything is completely customizable including setting up the billing intervals, membership options, what people see when they log in and all the custom emails that go along with a membership. Another great thing is that customers can also manage their own membership accounts just like with any of the other items you sell on Squarespace.
For a full review of all you can with Squarespace Member Areas check out this post.
