Best Squarespace templates for an online shop 2023: Sell products online more easily

Just shy of a decade after it first began letting customers promote issues on their websites, Squarespace is lastly hitting full ship on ecommerce. Its new model imaginative and prescient of “Everything to Sell Anything” launched alongside new scheduling and passive revenue instruments in 2021 (a direct response to an increase in side-hustling amid the COVID-19 pandemic), whereas a late 2022 replace ushered in viewers monetization options, product evaluations, pay-as-you-go checkout choices, delivery label buying and printing, an order standing web page, and on-demand merch for the content material creator period.

These additions have positioned the drag-and-drop web site builder as a novel various to devoted ecommerce platforms like Shopify or Etsy: Users can shortly customise an spectacular web site for a brand new or small-to-midsize retailer with zero coding information and a built-in library of lovely, professional-looking templates. Additionally, Squarespace’s well-established suite of running a blog and portfolio instruments makes it straightforward so as to add non-commerce content material alongside that shop with out separate apps or third-party plugins. It’s a cohesive (and comparatively low-cost) all-in-oner.

What is a Squarespace template?

A template is a pre-made demo web site that may be personalized with totally different shade palettes, font packs, and layouts. Squarespace describes them as “a starting point to help inspire your site’s design,” noting that customization is a matter of consumer choice. (You can provide a template a complete overhaul or just add your branding to the unique design and hit “publish.”) Each template is a Squarespace unique, which means you will not discover something related on different web site builders, and all of them are mobile-optimized from the get-go — an vital element on this use case given cellular procuring’s exponential development up to now few years.

Templates work otherwise relying on which model of Squarespace you determine to make use of:

Squarespace model 7.0 templates are constructed utilizing its basic editor and categorized into totally different “families” primarily based on shared constructions and elegance choices. Each household has its distinct algorithm and options, a few of which have not migrated over to model 7.1 but (see: parallax scrolling), but it surely’s trickier to modify templates with out risking content material loss.
Squarespace model 7.1 templates are constructed utilizing its new Fluid Engine (which launched an easier-to-use grid system) and belong to at least one template household, which means all of them share the identical underlying construction and performance. They have some cooler, trendier particulars than their counterparts from model 7.0 (like squiggly accents and funky photograph crops), although their general layouts look a bit more cookie-cutter. That being mentioned, this makes them a lot simpler to swap between.

Squarespace mechanically defaults to model 7.1 these days, and until you are an online design guru who’s after sure options from model 7.0, we would suggest sticking with it — it is simply more streamlined and versatile. (If you are on the fence, needless to say shifting from model 7.0 to 7.1 typically requires a whole rebuild and throws off your web site’s search rating for some time.)

How do Squarespace subscriptions work? Does Squarespace take a lower of gross sales?

A bank card processing price(opens in a brand new tab) applies to each buy made via a Squarespace web site. This is charged by the cost processor, not Squarespace, and ranges from 2.9% of the order complete + $0.30 per profitable card cost (with Stripe, the commonest processor) to six% of the order complete + $0.30 (with the purchase now, pay later service Afterpay). Whether you must pay an extra transaction price per sale to Squarespace itself depends upon your subscription plan(opens in a brand new tab):

Squarespace expenses a 3% transaction price if you happen to’re on its Business plan ($33 month-to-month or $23/month yearly). Geared towards “those looking to grow their audience and begin taking payments,” this tier unlocks the power to promote limitless products in your web site, an expert e-mail from Google, superior web site analytics that inform you which areas of your web site drive guests, and promotional pop-ups and banners.
Squarespace doesn’t cost a transaction price on its Basic Commerce plan ($36 month-to-month or $27/month yearly). This one’s designed “to help grow your business,” tacking on product evaluations, buyer accounts, restricted availability labels, the power to just accept in-person funds , product linking(opens in a brand new tab) on Facebook and Instagram, and extra ecommerce metrics about bestselling products, gross sales developments, and conversions.
Squarespace doesn’t cost a transaction price on its Advanced Commerce plan ($65 month-to-month or $49/month yearly), which affords “[all] the tools necessary for the more advanced seller.” That consists of superior delivery and low cost options like service calculators, deserted cart restoration, improved promo management, and entry to developer instruments (utility programming interface, or API(opens in a brand new tab)), plus the power to promote subscriptions.

Squarespace’s free 14-day trial applies to all of its plans, in case you are unsure which one is correct for you. (Note that the entry-level Personal tier doesn’t embrace ecommerce options.)

What’s the perfect Squarespace template for an online retailer?

While all Squarespace templates help ecommerce performance, some deal with it higher than others.

Squarespace has already been so form as to curate its personal assortment of templates for promoting (discovered by visiting its library and sorting the Type by “Online Store”), however we have narrowed down its pool even additional. Below, you may discover our absolute favourite picks for a contemporary, intuitive online retailer.

Note: Most of our suggestions are from Squarespace model 7.1, however we have sprinkled in just a few choices from model 7.0 that proceed to face out. Templates have been labeled accordingly.