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Getting started on Squarespace doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. Our Squarespace pros are here to guide you through the motions of getting everything in place to ensure your first, second, third, and hundredth sale is a total success. Watch the video above or read the transcript below for tips on nailing ecommerce basics.
Transcript
Narrator: If you're just starting your website through a platform like Squarespace, make your life easier by selecting a template that already has an ecommerce functionality built in. Or if you already have a site on Squarespace and want to add an ecommerce functionality, we've got you covered.
Just go to your dashboard, select the site you want to edit, select the pages section on your sidebar, press your little plus sign to add a page, select ‘Store,’ and select the option you prefer.
Once you have what you're selling and a place to sell, you have to set up a payment processor so you can, you know, get paid. This means setting up an account via an approved partner, such as Stripe, PayPal, or Square and linking it to your site.
Next, you have to figure out pricing. How you price your products or services is entirely up to you, but there are a few things you need to consider like competitor prices, production costs, and shipping costs.
Samantha Kogle: When you're selling physical products, pricing can be tricky. First, you need to think about what it is you're selling. Is it a commodity? Is it something that's very unique? Did you have to spend a lot of time when you were making this product? All these factors go into how you price.
You can also look at other competitors or people who sell things that are similar to what you're selling. There's no right or wrong way to price your products, but you want to make sure that you're covering all the costs, not just for yourself, to make or obtain the product, but also the cost to ship and fulfill the product. Squarespace has tools that are gonna help you set your shipping prices. You can set them manually, or you can partner with a third party like ShipStation, if you have really advanced shipping needs.
When you're setting up your new business, you might not be thinking about sales tax right away, which is an important part of your pricing. Luckily, Squarespace has multiple ways that you can set up your taxes. You can set them up manually, you can set them up automatically, and you can partner with third parties like TaxJar so it's quick and easy. So that way you don't have to worry about it.
Ashley Fouyolle: When pricing your product, always consider how much it costs to actually make the product and add tax. You never want to sell a product for what it would cost you, because you'll never make a profit. I also add in my time as well. How I calculate the value of my time: I consider how much I would like to make yearly and then quantify that hourly, and say a product takes me X amount of hours. That's how I factor it into costing.
Narrator: Let's talk inventory management.
SK: You can manage all of your inventory on Squarespace. It's easy to see all your products, to know how many you have, to make updates. If you have variants or anything else you might need. If you have a really large inventory or an inventory that changes pretty frequently, you might want to use bulk editing. Bulk editing allows you to manage your inventory in a spreadsheet and then upload it, so all your changes happen at once.
Narrator: Packaging design. It might not seem like much, but taking the time to design a rewarding and premium unboxing experience for your customers goes a long way. So you want to factor it into your budget.
AF: So when a customer receives a package from UNWRP, I really want that experience to be all the way through from the website to the actual box. But once you unwrap it, that's when the explosion happens. We have a bold, vibrant print inside. We have custom tissue paper with our logo on it. And then we also have that brand image that you saw from the website on a note card, so that experience goes all the way through from the package design.
Narrator: With all of these pieces in place, you're ready to start selling online. Our wallets are ready.
Read the full guide to starting an online store
This post was updated on November 7, 2023.