If you are currently running an online shop powered by Squarespace but see those other eCommerce solutions sound better than yours - switch to another one. Among dozens of shopping carts that are floating around the Web market - Shopify might be the first option to evaluate. Let’s try to focus on those features that hold Squarespace back and make millions of users all over the globe gravitate towards Shopify.
Despite all the advantages associated with Squarespace (best-designed templates, brilliant blogging features, ideal for creative industries, lower entry price plan), it is still behind Shopify in all market share segments. Google Trends provides the following figures regarding both carts’ popularity:
In short, Squarespace is a powerful and feature-rich website builder targeted at creatives (photographers, artists, designers) aiming to showcase their portfolio, no matter their technical expertise. But when it comes to settling an online store on - it’s definitely not the choice of merchants. The main points of criticism for Squarespace are:
Those entrepreneurs willing to create a good-looking, powerful online store with professional analytics often consider Shopify as the way to go. And not for nothing. The platform enjoys the fame of being one-fits-all-solution catering to the needs of both - average users and experienced developers. It is used worldwide for powering gorgeous do-it-yourself online stores of any complexity. The key advantages of Shopify that make users gravitate towards it are:
With all that being said, both Squarespace and Shopify make it possible to create an online store that looks good and works well. Choosing between them really depends on what type of online shop you want to run and how much time and effort you’re going to put into it.
If you’ve made the decision to move your current Squarespace store to Shopify - we would like to meet you halfway and take through the easiest and trouble-free way of conversion across platforms.
Take time to find the access details of your current Squarespace store (the URL, admin email and admin password). Besides, it is recommended to back up all the info of your current Squarespace to avoid any migration-associated risks.
Install your Shopify store without any additional modules and make it live. When done, choose the default Shopify theme and make no customizations until the migration is finalized (since it can negatively influence the process of migration).
With the help of the Migration Estimator feature, you can calculate the exact price of your Squarespace to Shopify migration.
Set up your Squarespace and Shopify platforms by providing their access details (the URL, the admin email and password for Squarespace and only the URL for Shopify) in the appropriate fields of the migration wizard. When ready, click Choose Entities button.
From the provided options choose the store data types you want to transfer from Squarespace to Shopify (products, product categories, customers, orders, coupons, blogs, blog posts, CMS pages). Once done, specify the additional migration opportunities aiming to make your replatforming even more seamless. To be more specific, you can take advantage of the following additional options:
Demo migration allows transferring a limited number of store entities in 10-30 min for you to see the service functionality in progress. Don’t close the browser window until the demo migration is finished.
Finally, if you are satisfied with the Demo result- initiate Full Migration. Once you’ve activated the matching button - your Squarespace data will be transferred to Shopify accurately and precisely.
Note: eCommerce data migration will take approximately a few hours (depending on the size of the transferrable data), it will not affect your current Squarespace store performance in no way. Customers will be able to make purchases during the whole process of data transfer to Shopify.
Once you have all your Squarespace data transferred to Shopify, there are some must-do tips you have to do to ensure your new Shopify store functions properly. To be more specific, check the new store for possible issues by performing a post-migration audit. Besides, take the time to install all the necessary apps to expand the functionality of the new store as required. Don’t forget to notify your clients about the replatforming and ask them to reactivate their accounts.
Ready to take your online business a level up with Shopify? Start Free Demo migration from Squarespace to Shopify and see how easy it is to perform an eCommerce replatforming without going deep into codes and scripts.