How to Setup a Squarespace Store using Shopify Widget

“How do I set up an eCommerce store with Squarespace without using Stripe?” This is a frequently asked question from a lot of our readers.

Why?

Well, the core challenge with Squarespace Commerce for some users is that Squarespace tightly integrates with Stripe, a payment gateway processor, into its platform.

So as a Squarespace user, your only option when building your online store is to use Stripe as your payment processor (at least at the moment).

While Stripe is a very good payment processor (don’t worry – Squarespace has tightly integrated Stripe into the website builder, so you don’t have to touch codes to configure it in your Squarespace website), their services are not offered in a lot of countries around the world. Currently, they are only available in 34 countries including the US, Canada, France, Germany, Spain and the UK.

They have beta testing in other countries such as Brazil, and India.

So if you are not living in any of the countries listed, you won’t be able to use Squarespace to power your online store. At least not with Stripe.

You can see an updated list of which countries Stripe is available here.

So if you can’t or don’t want to use Stripe, what other options do you have?

CAN I USE SQUARESPACE TO BUILD AN ONLINE STORE WITHOUT USING STRIPE?

There are a few main reasons why you might want to ask this question:

1. You live in a country where Stripe isn’t available there, but you want to use Squarespace because of its designer online store templates and user-friendly sales tools.
2. You like Squarespace, but you don’t want to use Stripe as you already have another payment processor (such as PayPal).
3. You have a lot of products to manage (such as 30 or more, or even hundreds), and you need much more powerful e-commerce tools that Squarespace may not offer at the moment.

The answer to any one of the questions is “yes”, then you’ll be glad to know that you can use other payment gateway options other than Stripe.

One good way to do this is to integrate a Shopify Widget into your Squarespace website.

Now, there are pros and cons to this which I will cover later in this article.

WHAT IS A SHOPIFY WIDGET (OR BUY BUTTON)?

If you haven’t heard of Shopify before, it is one of the best e-commerce online store builders available in the market.

If you sign up for an account with them, they offer you the ability to use their Shopify Widget (or Buy Button) which basically enables you to embed your products or even your entire Shopify store into another website (such as a Squarespace website).

Shopify is a very powerful and flexible online store builder and currently allows you to connect to over 70 different payment gateways (versus Squarespace which only offers 1 option).

So it almost doesn’t matter where you are living around the world, or if you already have a preferred payment processor (that isn’t Stripe), you can use Squarespace to build your website, and bolt on the Shopify Buy Button to power your store.

You no longer have to be limited to using Stripe only, to power your ecommerce store on Squarespace.

HOW TO INSERT A SHOPIFY BUY BUTTON INTO SQUARESPACE?

Inserting your Shopify products, or your entire Shopify store into your Squarespace website isn’t challenging at all.

You have to have a Squarespace account, obviously. You now have to sign up for a Shopify account. Once you have done that, you just have to visit the Shopify Buy Button in their App store and get the App which is free for you to use.

Next, you should set up your products in Shopify (such as upload your images, descriptions, product variants, pricing, etc).

Then, you should set up a payment processor of your choice within Shopify. Again, you are no longer stuck with Stripe, and you choose from multiple different payment processors.

Now you are ready to embed your products or store into Squarespace.

What Shopify Buy Button app will do is produce a snippet of code for you, and you will need to copy and paste this code into your Squarespace account. It’s not as complicated as it sounds.

You will basically use the “Code Injection” tool from Squarespace to “inject” the Shopify Buy Button codes into your Squarespace website.

PROS AND CONS OF USING SHOPIFY BUY BUTTON IN A SQUARESPACE WEBSITE

The advantages of using Shopify Buy Button with Squarespace is pretty clear:

• More payment processing options (not limited to using Stripe)
• Easier to manage a lot of products, as Shopify is a pure, commerce-focused platform

Some of the disadvantages of using Shopify Buy Button include:

• At the end of the day, as helpful as the Buy Button is, it is still not “core” to Squarespace. Any time you integrate two different platforms, it’s never “ideal”. This is not to say that they don’t work well together as both Squarespace and Shopify are world class platforms. It’s just like modifying a car with parts that are not originally from the manufacturer. It’s never “ideal”, but will work just fine.
• If you use Shopify to power your online store on Squarespace, you won’t be able to use some of the integrated sales tools provided to you from Squarespace, such as their real-time shipping cost estimator. However, you can use Shopify’s own integrated commerce tools, which arguably is even more powerful than Squarespace’s.
• You will need to sign up for a separate Shopify account, which at the minimum, is $5 per month for its Starter plan. You can offset this cost by not having to sign up for Squarespace’s Basic Commerce plan ($28/month), and just choose with either the Personal plan ($16/month) or Business plan ($23/month).  This should save you money each month, while giving you the option of using Shopify’s powerful commerce tools.

CONCLUSION – USING SHOPIFY BUY BUTTON WITH SQUARESPACE

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