sell

Squarespace Ecommerce Tutorial 2021 (for Beginners) - Sell Physical or Digital Products Online

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hey everybody welcome back to central

media in this video we're diving into

how to set up an online store with

Squarespace so if you're looking to sell

physical products digital products drop

shipping whatever you're trying to do

Squarespace is the one that we recommend

among the most out of them out of the

many different ecommerce options out

there but Squarespace is especially

great because it's really easy to build

it's very professional and so with just

a couple clicks you can really make it

look like a very professional website

that a lot of people won't be able to

differentiate between yours and some

really really big brands out there and

in fact a lot of big brands actually do

use Squarespace so it's very popular for

many reasons some of the reasons we like

it not only does it look good is it easy

to build but on top of that you can also

integrate it with social media so if you

want to sell directly on Instagram for

example it's a great way to promote your

products and then people can just tap on

it you can tag your products literally

tag them in your post it'll show the

price people can buy it right there in

Instagram without even leaving the app

and there's just so many different

options we have we'll be diving into a

lot of that in this video this is a full

tutorial for beginners so if you have no

store if you don't even have a website

if you've never done anything with

Squarespace this should be a very

helpful video for you will be going

through at a beginners pace but I'll

drop timestamps down below if maybe you

have a question about a particular space

within this I don't know within the

website builder for example you can

easily just go around and check out

different things but some of the things

we'll be covering in this video we

talking about how to set up your website

first of all make it look good and just

go through the basics like that I'll be

talking about how to connect payments

how to set up your checkout how to set

up shipping there's different types of

shipping so if you want to do flat rate

or free shipping or shipping by weight

or carrier calculated and we're also

going to go into notification emails so

sending people emails when they buy

something and let you let them know if

it's shipping or what the status is

stuff like that we're gonna go through

how to actually process orders how to

make returns how to refund people how to

manage your orders a lot of stuff on

that front we'll talk about analytics

how to set up discounts and many more

things of that sort so clearly a lot to

talk about in this video one last thing

before we get into it I want to say if

in this video you find that I'm talking

too slow or too fast YouTube does have a

great setting that allows you to change

the playback speed so if you want to do

one and a half speed 0.75

speed whatever it is find the right

speed for you rewind as you need to and

let's get into this tutorial so the

first thing we want to do is go down in

the top of the description of this video

I have a link right there if you click

on that link it should bring you to this

page right here and so this page is

going to be where we're starting for our

Squarespace store and it's gonna look

similar to the same basically the same

page you'll be seeing for any

Squarespace website because really any

Squarespace website can be set up as a

store of course you're gonna have a

slightly different paid plan though

we'll get into that in a minute but

we're gonna go to the top right and

click get started and so getting started

it shows us some templates right here

and you have some options it doesn't

necessarily matter which one you choose

and I'll show you that in a minute

you can choose pretty much any one of

these later on and you can change your

template as you need to but it is going

to be easier to search if you go through

this so right now let's say I am

starting a store

maybe it's an online clothing store I

have clothing my own merchandise maybe

for a YouTube channel for example and I

want to make this store so what do you

want to do is I'm just going to say

let's see if they've maybe fashion

that's probably a close one and we're

gonna say clothing store clothing store

right there so we can type in what it is

actually sorry let's click fashion first

and then describe our site so clothing

store clothing store and let's click

Next we could skip this if we wanted to

and I'll show you it's gonna get to the

basically the same page anyway but here

it's going to say what do you want to do

and so obviously being an online store

we are going to sell products you could

also sell memberships and you could do

collect donations for example depending

on what you're trying to do I think most

people watching this are probably

looking to sell products that products

physical or digital but we can go down

and click Next then and it'll let us

know about or right now that we wants to

know what level we're at and so I

usually just say finalizing an idea or a

personal project it doesn't really make

a huge difference if you choose these

but it is some people might be coming in

looking to transfer a website from Wix

or transfer from and whatever else they

might be using and so maybe you'd be

replacing with a site or something like

that so let's go down and click finish

now and it brings us into the template

options here this is where Squarespace

really does well in my opinion so they

have not a ton of templates pretty good

number probably around 100 to 200

templates so

if you're looking through they do have a

lot of great options and so on the left

side you'll see that you can browse by

popular designs portfolios different

categories online stores is a good place

to look because the structure is already

going to be there for what we're trying

to do in this video so let's go down and

say for this one I mean you have lots of

options here how about we say maybe this

one this one looks very plain maybe this

one looks good and we can go and preview

it click preview

it'll bring you into a full-screen view

of it so you can kind of go through and

click on the website and see how it

would actually be if somebody visited

it's kind of you can see what it's going

to look like on a tablet what it's going

to look like on a phone because

obviously some people don't know this

but a lot of your traffic will be from

phones probably on the order of 50 or 60

percent depending on where you mark it

and what your product is just so many

people use their phones all the time so

let's go and say this one I think it

looks pretty good it's a pretty simple

design you can go through and say I know

you can add your products in there very

easily so let's go and start with this

design something else to note is a lot

of people do like to have a blog

associated or other type of content

posted with their Squarespace with their

website just to kind of improve their

ranking but you don't necessarily have

to have it we'll talk about that later

on so let's go down and we can continue

with email right now okay so once you

set up your account it'll bring you

automatically to the very next page

right here and it walks you through a

couple things right here when you're

setting it up you could skip it if you

want but it does make it easier if you

just do it right here so we're gonna say

Santro clothing all right so once you

get through that you'll end up on this

page right here and quick little side

note you'll notice I changed the

template the one that I had previously

actually didn't have a shop I don't know

why I was recommended as an online store

we can add a shop page very easily but I

wanted to show you guys assuming you

chose the right template this one looks

better anyway so it's going to be it's

gonna make things a lot easier if you

choose a good template for your online

store now what we're looking at here

I'll go through everything and show you

exactly how to manage and like what this

window actually is but starting off on

the right side we have kind of a

checklist right there I'm gonna walk

through all this in the video anyway so

we don't need that we can click the

little X but it's just gonna make sure

that you optimize everything and you

know include a logo and stuff like that

so we're gonna go down and click X I'll

cover all that in this video anyway but

see this is what I was talking about

where you want to optimize it

or a store so right there we have a cart

icon on the top left we have our socials

right there

we have shop as the first thing on the

top and then maybe our story blog and

contact those are very common for an

e-commerce like an online store so this

is overall a good layout now if you

choose a different template if you just

really like one of the other ones and

you want to add a store I'll show you

how to do that later on in the video but

let's go through and look at what we're

dealing with here so on the right side

this entire block here is going to

really be what our website will look

like on a desktop so you can go down and

it's totally interactive you can see

what it's going to look like when

somebody actually visits your website

it's something I like that Squarespace

does and we can go up to the top right

and click on the phone icon to see a

mobile preview then if you click on the

phone icon again it'll bring you back to

desktop view you can click on the arrow

right next to that and that will bring

you into a full screen view if you want

to see that then we have the edit button

I'll get into that in a minute and on

the left side we have quite a few

options there so let's start off on the

edit icon right here so click Edit and

this allows you to edit whatever page

you want so you can navigate to

different pages then click Edit and it

will bring it into a pretty basic editor

that should be fairly straightforward

when you're trying to change things so

the way Squarespace structures their

websites is actually in a strip layout

so you'll have a definitive little strip

so you have at the top you see a little

plus icon there and the next plus in

between pluses is really your strip

right there so here we have a strip that

has a picture and some text on there you

go down the next strip is all gray right

here the next strip has a black

background so it's a really simple strip

layout and if you want to add another

strip between them you click on the

little plus icon there and it says fun

you know basically add a section so

strip section kind of the same thing and

they have quite a few different options

here you can customize these and move

things around but I always recommend to

people

there are so many different section

options right here that you typically

should just be finding one and kind of

just adding the content to that it saves

a lot of trouble it makes things a lot

easier and it's one of the reasons I

really like Squarespace is because you

have all these options so if you go down

and you say you know what I just really

want to have maybe a forum and I want to

collect maybe emails or something like

that so you can go down here and you can

say get in touch you can have one that's

like I subscribe to our newsletter you

can have something that says you know

request more information you can change

it however you want and just look

maybe one has a picture in the

background one has a picture next to it

and it's just a better way in my opinion

of creating new sections now if you want

you could always just create a blank

section right here so if we do that you

will be able to customize this as much

as you need to just this section right

here let's say we want to edit it maybe

we want a headline there maybe a picture

and maybe a small paragraph below that

so if you move your mouse around you'll

see somewhere over here you should have

these little bubbles pop up and that's

because currently we have a text box in

the middle so we can add some text in

the middle and let's just say this is

our our store and of course with this

text it's a simple text editor you can

put it in the middle you can change the

font size you can make it bold so let's

make this bold and you have you want

instead of paragraph let's just have

heading 1 and then let's just say maybe

below that we want to add so if you go

over to the left you'll see very very

faint little grey bars right there the

gray background makes it hard to see

this so if you go over here you can say

right below click on that little bubble

icon and it'll bring up options so if

you want to put something below it let's

just say below this we want maybe some

more text but it's going to be more like

a paragraph so let's just say let's go

here and add text so you can add a text

thing right there and again this will be

so this is our store and we sell

clothing and you're gonna like write a

little paragraph there or whatever you

want and then let's just let's just copy

that's we can fill that out a little bit

all right so it's not really I don't

know why there's an S after the period

but anyway that's what it's going to

look like now if you want this to be

narrower you do have some options right

there and so now that we have our text

right there first of all I don't like

that this is a gray background it

matches the one above it too well so

let's go and change the background of

this stripe so we'll go and click on the

little edit icon on the top the pencil

right there and you can edit a lot about

this so you can say that we want the

background instead of just great you can

make it an image you can make it a video

you could change right here the colors

so you can use a default theme let's go

and say we want the image to be

something that will search so we'll just

find an image maybe this is a good image

right here so we want this to be our

background we're going to use this as

the background for this little block

right here and it is going to set up

that image right now so there we go we

have that

and so this could be a block right here

in itself now there you do have many

other options that you don't you're not

confined to just doing this so if we

want to add something above the text

clicking a little bubble and you have

tons of options you can add text right

there markdown for beginners you're not

going to be doing this this is a little

bit more on like coding type side you

have quote right there you have an image

you have video spacer and spacers are

something that if you want to have space

between things because it's not

drag-and-drop

you will have to add a spacer and you

can change the size of that spacer as

needed you can add a line maybe as a

divider for example you can add a button

you can add audio you can embed

different things maybe if you want to

put a file in there and you can have a

lot of different layouts for your images

as you see right here so a poster you

can have a card with some text next to

it it some overlap just lots and lots of

options I recommend just scrolling

through this and trying these out as

you're building your website to see you

know different things are going to look

better for different applications but

let's just say we want to add a button

but maybe we want the button like below

this text right here so let's click down

there and go and add our button and the

button is pretty straightforward so it

tells you right there you can add a

title to the button so we can say learn

more we can go and add the URL of where

we want the button to go so maybe we

want it to point to our store like our

shop page or something and you have lots

of options so if you click on the little

gear icon next to that you don't have to

have the URL right away you can have it

go to a separate page in your website

very easy to do so if we want it to go

to home or I mean let's just say we

wanted to go to shop so right now we

don't have a page called shop so we're

gonna have to set that up but basically

you get the idea you can have it go to

an email you can have a go to your phone

so you could say call us people to tap

and call you very easily so we're going

to cancel and leave the button just like

it is now but you can change the size of

it you can change the alignment of it if

you want it in the center left justified

very easy to edit all this stuff and

while we're talking about buttons

another really important thing to note

is actually your text you can add links

in your text so if you go up here and

say store we want that to link to

something you just highlight store and

then you will up here actually be able

to add the little chain icon the link

and you'll be able to add a link to that

so that again you can link it to a

specific page within your website so

those are called internal links you also

have external linking which means if you

want to reference somebody else's

research

you can point them to another website

now that's how you get backlinks with

each other as well and it does help

ranking for for both parties in Google

okay so something else something else to

note that a lot of people get confused

with is they think you can only do

things vertically so you see right here

the little bubble icons I mean that you

can insert things above or below

different items but you can't actually

insert things left and right very easily

and that's how you can really optimize

it so if I say you know right now I

really don't like how wide this is it

looks weird that the text is so strung

out like that so I can go and let's just

say right below it I want to add a

spacer so you out a spacer and then this

space where you can click and drag it to

wherever you want so if we want on the

left side of this text on the right side

of the text whatever you want to do

let's add it over on the left side right

here and you can add it to the left side

of the entire thing or just the left

side of the text so we'll add it on the

left side right there and it pushes

things over to the right now maybe you'd

want it to be centered so you can go and

edit this or you can actually go and add

another spacer so let's add another

spacer to the right side and it'll make

it in even third so we'll go add the

spacer to the right side and it will

make it or it should make it an even

thirds except right now it's not doing

that so you have options you can change

the size of your spacer the height of

your spacer the width of your spacer as

you see right there you can click and

drag it and eventually you will have a

nice centered text right there so

clicking and dragging is how you will be

doing that I know it might look weird

what I'm doing it's kind of hard to see

these light blue lines here but I

promise once you start dragging and

trying this out on your own it is

actually very easy to do and your

website will quickly look significantly

better as you start to optimize that but

see adding those spacers and stuff like

that is why I was saying before that the

easiest way to do this is definitely

just to use the pre-made templates for

the sections that Squarespace already

has they already look good and something

like this I guarantee Squarespace

already has a section that looks like

this and you don't have to waste your

time adding spacers and making it from

scratch if you just choose any other

section so like this one right here we

can just as easily edit it just as we

did the blank one so we can change the

background of this one we can change the

size of spacers if you want you can

change the text you can add links you

can link out different things like this

product right here is LinkedIn and you

have lots and lots of options when

you're editing your site and so this is

the basic editing of how you'll be

constructing a Singh

page each individual page within your

site so it's really pretty

straightforward I like doing this but

something else is let's just say we

really don't like a section or even

don't like parts of a section so this

one right here maybe I just don't like

this right here I don't I don't like the

look of this page it looks weird we can

go and either delete individual elements

or we can go and delete the entire

section by clicking the little trash can

icon on the top right of the section so

you can do that it'll remove it and just

like that you can easily have your

entire thing looking however you want if

you want this section to be above or

below different ones the little arrows

over there will be how you can move it

up and down so clicking on the upike up

arrow right there brings it up above a

section click on it again it keeps

bringing it up and eventually it's at

the very top which is why the header

changed colors to match the top picture

right there so if we bring it down

you'll see the header becomes black so

if you're wondering how to change the

color or the look of your header at

least with this template is going to be

matching the first block you have right

there so that's basically how you'll be

editing that stuff we can go up to the

top and say you know what we want to

actually edit more about the header so

we can go and just click on edit header

and it gives you the basic structure you

can change the header layout if you

don't like that structure personally I

think that one's probably one of the

better structures out there we have your

your shop you have story blog contact in

the middle and then I left you have your

logo which you want to make sure is

always linking back to the home page or

maybe you could link it back to the

store whatever page you want but you

want to make sure it is linking

somewhere and on the right side I like

having socials and cart that makes sense

everyone's used to seeing that over

there so it is an easier way for people

to recognize and easily navigate your

website but other than that you can go

down and edit your site title and logo

so if you want it to be just text that's

an easy way to do it is just going to

use the font that's default for this

theme I'll show you that changing that

in a minute

but you can also add your actual logo if

you want your logo to be an image you

can upload your image right here and by

default it should be linking back

Squarespace is really good about doing

that automatically you can add some

other elements in here so you can change

the the size of the icons you can edit

the links for social so if you don't

want all of these or you want some more

you can easily edit them and definitely

make sure you go through here and make

sure that these are not linking to right

now by default it's going to the social

/ Squarespace that's pretty embarrassing

if somebody goes to your website and

clicks on your Instagram icon and ends

up on the Squarespace Instagram it's not

really what you want to do so make sure

you go and edit that before you make

your site live now you can turn your

cart on or off so I recommend leaving it

on it's easiest for people to get used

to this and navigate it very easily but

you can change the icon size as you see

on the bottom and that's how we'll be

really editing the header right here

like I said I think it looks pretty good

so far

but now let's just go through and if we

want to say we're gonna say done right

here save our changes and let's just go

and say we want to edit a different page

so now we can go and check out our shop

so if we click on shop right there

you'll see that again really similar

structure right here where you can go

through and edit this so if we click on

edit we'll be able to go and add

different sections on here and we can

add different things like a carousel if

you want to see your your products

showing up in a different way or it can

just show up in the default way right

here as you scroll down you see all the

different products so I think it's

actually pretty good and something cool

about this is right here you can manage

the items so this is a special block

that is going to allow you to just have

all the items that you have in your

store just listed all of them if you

manage items it'll bring us into a

different location where we're going to

be over here you can upgrade and you can

manage what items you have in there

we'll touch on that in just one minute

but you get the idea this is exactly how

you will be going through and editing

the overall structure of your website so

again you can add edit titles stuff like

that add pictures add text add change

the font whatever you want to do and

that's what's going to be done on the

right side of the screen now there's

still a lot to cover in this video so as

we see on the left side all these little

things this is where the real power

happens with Squarespace so starting off

on the first one you can rearrange your

pages so as we see on the top you have a

shop our story blog and contact maybe

you don't really care about our story

you can click on the trash icon on the

left to get rid of that page or you can

actually go and change the title of the

page make it something else if you would

like so let's right now click on the

little edit icon right there and you can

change what it's going to be so is it an

about Us page is it out so it's gonna

say our story and navigation but the

title of the page is about us maybe you

want it to be something else

so maybe

say our mission maybe it could be our

mission and then our mission so maybe

you're like four oceans kind of thing or

something like that and then the URL

slug is going to be what's at the end so

you are going to be Sant rel Mediacom

slash this and you want to make sure

every page has something very definitive

and very simple like this so our story

is probably a good one but obviously

this is our mission so that way when

people are navigating you can say go to

Santro mediacom slash our mission maybe

have a dash in there or don't have a

dash it's up to you and then we can

enable the page or we can disable the

page if you don't if you're working on

it you don't want it to be shown right

away you can easily do that you can make

it a password page so that not ever you

know users only with the like the admin

password can get to this you can

duplicate the page you can set out your

as your homepage you can go down and do

some SEO stuff right here which is very

very very important I can't emphasize

this enough if you're trying to rank on

Google you want to make sure that you do

optimize for your search engine so

search engine optimization means that

Google goes around and they look at so

many different websites you want this to

be easy for them to look at it and say

oh I know what this is they're selling

clothing and you want it to be easy for

Google to identify what your site is so

they can recommend it in search and you

will get more traffic and more customers

so here you can go down and add the

title so right here by default it's

gonna say our mission - central clothing

you can change the title of that if you

want you can change the description so

right here there will be an automatic

description probably based on whatever

text you have first on that page but I

usually recommend adding a description

there and usually I don't hide from

research results maybe you could for I

don't know maybe like a specific page

it's not really important for your

website then we can go down and social

image right here and we're not going to

touch on this right now but this is

going to be if somebody shares it shares

this page on Facebook for example what

picture is going to be shown above that

in a preview and then of course there is

some advanced stuff that we're not going

to touch on in this video so we're

already covering a lot right here but

let's just say maybe we don't like the

order of these so we want contact to be

the next thing you can just click and

drag it up and it will rearrange it in

your navigation bar on the top so it's

shop contact our mission and then blog

maybe that's what you

want so that's very easy to do that and

of course you could add more navigation

so you can add another page on there and

you can go down and add a portfolio with

tons of different options you can add a

link up on the top so if you have on

your navigation like join our email list

and it could link out to maybe your

MailChimp or something like that so tons

of options with navigation up there and

that is really if you have something

that's not on navigation that would be

down here so like your home page it's

not going to show home right there

because your logo already links to home

you can have other pages like maybe a

terms and conditions page a cookies

tracking page maybe a refund policy page

things that you don't necessarily want

on the top but you still want those

pages to exist maybe you link to them in

your footer for example that's just a

great way to add them down here as non

linked pages in your navigation so

continuing down let's go back to home

that was pages when we go to design this

is how you can really tailor the

template that you chose to your needs so

you can go and change the fonts right

here you can change the color scheme you

can change the animations when you're

going between different pages and

clicking on things and you have a couple

options with animations I don't usually

touch on this and change it too much

some people are very picky and they want

it to fade between pages or scale

between pages I just leave it as none

it's easiest nobody ever complains about

it or says it would look better with

animations and one of visiting websites

I never notice animations anyway we can

go down and check out the spacing right

there so site spacing is not something

I'm really gonna dig into too much right

now buttons you have product items so

let's go down to product items right now

being that this is an online store you

have just some basic stuff right there

I'm not actually not going to dive into

this this is gonna be when you're

showing your gallery how big the items

are in what the text is going to look

like again this is a little bit more

advanced but as we go down you have your

browser icon so this is going to be on

the top so you see right here we have

this little this little gray cube for

Squarespace when we visit our website

it's going to be I mean depending on the

browser it's probably just going to be

like a gray picture of the earth

probably is what I usually see so I do

recommend going and adding your logo

right here so that when people go to

your website it looks really

professional and it shows up on the top

right next to your name right there

whatever the pages as well definitely

definitely

that it'll make a big difference on your

website so you look way more

professional and the big thing about an

online store is you really want to make

sure that you're looking as professional

as possible because if you don't look

professional people are not going to buy

from you the whole thing is they're

looking and saying alright this is not

Amazon this is not Walmart I don't know

this brand are they reputable are they

professional and can I trust them to

ship my product or am I going to have to

go through the big hassle of talking to

Mike credit card company and and

disputing it like you want to make sure

that everybody knows you are reputable

and you're real and so that's why you're

making sure that you do all the things

like that then as we go down you have

lock screen checkout page is a very very

important one so they didn't show this

back in the other pages because it's not

really a page that you typically link to

but you can edit your checkout page of

course as you see right here and so

sorry it's still loading right now

there's again basic editing right here

it's not going to be quite the same

editor but you can do some basic things

with colors and it does look pretty good

I like the checkout page of Squarespace

uses by default so I'm going to keep

everything just like that the 404 page

again make sure you're editing this one

as well because this is important if

anybody ever types in hopefully you're

not sharing broken links but if anyone

ever types in like accidentally the

wrong link so sanchow mediacom slash and

they just maybe add an extra letter they

miss type something it's gonna bring

them to a 404 page not found error so

you want to make sure that this looks

good and says hey sorry it looks like

you typed in the wrong page like this

right here looks bad I would recommend

going and actually editing this so you

can change what it actually says and

maybe instead you could just direct them

to maybe the home page you know so if

anyone types in the wrong link it'll

just bring them back to the home page or

bring them back to another page that you

make so that it's a little more friendly

and a little bit less weird than this

bunch of small text right there saying

the URL is not valid so just some

options there consider doing that it's

something that I usually recommend

people check out and then there's custom

CSS we're not going to get into that

that's a little bit more coding stuff if

you have a web developer further on down

the road and you want to change some

very specific things that's really where

they would be doing that all right so

we're making a lot of progress here we

basically have our website set up at

this point

but now it's time for the bread and

butter of the online store and this is

going to be the actual Commerce what

we're selling how our managing orders

what we're doing behind this and so when

we click on Commerce we have quite a few

options here I'm gonna go through these

one at a time and show you how to do

different things but first if you are

going to use commerce or really anything

on Squarespace they only give you a 14

day trial to actually build your website

and if you want to do anything with

e-commerce obviously you have to upgrade

so click on subscribe' on the bottom

right there and it brings you several

different options so the first thing

that you want to know is if you are

selling things don't waste your time by

paying for personal or business you will

not have the options for e-commerce

unless you go to commerce right here so

commerce basic $26 per month

it may seem steep but when you're

actually digging through what you get I

find that it's actually pretty fair

considering what a lot of other Shopify

and big commerce a lot of other ones

charge even more money sometimes or give

you different features so if you dig

through this $26 and this is actually

side note something that they don't make

it super obvious I mean they tell you on

the side there this is if you're paying

annually so you can pay annually and you

get $26 per month if you pay monthly it

is a little bit more so $30 a month so I

would usually recommend just getting an

annual plan at a time you're gonna save

money and typically online stores take

some time to kind of get going anyway so

if you're paying a month a month you're

more likely to give up on it no I don't

want to pressure anybody to spend more

money make this decision on your own

but it's just what I would generally

recommend save the money and do the year

and then if your store doesn't work out

after a year then you can let it go but

it's a pretty good insurance plan that I

like to do when I start stores so as you

go down you'll see that the little check

boxes I really like the layout here that

they make it very clear what you get and

what you don't get so you will get a

professional email from Google that's

great you will go down and get premium

integrations and blocks you get like you

can go down and see the e-commerce stuff

fully integrated ecommerce 0%

transaction fees you can sell unlimited

products you can accept donations and

you have all these things down here so

this is where I said don't waste your

time with business or personal because

going to basic ecommerce here gives you

a lot of extra stuff right here so you

can go down and you have ecommerce

analytics you have merchandising tools

you

products on Instagram which is a big one

that I highly recommend being that so

many people are on Instagram if you can

grow your influence on Instagram or

otherwise just have your posts there

that maybe you're doing paid promotions

running ads it doesn't matter getting

people on to your Instagram page and

then tagging your products for a lot of

people can make quite a few more sales

so these are the things that you get

right there that's usually why I

recommend that one but again make your

own decisions read through this and then

actually select the plan you want now

for the purposes of this video I am just

going to select ecommerce basic and I'm

gonna go month to month because I mean I

guess I'm spending thirty dollars to

make this video I'm not actually making

a store right now so that I mean we'll

get back in one second alright so we

made our purchase right now and we can

go down and go back to our site right

there or we can just click a little X

it'll bring us back to essentially where

we were I believe and we can get back

into the e-commerce things now that we

actually have the tools enabled so it's

gonna no we're not gonna we're gonna

skip it wants to know where our source

was I don't really care about that all

right now getting back to commerce the

first thing I recommend doing is going

to your shop page right here click on

edit and let's go down and actually

click on manage the item so you're gonna

manage what items you have in your store

this is obviously the first step we want

to do right there and this is our shop

page right here and so we can go down

and we can add we can change items you

can move them so you can say we want

this one maybe over there we want this

item up there and this is how you move

them around within your gallery so if

there's certain items that sell more

I'll have a better click through ratio

or otherwise just perform better and you

want them on the top you can easily do

that you can also click on each

individual one and we can move it to the

top move it to the bottom just like that

or another option is actually just to

click on them and click on the delete

button on your keyboard say confirm and

that'll get rid of them so if you want

to say you know what I'm actually not

selling these plants let's go and get

rid of these let's delete and confirm

keep doing this delete and confirm and

then if we want to add another product

we click on the little plus icon right

there so let's click on plus and it'll

pop up and say what type of product do

you want to sell so your physical

products digital products like I said

those are two of the probably the big

ones most people will be selling but you

could have a service right there so if

you're looking to say you know buy a

service where I will I don't know call

your friend and do a voiceover of

Donald Trump or something you know what

I mean like things like that they're

typically seen on fiverr but maybe you

just want to sell it on your website

here as a service

somebody could buy it and it just kind

of the difference here is that will not

have shipping on there and you won't

worry about addresses and stuff like

that then you can also have gift card

down there if you're selling a gift card

to somebody so that they can give that

code to somebody they can use it later

when they're trying to purchase

something on your website so let's just

say we want a physical product being

that this is a clothing store click on

physical product and it'll bring you

into this page right here which does

actually make things in my opinion very

easy to do so you can add an image right

there you can add multiple images I

generally recommend more images is

usually better usually probably about

four to five images would be ideal but

make sure that these are good photos the

better your photo is the better your

product will sell so if you have a

professional camera a DSLR a mirrorless

camera that would be great

but if even if you just have a phone

camera definitely make sure that your

products are there you know they're nice

and clean they're set in a very good

environment that would look good maybe

you edit it a little bit on Photoshop

make sure your photos have good color in

them and have your photos ready to go

for this so don't just whip out your

phone and start taking pictures where

it's like sitting on a bunch of

newspapers on your kitchen table if you

want to make sure that the photos look

good again like I said before to make

your store reputable so people can go

here and feel confident in their

purchase that what they're buying is

what they actually want so you can add a

product name you can add the price or

the variations right there so if we

click on that you'll see that you can

change the SKU so they're gonna give you

whatever your the initial SKU is just

something random so if you want to name

it you could do that and you can have a

price for that

you can have dimensions and so let's say

we want to add a second one right here

and so we'll click on plus and we'll say

optional name so the option name is

going to be color so maybe the variation

is going to be color so we go down here

and we'll add some different colors so

this one can be blue

maybe we're selling like sweatshirts for

example black a black one and then maybe

we want to add like a yellow one as well

so yellow and you can change the price

of each of these so the first one maybe

the price is going to be $25 and maybe

we want it on sale

4:22 it is on sale right now so we're

trying to sell these out maybe the other

ones are not on sale so 25 and maybe 25

for this one as well for some reason a

lot of people do like to lift the price

and then say it's on sale make people

think that they're getting a better deal

than they are by inflating the original

price and then putting it on sale you

could do that if you want

I don't sometimes I do it sometimes I

don't it just depends but you can't

actually have sales that are either

seasonal sales or sales for specific

codes I'll show you that in a minute the

next thing is to actually well you can

add images for each individual one

obviously do that for your different

colors if you can additional info then

would just be you can write stuff about

the product so this is definitely

important and you can add different

things right here so this is like if you

go on eBay and you look at the bottom

where it shows like the products and

like what people say about the products

sometimes they have pictures in there

sometimes they don't the ones that have

pictures generally I think are better

where it shows you a little bit more

about the product and it makes it seem

more like legitimate thing so you can

add some FAQ is here you can add some

you know talk about the dimensions just

kind of sell your product in the

additional info that's going to be shown

up in your actual sale page so we can go

to form right here so you could have a

form if you want or not so this would be

maybe if you want to have like a custom

thing you can add a field somebody could

type in like their name and you can

engrave it on something I'm not going to

do that for this product we can go over

to options and you can have the specific

product URL so this is also important

for SEO purposes or also just so you can

tell people hey go to central Mediacom

slash shop slash shirts and they can

easily find the product they're looking

for and so that's something you do right

there you can add a thumbnail for that

for that page at least the SEO of it

also go through here this is the same

thing I showed you before and the social

likewise does something like this and

I'll show you how to actually integrate

this with Instagram in just one minute

but we can also go down there and once

we're done we can connect it to social

to actually share it so once we have our

product we can go down here and we can

either delete it if we don't like that

if we're opening a product we don't want

we can save it or we can save and

publish so we're going to save and

publish right now and so now we have our

product right there no picture with this

because I'm just making this just to

show you guys but you also have a gift

card right there

let's go and to lead some of these other

things so let's say delete we don't want

that one we don't want a fern maybe

delete that so confirm and so that's

basically what you'll be doing for the

shop setting up what your items are now

let's go back to commerce again and

start going through more of that so

click click back a couple times we get

to commerce right here so the next thing

is to actually go and check out your

inventory so inventory you'll be able to

see all your different products right

there

so the unnamed product I probably should

have given that a name and called it

sweatshirt but you can easily go into

that and you can change the inventory of

different things so if you click on each

individual one it'll pop up this is what

we already had right here with stock and

so if you click on that like so same

page which I showed you before we can

say this stock is like 10 and it's nice

that Squarespace will track it as people

buy it and they'll let you know how many

you have left so if you have a lot of

different things and you're selling

maybe 30 items or five items it doesn't

matter if you have a lot it is nice that

you can do this and if it's a digital

product or something that is maybe not

something you have limited maybe drop

shipping for example unlimited would be

a good way to do that as well so let's

go and say save again right there so

that is how you could get into that in a

second way to get into that same window

and it shows you the inventory right

here so you can import or export this if

you're trying to use different inventory

management tools easy to do that right

here and again you can also add a

product from this page from the

inventory page as well so just one of

the many ways you can get into that

going down you can see your customers so

people placed orders you can see orders

right there and customers right there if

you need to contact a customer it's a

great way to do that we can go down to

discounts then and within discounts you

have active discounts scheduled

discounts or inactive discounts and so

let's just go and add one right now and

there's a lot of different options for a

discount and we can just say let's just

say birthday sale let's just say

birthday sale and it's going to be a

discount code for example and something

really cool is if you integrate this

with MailChimp I actually made another

tutorial on MailChimp and showed you how

to do this you can have people when they

their birthday and then maybe on their

birthday you can send them a discount

code that they could use to get maybe a

free something on your website or a

discount on your web

site maybe I was like a birthday present

for them or just to get them on your

website a little bit more and to buy

more from your store so you can name the

code you can generate the code whatever

you want something random like that

works just fine you can have it as a

discount for a percent an amount or you

could just say the discount is you get

free shipping which is something that a

lot of people do like to get it could

apply to any order an order over a

certain amount again really nice tools

at Squarespace has here and all shipping

options are there as well you can limit

the number of uses you have to upgrade

for some of these tools right there as

they show you you can have a limit one

per customer you can have limits like

that you can have a start and end date

let's just say this one never expires

and that is going to be what we do with

this one so let's just go down and say

the discount code and we're going to how

about instead let's just make it a

percent off and let's just make this can

we do 100% it's not gonna let us do this

I think it might let us do that let's

see no it doesn't like that so we will

have to say 99% off is what I'm gonna

say goodnight inna 99% off so let's go

and save that as a nice discount for

your birthday and I'm gonna copy this so

I can actually use this later as an

example customer so let's go back and we

can go down and you'll see right there

we have our first sale right there and

we can schedule it have active inactive

and we can see it you know and manage

your sales very easily okay so the next

thing is actually to set up our shipping

and our payments so let's go down here

and click on payments and you have some

options you can set up your online store

with stripe with PayPal with Square and

so obviously it says Square right there

is for us only and so it's very easy to

set these up I'll just set it up with

PayPal right now it'll bring you up to a

page where you can sign it with PayPal

and you can accept payments by paypal

then you can have venmo as well

something really cool a lot of people

have venmo if you connect with stripe

you can use Visa Mastercard Amex Apple

pay discover you have a lot of options

there and so connecting with stripe very

easy to do they walk you through this as

well so you want to make sure you mean

you can connect with multiple things

PayPal and with stripe and so it's going

to walk you through this and have you

create a stripe account right there for

your business I'm not going to do that

in this video

but it's something that you could do

right here and you actually should be

doing once you set up your site now if

we go back

that's how you're gonna be setting that

up and you can change your store

currency there as well you can go down

to checkout and have basic things like

this you can have abandoned current

recovery so you can send people emails

you're gonna have to upgrade to a more

expensive version for that but it's

something that is very powerful that

Squarespace does so if somebody has an

account with you they go there they

don't purchase for some reason they

leave maybe you never know what happens

maybe their cat got stuck in in the wall

or something right like I don't know

stuff happens and you're like oh no and

you have to go and like save your cat

really quick and then you forgot that

you were gonna order a sweatshirt from

us so maybe we would be sending you an

email a little bit later I don't know a

day later an hour later a week later and

say hey I think you this was in your car

but you forgot to purchase it did you

mean to purchase it and people might

come back and is you're going to recover

some more people from that that will

otherwise maybe forget and never make a

purchase so it's just a nice feature to

have there check out on your own on your

domain we can go down and have mailing

lists right there so we can there's a

lot of stuff right here that I'm not

going to get into but Express Checkout

is something really cool it doesn't have

the Add to Cart and then you go to the

cart and do that instead it's like

Amazon has like the one-click so you

just say buy now and it just purchases

it very easy to do so if you have a

website or an online store that really

only sells one product that's what I

would really recommend using this so you

can just have an Express Checkout

someone says yep buy it and it's just

really easy to do it all in one place to

not have things over in the cart you can

also change things so like the shipping

and the billing address right there by

default are the same you can have the

color scheme looks a little different

just a lot of things in here I recommend

digging through to kind of optimize and

just read about them and they're

definitely interesting and you can have

your next order number there change

based on like zero zero zero one right

that's an easy way to do things if

you're trying to track orders like that

but that was basically what you're going

to be doing down here with checkout

payments

customer account you can have customers

making accounts with you

I usually enable this I think it's a

nice thing to have so people can come

back

I didn't mean to double click that

people can come back and check out their

cart again if they save things they can

also go back and see I don't know maybe

their orders they can come back to your

website I just think it's a cool way

people can do that it's also a great way

to have customers input

their their email on

so they have an account with you so you

can send them reminders and emails and

stuff like that

then we want to set up shipping and

taxes these are very important obviously

if you're gonna be legal and actually

deliver things to your customer so you

can add shipping options like I said

there's four options for shipping you

can have free shipping you can have

shipping by weight you can have shipping

calculated by the carrier or you can

have shipping that is just like a flat

rate basically so if we go and add

shipping options like I said right there

you do have options so you can have it

calculated by FedEx or something like

that that's not something that we're

gonna be doing with this plan you could

upgrade for that but generally you can

just do depending on a weight it should

be pretty easy to do and so you can just

say your weight is going to you know

whatever the option is you can have

shipping zones right here and it's going

to be fairly easy for you to make this

and set it up so people can do this now

if you want to make things even easier

for you just make everything free

shipping and just kind of build that

into the cost depending on where your

marketing and who your target market is

if you're selling things internationally

that's gonna be a lot trickier for free

shipping it's gonna cost you a lot more

especially if you're selling larger

items as well but if you're pretty much

only domestic and everything like let's

say you're selling like you're selling

stickers or something you can just say

free shipping and put it in a small

envelope it's gonna cost you fifty cents

and you can just build that into the

price very easily and I think people

actually do like free shipping a lot so

they're more inclined to buy at least

from what I've noticed so at this point

what I recommend you do is go down to

the bottom and click on the blue button

there and that says publish your site

from there it will walk you through some

steps to add a domain you can buy one

from Squarespace they're generally

pretty cheap twelve to twenty dollars

per year and once you have your site

published go open a new tab go to your

site and place an order and there's two

different ways you could do this you

could place a test order or normally

what I would actually just do is place a

regular order as if you were a customer

and then make sure that you get the

right email and everything and make sure

you're checking all that to see how

everything works but you can come back

to orders here on the Commerce page and

you can actually go and refund yourself

if you want to do that or you know you

could just pay yourself it doesn't

really matter what you choose to do

there now as we get down to taxes this

is going to be you can include this

right here so you can either have it

included in the prices

or you can have based on different

countries you can have how much tax is

being charged so at the end when the

checkout page it'll add 6% if you're in

Pennsylvania or whatever it's something

standard you want to make sure you set

this up though

just so that that's going to be working

and you're not going to be losing money

by people not paying tax and then you

have to pay the sales tax on on that in

the end anyway so those are the things

on the bottom accounting is not really

that exciting I'm not really going to do

that you can download your reports if

you want to use other software which is

a great way to I don't know bringing

it's like Excel or something and just

check out the reports of the things you

sold now the stuff in the middle I

didn't touch on that yet because

notifications is interesting there's two

sides of it there's notifications for

you for low stock alerts so you can say

hey if my items get below five that's

dangerously low let me know so I can

order more from wherever your supplier

is or maybe build more maybe whatever it

is or else maybe if you're running out

of a product you can actually just take

it off your website or otherwise it'll

just say out of stock then we can

actually go back and the other one is

the customer notifications on these are

gonna be things like emails that are

sent out to your customers so you can

have things like an order email so you

can say when they order they you could

follow up and say thank you for your

order this is your order number this is

your your receipt for it

this is how much you paid and this is

what we when we expect it to arrive

stuff like that so it's definitely

important that you do that so people

know that they did place the order

otherwise they get concerned they don't

know when it's coming they don't know if

it worked or they just lost some money

so definitely make sure you have that

again abandoned cart recovery you can

set up an email here you can have a wait

list email and say hey we're out of

stock but you're you know it's coming

soon you can do a lot of stuff like this

so go through check this out I would

recommend building these out and you can

also have the email right here for where

it's going so the from email the to

email obviously it should be something

like your own so my cat's Antrel

Mediacom would be a good one there if

you're trying to do it from your own

business at least that's what I would

generally recommend doing now you also

have donations confirmation if someone's

donating like a GoFundMe does this for

example they'll say hey thanks for your

donation they tell you what your amount

was and you just know that it worked

into something that's very important so

continuing on with commerce though we're

not done the middle here the selling

tools are something that is not super

important for beginners but definitely

still can be important so wait lists and

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