WordPress vs Squarespace: What’s Better For Your Ecommerce Website?

WordPress vs Squarespace: What’s Better For Your Ecommerce Website?

Your store is only as good as your website. So, what are you going to build it on? Squarespace sells itself on convenience and WordPress sells itself on functionality and customizations. But as an ecommerce company, you just want to know what’s going to be better for your business and getting people to buy products. Things like this are best handled to old fashion ways – weighing the pros and cons for each on the two most sought after features.

Ease of Use

Look, we haven’t been Squarespace’s biggest cheerleaders on this blog in the past. But when it comes down to it, Squarespace is one of the easiest to learn website builders for people coming from no prior context to web design. If you’re wanting to try out making a website for yourself for the first time or for a pet project, Squarespace can be a great platform to cut your teeth. But when it comes to selling products, Squarespace does leave you with some limitations.

One of their business’ selling points is how streamlined and simple they make everything for the site owner, but simplifying it too much means there’s also less you can do. You can now upload unlimited items to your store, but the functionality is bare bones from there. If you’re a company with hundreds or thousands of products with different varieties and custom variables for each, you’re gonna get very frustrated early on. Squarespace isn’t a commerce site builder by nature, but it does offer those options. That’s key to understanding what it’s capable of.

WordPress can be intimidating if you’re not savvy in the ins and outs of the program, often requiring a specialized WordPress developer to get you up and running. However, WordPress can also be whatever you want it to be. It’s a blank canvas for you to mold in your business’ image. The stock WordPress templates they give you when you first sign up won’t provide you with much, but with the right plugins you can turn it into a beastly digital store. Which leads nicely into our next topic…

Adaptability

Let’s jump back into WordPress and plugins. I think it’s helpful to look at WordPress as a sort of universal remote. It really can do anything you’d like to on the web with the proper tools at your disposal. You can easily integrate payment options from PayPal, Google Checkout, BitCoin, Stripe, etc. with just a few easy to find and often free plugins. In contrast, Squarespace only currently offers PayPal and Stripe. You’re also able to customize everything about the design so the store looks and works exactly how you’d like it to. You’re not stuck trying to make a certain template work and finding ways around its barriers. If you’re having a problem, you or a dev could jump into the backend and create your own way. You’ll feel like a comic book villain with infinite power at your fingertips (insert maniacal laugh here).

Squarespace by design doesn’t allow for much of this. There are very few plugins that work with the platform, especially compared to WordPress’ ever-growing library. When you’re using a Squarespace site, you’re truly signing up for one of their sites. You may be able to update the images and color schemes based on some of their pre-determined templates, but you’re going to have to get used to working within those bounds.

If you’re a hobbyist just selling a few items for fun and aren’t trying to “take over the world” with your business, then Squarespace might be a fine option for you. It’s simple, sleek, and doesn’t require you to go back and get your degree in computer science. But if you’re a small to medium sized business with hopes of becoming an enterprise someday, Squarespace just won’t cut it.
You need all that a WordPress site can offer you, being able to grow and change as your business also grows and change. The downside is you might not be able to always do that yourself. The upside is N2Q can help with that. Our web design team specializes in creating dynamic WordPress sites that give you and your business everything you need to have a functional ecommerce site that can change on the fly. Sound appealing to you? Give us a call and we’ll help you get the online store your business needs.