Squarespace vs Etsy: Which One is Better in 2024?
Are you planning to start your online store? If so, you have many options regarding the platform you can use. Squarespace vs Etsy are two competitors that allow you to create an online shop and start selling your own products.
Well, both platforms have their own pros and cons, so you need to see what works best for you and for your business in order to decide which one to use.
Squarespace is a website builder and an all-in-one platform that allows you to create an online brand for your business.
In addition, it has many powerful e-commerce features that you can use to create an online store on your website.
On the other hand, Etsy is a marketplace where anyone can sell physical and digital products.
Every day, millions of buyers go to Etsy to purchase products that they need and like. The platform already has an audience that can buy your products, it’s just like Amazon.
In this article, you will learn more about Squarespace and Etsy in order to know which one is better for you. We will also have a look at the features that both platforms offer, their pros, their cons, and all other factors to help you make your decision.
Squarespace vs Etsy: Detailed Overview
Without any doubt, Squarespace and Etsy are two popular platforms that you can use to easily create an online store and start selling products to your customers. But before we start comparing both platforms, we need to learn and understand how they work first. So let’s have an overview of these two options.
What is Squarespace?
As I said, Squarespace is one of the best website-building platforms for small businesses and entrepreneurs. It was founded in 2003 by Anthony Casalena in his dorm room. Nowadays, the platform has millions of users and more than 1600 employees.
The great thing about Squarespace is that it’s an all-in-one platform that gives you all the tools to create a website and build your online brand. In addition to that, it allows you to promote your business using its marketing tools.
Squarespace offers a lot of awesome e-commerce features that you can use to easily create your online store and start selling. You can easily build your website using a template and then add an online store to it.
The advantage of Squarespace is that it has a lot of online store templates that you can easily start with. Once you pick the template that you like, you can easily customize it to match your branding.
Using a Template is a good way to save time and create a good-looking online store that converts into product sales. Once you do that, you can customize almost everything about the template to make your online store unique and outstanding.
So as you can notice, Squarespace is a website builder that gives you the ability to create an online shop, whereas Etsy is a marketplace where sellers list their products for Etsy customers to buy.
Squarespace gives you ownership and full control of your website or online store, but Etsy doesn’t give you that because it’s a marketplace. On Etsy, you don’t technically own your store because at any time they can suspend your account from the platform if they want.
What is Etsy?
Etsy is a popular online marketplace that was created specifically for retailers to sell handmade products, vintage, custom gifts, jewelry, and crafts. But now, you can sell any type of product on the platform because they have a very large audience of buyers.
Etsy was launched in 2005 and it’s now one of the largest e-commerce marketplaces where small businesses and creators can sell their products. Even individuals can sell on the platform, you just need to have good-quality products to sell.
Etsy is ranked in fourth place as one of the most visited online marketplaces in the United States with almost 500 million monthly visitors. That’s after Amazon, eBay, and Walmart.
The good thing about this platform is that it’s easy to get started with. You can easily create your Etsy regular account(if you want to buy something). After that, you can also register to become a seller on Etsy.
Once you become a seller, you can quickly set up your own store on the platform and add all the required information about it. After your store is launched, you can start listing your own products on the platform.
You can think of Etsy as a mall that has a lot of stores where people go and find the products they need to buy. A mall will always have a lot of people browsing and looking for interesting products.
The same thing applies to Etsy, it has a very large audience of more than 500 million users every month who are browsing the platform looking for products. So when you start your Etsy shop, you will have access to an existing audience that the marketplace has.
However, in order to get your product listings seen, you need to choose a good niche that is not competitive. In addition, you also need to optimize your listings for SEO so that people can find your products on Etsy search.
Even though Etsy is easy to get started and create a store, you don’t really have full control and customization of your shop. You’re only relying on a marketplace that others own instead of having your own website that you can fully control.
It’s good to start with Etsy if you’re just getting started and you want your products to be seen to get a few sales. But if you want to scale your online store and have your own brand, it’s better to have your own website.
Squarespace vs Etsy: Pros and Cons
Both Etsy and Squarespace have their advantages and disadvantages just like any other platform out there. Depending on the strengths and weaknesses of each option, you can decide what is better for you.
Squarespace Commerce
Pros of Using Squarespace
A very user-friendly website-building platform with an easy-to-use management dashboard.
A free library of online store templates that you can start with to save time.
You can sell unlimited products in your store without paying any fees for listings.
You own your website and you have full control of your online store.
More design customization features to make your store look unique and professional.
A lot of marketing and SEO tools to help you make more sales.
Many powerful e-commerce features in order to make your store stand out.
You will have your own custom domain name that Squarespace will give you for free in the first year of using the platform.
Squarespace Cons and Disadvantages
You will not have a built-in marketplace audience.
You need a little bit of effort to market your store and get more visitors(from social media or blogging).
It takes a little bit of time compared to just using a simple marketplace to list your products.
Etsy
Pros of Using Etsy
Your products can be seen by Etsy's existing audience of buyers(built-in marketplace audience).
It’s easy to use and to get started with the platform even if you’re an absolute beginner.
It’s not that expensive if you’re not making a lot of sales.
Etsy Cons and Disadvantages
Less design freedom and a small limited number of customization features for your shop.
Fewer sales features compared to Squarespace.
You have to pay 0.20$ for every listing in addition to a 6.5% transaction fee whenever you make a sale.
You will also pay 4.5% of the item price for the payment processing charge whenever you make a sale. So that’s about a 10% fee if we add the transaction fee. That’s okay if you make a few sales, but if you’re selling a lot, it will cost you more.
You don’t technically own your store. When buyers purchase a product from your store, they think about Etsy as a seller, not you.
You’re competing with a lot of other stores in the Etsy marketplace.
So in summary, Squarespace is a website builder platform that allows you to easily create a store website under your own custom domain. On the other hand, Etsy is a Marketplace where you can list your products for Etsy’s audience to buy.
To help you easily make your decision about which platform to choose, I recommend that you watch the YouTube video below by Virgo's Alchemy. They explained both platforms and recommended using both in order to boost your sales.
Squarespace vs Etsy: Which One to Pick?
If you’re still confused between the two options, try both platforms for free to see which one you prefer.
Or you can also try:
Ease of Use
Squarespace Ease of Use
Squarespace is not super easy to use like Etsy, but it’s very user-friendly. Anyone can create a Squarespace account, choose a template, and then start building a website using Squarespace’s simple editor and tools.
You can literally learn Squarespace in 10 minutes, there are a lot of free Squarespace tutorials on Youtube if you’re new to website building.
With just a few clicks, you can start your online store website on Squarespace. What makes that process very simple is the free library of beautiful templates that the platform has.
Those templates are flexible and fully customizable, so you can make your store look very unique and professional.
Etsy Ease of Use
On the other hand, Etsy is very simple and easy. That’s because it’s just a marketplace. So all you have to do is to create your account and become an Etsy seller to have your shop.
So on Etsy, you just fill in your shop information and add some details like your shop logo, your description, and photos. Once your shop is created, you can start listing your products for 0.20$ each.
With a click of a button, you can add, pause, or remove any product from your shop. In addition to that, you can also manage your shop, track analytics, and run Etsy ads for your products.
Pricing and Value for Money
Squarespace Pricing
Squarespace has 3 pricing plans that allow you to start an online store on your website. They have the business plan, the commerce basic plan, and the commerce advanced plan.
Squarespace gives you great value for the money that you pay on your subscription. The commerce plans allow you to sell unlimited products and get access to awesome e-commerce features and 0% transaction fees.
You can also start an online e-commerce store with a business plan for only 23$ per month. But you will get fewer features and you will be charged a 3% transaction fee. That’s why I think it’s good to start with a commerce plan if you want to have 0% fees.
The pricing for the Commerce basic plan starts at 27$ per month while the Commerce advanced plan starts at 49$ per month as you can see below.
You can check out the Squarespace pricing plans to have a look at all the features that are available on each plan.
Here are some of the commerce features that are available on Squarespace:
The ability to checkout on your custom domain.
You can sell unlimited products with 0% transaction fees.
Abandoned cart emails.
Powerful merchandising and advanced shipping.
Point of sale and payment processing features.
The ability to add advanced discounts.
The ability to sell subscriptions and more.
Etsy Pricing and Cost
At first, when you’re starting your shop, Etsy will seem very cheap and inexpensive because you don’t pay for any subscription plan. But if you take a look at the fees they charge you after making a sale, you will realize that Etsy costs a lot of money.
Whenever you add a listing, you will have to pay 0.20$ for that. And for each sale you make, Etsy charges you a 6.5% transaction fee and a 4.5% fee for payment processing.
If you’re only making a few sales or selling low-ticket products for less than 20$, it’s not really a big deal. However, if you’re making a lot of sales, Etsy will end up taking a lot of money from you.
So It’s not free as some people think. Also, keep in mind that the product listings last for 3 months. Once that period is finished, the listing fee renews and they charge you 0.20$ for each item again.
Etsy also has a paid subscription plan called Etsy Plus which costs 10$ per month. It gives you access to some extra features such as credits for running Etsy ads and listings, discounts, and a few customization options.
If you’re a beginner just starting out with your shop, you really don’t need to pay for the Etsy Plus package. The free plan will be enough for you. You can check out Etsy pricing to learn more about the available packages and plans.
Design Customizations
Squarespace Customizations
When it comes to design customizations, Squarespace gives you full control to help you make your online store website look unique. Having a professional and unique design layout is important if you want to build a brand for your business.
Squarespace has a lot of design customization features that allow you to edit your website and make it look as you want. You can choose your colors, and fonts, define the spacing, edit the layout, add animations, and many more features.
You will have access to a full library of free Squarespace templates that are flexible for every use case and you can fully customize them as you want.
In addition to that, the Squarespace editor is very easy to use and allows you to quickly edit anything on your website pages.
Another great feature is the fluid engine which gives you even more customizations and allows you to drag and drop anything on your website. So you can simply move any element on your website to customize the design.
Etsy Customizations
Since Etsy is just a marketplace for retailers and individuals to list their products, it doesn’t really give you full control of your shop design. So you can’t really customize everything on your store because you’re selling on a platform that you don’t own.
You can only edit and customize things such as your shop logo, your store colors, fonts, and photos. That’s why most Etsy shops look very similar in terms of design.
If you pay for the Etsy Plus plan, you can still get some customization features such as the ability to highlight your best-selling products for example. However, the design options are still very limited and you can’t have the same customization features that Squarespace offers.
Customer Support
Squarespace Support
Squarespace has a very good customer support team that is always ready to answer your questions and help you solve any problem you have with your website.
I’m saying that based on my experience as a Squarespace designer because whenever I have any problem or question, I just contact the support and they reply quickly. Most of the time, they help me solve my issue and they also recommend tutorials and videos that are very helpful.
Etsy Support
Etsy also has great customer support whenever you need it. Whether you’re a seller on the free plan or Etsy Plus plan, the support is always good.
If you need any help with your store or have any questions, you can take advantage of the Etsy Live chat support as well as the phone service. In addition to that, Etsy has a lot of helpful tutorials and training that can help you have a successful shop on the platform.
You can easily access the platform’s customer support from your seller dashboard, so it’s not that hard to get support on Etsy.
Which One is Better? Etsy or Squarespace?
The answer to this question depends on you and the features that you need for your store. It also depends on your business's long-term goals and branding. Squarespace is better if you want to build an online brand for your shop, whereas Etsy is a good option if you just want to get sales and don’t care about branding.
Both Squarespace and Etsy are good platforms to help you sell your products, but each one has its own advantages and disadvantages.
If you want to scale your e-commerce store and brand it for the long term, I would say Squarespace is a good option for you. There are a lot of successful brands that are having their online stores on Squarespace.
However, if you’re just starting your business and you’re still a beginner, you can start with Etsy and then move to Squarespace once you’re ready. Don’t just rely on Etsy because at any time it can disappear or they might suspend your account for any reason.
When using Etsy, you don’t technically own your store. That’s why you need to have a website that you own, especially if you want to brand your store and have a custom domain name.
That’s why I prefer Squarespace over Etsy. But you can use both at the same time if you want to avoid all the risks. Using both platforms is also a good way to increase your product sales and make more money.
How to Use Both Squarespace and Etsy?
In order to use both platforms together, Squarespace allows you to easily import all your Etsy listings and reviews to your own website. Because a lot of Etsy sellers prefer to also have their own website that they can fully control.
That’s why Squarespace makes it easy for everyone to import products to the platform. By using both, you will take advantage of the built-in audience that Etsy has and you will also have your website that you own.
If you already have an Etsy shop, you can start a Squarespace free trial and then go import all your products easily using the import feature. By having your own Squarespace website under your domain name, customers will take you more seriously as a business.
By the way, after starting your 14-day free trial on Squarespace, you can use my affiliate code MEHDI10 to get 10% off and a free domain name for the first year.
If you’re still unsure, I highly encourage you to try both platforms. You have nothing to lose.
So thank you for reading this article. I hope that I helped you to make your decision and learn more about both Squarespace and Etsy.
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