The Guide to Filling Orders with Squarespace E-commerce
With Squarespace e-commerce, you will experience an approachable and easy-to-use interface, selling online becomes a straightforward process. For small business owners or e-commerce entrepreneurs who are setting up shop or considering a platform switch, Squarespace offers a robust set of tools for managing your online sales. In this comprehensive guide, we'll walk through everything you need to know about filling orders in your Squarespace e-commerce shop, from setting up to shipping out.
Getting Familiar with Squarespace E-Commerce: Selling
If you're just starting with Squarespace e-commerce or considering it for your upcoming selling venture, the e-commerce functionality can be a game-changer. Here's a quick rundown to get you acquainted with Squarespace's e-commerce features:
Setting Up Shop
Before you can fill orders, you need to set up your e-shop effectively. This involves creating product listings, setting prices, adding images, and drafting compelling product descriptions to entice buyers. Squarespace excels at providing beautiful, customizable templates to showcase your products and encourage sales. Since this was completed when your website was designed, it is a streamlined process to add new products to your site.
Learn more about how to add new products to your Squarespace e-commerce website here.
Managing Inventory
Squarespace has an intuitive inventory system that allows you to track stock levels, adjust quantities, and set up notifications for low or out-of-stock items. Managing inventory is crucial to ensure you can fulfill every order that comes your way without overselling.
Learn more about how to manage your Squarespace e-commerce inventory here.
Payment Processing
The platform integrates with various payment gateways, enabling seamless transactions. During our website design process we have connected your preferred payment method within Squarespace to start accepting payments from your customers.
Need to update your payment processor? You can learn how to do so here.
Running a Test Order
Before your shop goes live, and especially once it's operational, running a test order is critical. This process helps you spot any kinks in your setup and understand the customer experience from start to finish.
The Purchase Flow
Initiate a test purchase on your own site as if you were a customer. Go through the entire checkout process, entering your personal and payment details. Check that you receive all required email confirmations, such as the order confirmation and shipping notification as your place your test order and test shipment.
The Backend
Look at the order from the backend of your Squarespace site. Are all the details correct? Does everything flow smoothly from the order page to updating the inventory? If not, this is the time to make those adjustments to ensure the system works seamlessly when real orders come in. (Please feel free to reach out to Elisabeth Hedge if you are unsure on how to correct the issue.)
Payment Processing
Confirm that the payment was processed correctly and appears in your chosen payment gateway. Make sure all necessary fees are accounted for and that the deposit time frame aligns with your expectations. This step also allows you to get familiar with any refunds or disputes that may occur and how you handle them within your Squarespace e-commerce website.
Fulfilling an Order
When you have incoming orders from real customers, it's time to fulfill them. Squarespace e-commerce makes it simple to manage your orders efficiently, ensuring a smooth delivery process.
Order Notification
Set up order notifications so that you're promptly alerted when a new order comes in. This can help you prioritize and process orders quickly, providing excellent customer service from the get-go. I recommend downloading the Squarespace app and enabling notifications for new orders.
Learn how to set up mobile notifications here.
Processing an Order
Once you receive an order notification, log in to your Squarespace site to view the order details. From there, you can process the order, update its status, and communicate with the customer about any specifics related to their purchase.
Shipping Options
Squarespace offers integration with popular shipping carriers, allowing you to print labels and calculate rates directly within the platform. You can select various shipping methods based on weight, size, destination, and speed, customizing the options to match your business model. While we were designing the website, we chose your preferred method of shipping and have assigned products a shipping profile based on this information. You can change shipping costs per item via the shipping profile. If you need to add more shipping options, you can do so via the settings —> selling —> shipping.
Escalation of Delays
It's inevitable that you may encounter order fulfillment delays, such as when an item is out of stock or when shipping issues arise. It is important to communicate these delays effectively.
Tracking Orders
After an order is fulfilled, provide your customers with the shipment tracking number. Squarespace allows for easy inclusion of this information in customer notifications, ensuring they can monitor their shipment's progress in real-time.
Troubleshooting Common Issues
Even with the most user-friendly platforms, issues can still occur. Here are some common order fulfillment issues you might encounter and how to address them when using Squarespace:
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Sometimes orders will require split shipments, where different items are shipped separately. This might involve additional communication with customers via emails.
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During our website design, we added a shipping and returns policy. You can use this to help manage your customers expectations. However, if a return or exchange is needed, please refer to this guide.
Squarespace e-commerce is accessible and manageable for businesses of all sizes. By thoroughly understanding how to fill orders in your Squarespace shop, you set the stage for a successful online retail operation. Remember to stay informed of new features and best practices, continually refine your processes, and deliver an exceptional customer experience with every order.
RECOMMENDED: Squarespace Commerce Video Series
Squarespace has a great series on their commerce services that can provide a helpful visual to each process.
*Please note that Squarespace has updated since this video series so things may look a little different. For example, the inventory panel is located in selling —> product where the video mentions it was previously located in commerce.
