Square, a well-known payment gateway and POS system, is expanding its eCommerce ecosystem with the launch of Square Online. So, how does the Square Online store work, and is it the best solution for your business? Find the answers in our Square Online store review!
In today's article, LitExtension – the #1 Shopping Cart Migration Expert, will go through the following points:
- A brief review of Square Online
- Square Online store’s pricing plans
- Most essential information of Square Online shop review
- Who should run Square Online stores?
Now, keep scrolling to start your discovery!
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Square Online Overview
Before delving deeper into our Square Online store review, let's learn the basics of the platform.
Back in 2018, Square acquired Weebly, one of the top website builders, aiming to make eCommerce outstanding with payment, shipping, and order management. Since then, the result of the acquisition has been a new eCommerce platform called Square Online.
The Square website builder is built using Weebly technology; its functionality, therefore, is identical to that of the predecessor. However, Square Online is highly rated thanks to its seamless support for accepting online payments. Especially when you own a brick-and-mortar store, the Square Up website can benefit you a lot thanks to its available POS system.
All the previously mentioned, Square Online is an affordable solution that suits early-stage businesses or those who want to maximize their POS sales and digital channels.
Pros and Cons of Square Online
Square Online provides a convenient way for businesses to create and manage an online store. However, this solution may lack several powerful functionalities to gain eCommerce values effectively.
Let’s dig into our evaluations of Square Online's pros and cons for more information.
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Now, let's read on for a full breakdown of our Square Online store review to have the best preparation for your eCommerce plan.
Square Online Pricing Explained
First, let’s start this Square Online store review with detailed evaluations of Square Online pricing. Square charges you annually, thus, you need a one-time payment to start an online store.
If you feel risky about this decision, you can utilize its forever-free plan to test the features. That’s also why the answer to “Is Square free?” is always “Yes” with this option.
Basically, Square offers 3 pricing plans (Free, Plus, and Premium), including:
#1. Free plan ($0/month)
It is highly recommended for those who want to test and evaluate whether Square is the ideal solution. On the Square free website, you can:
- Use basic SEO tools;
- Sell on multiple channels;
- Sync with Square POS system;
- Have shipping, payment, and delivery setups.
#2. Plus plan ($29/month)
Whenever you want to grow your business and streamline operations effectively, you should start with the Square Online Plus plan. This package will include:
- Free domain for a year;
- Advanced setups;
- Plenty of themes;
- Expanded site customizations.
#3. Premium plan ($79/month)
To get the best rates for your online store, it’s time to register for the Premium Plan. With this solution, you can:
- Save budget with lower transaction fees;
- Get real-time shipping rates;
- Experience excellent customer service;
- Get free in-house delivery.
To ensure your Square Online shop runs well, you need to pay additional fees for processing, templates, apps, and Square POS fees. For more information, don’t forget to navigate to our Square website cost evaluations.
Square Online Store Review: An In-Depth Analysis
#1. Ease of Use & Customization Flexibility
In this section of our Square Online store review, we will mention its customization flexibility.
To begin with, the Square Up website setup process is really simple & quick, thanks to the helpful wizard instructing you from scratch. All you need to do is register for a Square account and answer relevant questions to own a brand persona.
Plus, you can use a drag-and-drop editor to alter anything immediately. However, Square Online Store Review [%currentyear%]: Pricing, Pro&Cons, Features and more , and there’s only one default design to work with. On this layout, you are only able to edit your brand’s logo, color texture, and fonts. In other words, you will not have much choice to optimize your site’s design.
That said, Square Online still meets the basic design requirements. According to David Z., a professional web developer: “Square Online is simple to sign up and get started. It has the structure of a basic store for new users and is designed to be viewable on desktop and mobile screens.”
#2. POS integration
Square is widely known for its impressive ecosystem, which includes a powerful payment gateway and POS system. Thus, using Square Online will be an ideal option if you are bringing your brick-and-mortar store online and want to combine it with a powerful POS system to control all orders in a central hub.
Square POS offers various delivery and pickup features, such as:
- Provide an app-like ordering experience;
- Drive clients to proper products;
- Plan and promote sales events;
- Personalize how to deliver and pick up the orders.
More impressively, Square POS allows you to use the self-ordering option. You can put ordering QR codes anywhere, both on your physical store and website. Once your customers scan these codes on their mobile devices, they can start their ordering process immediately.
Here is a highlight in Kelsey B.’s review of the Square POS system:
“Square POS has enabled us to keep track of our customer base as well as keep track of our inventory and sales. We have utilized Square POS to its fullest potential, making use of nearly every feature that is available to us, and it has surpassed our expectations in every way.”
#3. Sales Tools & Features
When developing an eCommerce store, sales features are the most important factor. Hence, in the upcoming section of this Square Online Store review, we will cover the 4 following sales-relating aspects:
- Adding & Managing stock;
- Payment processing;
- Shipping;
- Tax calculations.
Adding & Managing Stock
On the Square website, you can easily add products with categories to your store. More impressively, Square Online will automatically suggest types of items depending on how similar products are distributed across your web. This makes it simple and flexible to organize your products.
You can effectively update your store's inventory using Square, especially when it's integrated with your POS system.
Here are some of the great experiences you can expect:
- Add the new number for stock received;
- Have inventory recount;
- Set up restock return;
- Update stock damage, theft, and loss.
Payment processing
Square Pay is the main payment gateway of Square Online shops. With this processor, your store can work well with all major credit cards, such as Mastercard, Visa, and American Express.
Note: You need to upgrade your Square Online store if you want to attain transactions with PayPal.
Like other eCommerce platforms, Square Online also charges you a fee for every transaction, which might be 2.6% + 10¢ or 2.9% + 30¢. If you want to proceed payments through an invoice or manually entered card, you must pay up to 3.5% + 15c.
Shipping
Square allows you to set up various shipping options, such as flat rate, free shipping, order weight/total, item quantity, and real-time rates. However, if you want to activate the real-time rates, you should upgrade to the Premium Square Online plan.
When running a Square Online store, you can access a wide collection of fulfillment settings to satisfy your needs. Square Online supports your control of digital items, events, donations, or memberships for both worldwide and domestic purchases. This is ideal for growing your business beyond your locality scale.
Tax calculation
Square only provides an Automatic Tax Calculator for stores in the United States or Canada. It means that you need to set your orders’ tax rates (which are based on buyers' and sellers’ locations) manually for other countries.
Basically, you can have 4 different types of tax settings, including:
- Non-taxable items;
- Tax-included item prices;
- Tax calculations on shipping or local delivery fees;
- Order level tax rates (online orders by default).
Abhyona G. – A cosmetic store’s owner has reviewed: “I also like the fact that payment is very easy, not as time-consuming as other platforms or means, and allows me to efficiently and effectively check out clients upon completion of their service.”
#4. Marketing & SEO
This part of our Square Online store review will help you have an in-depth understanding of the platform’s marketing and SEO features.
Square Online allows you to customize your page titles and meta descriptions with ease. It is great for improving your site’s rankings on search engines like Google or Bing. Additionally, the Square Up website offers amazing email marketing functionality, making it easy to grow your customers’ contact list.
In case you want to create your site’s content faster, you can utilize Square AI technology to create compelling campaigns.
Here’s a highlight in Scott A.’s review of Square Online’s marketing features:
“Square stepped up its game by offering more options during the pandemic, such as enhanced marketing tools, sales channel integrations with Facebook, and an additional fulfillment method to offer to clients.”
#5. Apps
Square Online features a wide collection of powerful apps to optimize your business’s sales effectively at Square App Marketplace. These apps are divided into 17 different categories, helping you easily search and pick a proper solution for your online store. If you don’t know what app to add to enhance your eCommerce capability, refer to the High Rated section for the best choices.
If you are selling on multiple channels, you can integrate with third-party apps to improve your business’s performance. For example, you can employ the support of LitCommerce to simplify your multichannel selling experience. It is one of the leading solutions providing a central dashboard for managing product listings, inventory, and orders.
Here's the Square Online store review of Dakota F. – a small business founder:
“The first thing that comes to mind when somebody asks me what I like best would be the features that Square provides within the app. It is much better than other sales apps.”
#6. Security & Customer Support
Square offers acceptable security features, like PCI compliance, built-in SSL security, and well-encrypted payment data. This ensures your customers’ checkout process is safe and smooth. Moreover, you have access to the Risk Manage system, which can strengthen your store’s security with dispute management and free fraud monitoring.
When running a Square Up website, you can contact the Squaretechnical team through phone calls, live chats, and email. However, keep in mind that Square customer support is not available 24/7, which can make it difficult to tackle urgent issues. In such cases, you can visit the Square Online Help Center, which provides available answers from the FAQs section.
According to the Verified User in Retail account, “Square Online is good for startup, and its customer support is very trustworthy.”
After analyzing the features, this is our final verdict for the Square Online store review:
- Easy of use: You can set up a new store quickly but have limited customizations with your site’s layout.
- POS integration: Square uses a Square POS system.
- Sales features: You can have access to basic eCommerce functions but lack advanced payment processor options.
- Marketing & SEO: Square allows you to freely customize SEO-relating elements and optimize your business’s performance with email marketing features.
- Apps: You can easily integrate your store with various third-party apps, especially when promoting your multichannel selling.
- Security & Customer support: Square offers a strong security system and several methods of contacting its technical team.
Who Should Run A Square Online Shop?
As one of the leading platforms for selling online and in person, Square Online impresses merchants with a wide range of powerful functions. However, you should also consider some of its drawbacks, like higher transaction fees or a lack of customization features.
From our experience, you should operate a Square Online store when:
- Have a tight budget and prefer basic functions to build your site;
- Find an eCommerce solution supporting a strong POS system;
- Prefer working with the Square Pay processor;
- Want to find an affordable platform to test your business plan?
In case you want to move your current store to Square Online, consider a Square migration using LitExtension's eCommerce migration services. With over 12 years of experience in this field, LitExtension will surely bring the finest results for your eCommerce store.
For more information about how to transfer to the Square Up website with LitExtension, please refer to our Square migration instructions.
Square Online Store Review: FAQs
Does Square have a website builder?
Yes, you can use Square’s website builder to build your online store with any pricing plan. All you need to do is modify your company’s name, color, and fonts on a default layout to launch a professional-looking eCommerce website.
Is Square good for online stores?
Absolutely yes. Square is highly rated for running an online store thanks to its forever-free plan and plenty of powerful features. Plus, this platform impresses users with the power Point-of-Sale system, which is beneficial for developing a physical store.
What is the downside of Square?
The biggest challenge for Square merchants relates to transaction fees. Whether you are on a free or paid plan, you will be charged between 2.6% + 10¢ and 3.5% + 15¢, depending on your type of payment.
Which is better, Square or Shopify?
It’s a challenge to pick a better solution between Square vs Shopify. Indeed, Square might be an optimal solution for start-ups thanks to its affordable pricing packages. By contrast, if you want to use more powerful eCommerce features, Shopify can do better. You can refer to our Shopify vs Square comparison for more differences between these platforms.
How much does it cost to have a website on Square?
If you want to build a website, Square always offers a free forever plan. However, to optimize your eCommerce store’s sales, you need to pay additional fees, such as subscription plans, transaction fees, and app & theme costs.
Conclusion
Our blog has just provided a detailed Square Online store review of its features and pricing plans. In general, if you plan to build both a physical and online store, Square is an ideal solution. However, you need to consider transaction fees carefully to increase your sales effectively.
LitExtension, the #1 Shopping Cart Migration Expert, hopes you will have a wonderful experience with the Square Up website. Check out our LitExtension Blog or join our Facebook Community Group for more valuable insights.
