Are you interested in moving your website from Squarespace to Shopify? There are several compelling reasons to make this transition, which we will discuss in detail below. However, it's crucial to follow the correct steps to ensure a seamless migration.
In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through the process of manually migrating from Squarespace to Shopify, as well as using an app for migration. Additionally, we will address common questions and provide helpful FAQs to assist you throughout the process.
Why Migrate from Squarespace to Shopify?
While both Squarespace and Shopify provide excellent website building tools for ecommerce professionals, they have distinct differences that may lead you to discover that Shopify is a more suitable option than Squarespace.
If you find yourself in this situation, it's time to consider migrating your website from Squarespace to Shopify.
But what are the main reasons you may want to make the switch?
There are several advantages that Shopify offers over Squarespace. Here are a few key points:
- Ecommerce-focused platform: Shopify is specifically designed for ecommerce businesses and provides a robust set of features tailored for ecommerce, such as inventory management, payment gateways, shipping options, and order tracking. Squarespace, on the other hand, offers more general website building tools with limited ecommerce capabilities.
- App ecosystem: Shopify has a vast app store with thousands of third-party apps and integrations that can enhance your online store's functionality. These plugins can help you with marketing, customer support, analytics, and much more. Squarespace, while it does have some integrations, has a smaller app ecosystem in comparison.
- Scalability: Shopify is known for its scalability, making it suitable for businesses of all sizes. Whether you're just starting out or experiencing rapid growth, Shopify can accommodate your needs. Squarespace, while it can handle small to medium-sized businesses, may have limitations when it comes to scaling up.
- SEO capabilities: Shopify provides robust SEO features and tools to optimize your online store for search engines. This includes customizable meta tags, URL structures, and automatic sitemaps. Squarespace also offers SEO features, but Shopify's SEO capabilities are often considered more advanced and customizable.
- Payment options: Shopify offers a wide range of payment gateways, including its own payment solution (Shopify Payments), which can save you on transaction fees. Squarespace, on the other hand, has limited payment options and charges additional fees for using third-party payment gateways.
These are just a few advantages of choosing Shopify over Squarespace. Ultimately, the decision should be based on your specific business needs and goals.
How to migrate from Squarespace to Shopify using an app
Although there’s no completely automated way to migrate from Squarespace to Shopify, we still recommend trying out a migration service to expedite much of the process.
To get started:
- Create a Shopify account
- Install an app to speed up creation of migration files
It's important to note that while apps can help accelerate the full migration process, they don't handle all the work for you. While many apps assist in migrating crucial data like orders, products, customers, and blog content, duplicating the exact design of your website from one platform to another is generally not possible. In such cases, you have two options: find a theme on Shopify that closely resembles your previous design, or opt for an entirely new design. We suggest using the migration process as an opportunity to refresh your branding and enhance your online presence.
Here are some of our favorite apps for speeding up the migration from Squarespace to Shopify:
To determine which app provides the most user-friendly interface for your migration, we recommend trying out different apps and evaluating their ease of use. In this tutorial, we will specifically outline the steps to migrate from Squarespace to Shopify using the Matrixify app.
Step 1: Install a migration app
Begin by installing and activating Matrixify on your Shopify admin. Click on the Add Apps button in the Shopify dashboard, or search for the Matrixify app in the Shopify App Store. Alternatively, you can go directly to the Matrixify download page, which works fine as long as you’re logged into your Shopify account.
Click on the Add App button, then Install. Finish the presented steps to unlock the basic features from Matrixify for migration data and filtering what ends up in your Shopify store.
After the installation, you’ll find a Matrixify tab under the Apps section in Shopify. You can click on that option to create new import/export jobs based on individual CSV files, or to attempt imports of entire website URLs. With Squarespace, it’s not possible to import an entire website with its URL, so we’ll take the route of importing CSV files for things like products, customers, and orders.
Note: Squarespace does offer a full export for website content under Settings > Import & Export Content. However, it’s primarily designed for shifting a Squarespace website to WordPress/WooCommerce, seeing as how it only provides an XML file to download. Shopify is restricted to CSV file imports, while some of its more automated migration apps allow for Excel and Google Sheets files. So, you can try to use an XML to CSV file converter (there are many free ones to choose from online) to see if that works for migrating from Squarespace to Shopify. But there’s no guarantee that the content will all transfer over.
Step 2: Export all desired site data from Squarespace
Exporting data from the Squarespace website builder is limited, but you do have the ability to pull information from several ecommerce related categories. In addition, there is a way to export blog content that’s a little easier than copying and pasting it from your Squarespace website to Shopify (through the XML export option mentioned above).
Keep in mind, however, that you must export the following data into individual CSV files, so there’s no way to export, for example, customers and products and orders in the same spreadsheet.
Here’s what’s possible to export from Squarespace:
- Products
- Orders
- Customer profiles
- Sales data
- Blog and content (with the XML export from Squarespace and an XML to CSV converter)
To export product data, for instance, navigate to Commerce > Inventory in the Squarespace dashboard. Open the list of All Products in Squarespace, and select the Export All option.
That automatically compiles all products in your Squarespace store into an organized list. It saves the list to a CSV file on your machine for later editing and importing into Shopify. As you can see, the CSV column headers are pretty standard, starting with a product ID, product type, and product URL.
Some of the more important information is further along in the spreadsheet, like price, title, product description, product variants, and product image URL.
The other files you’ll want to export include orders and customers; both processes are fairly similar to how you export products.
For orders, you can click on the Orders tab, then select the Download CSV link.
The customer list is a little different. Open the Customers tab, then click the ellipses (three dots) icon. After revealing the options available, click Export All Profiles.
Step 3: Format the sheets for Matrixify
The majority of Shopify migration apps enable you to upload certain file types, such as Excel and CSV files. However, it's typically necessary to format these files according to the specific requirements of the app. For instance, Matrixify has its own formatting standards that may differ from the default CSV sheet generated by Squarespace.
The Import To Shopify page from Matrixify offers formatting requirements to ensure your import works.
Here are the key guidelines to keep in mind:
- When importing products, ensure that the sheet name includes the word “products.” This naming convention applies to other entities as well; for instance, a page's import sheet should have the word “pages” in its name.
- You can import files in Excel, CSV, or Google Sheets formats.
- Demo files are listed here. Select the appropriate file based on what you are importing, such as products, pages, smart collections, customers, and so on.
As an illustration, the demo file for importing products into Matrixify/Shopify appears as follows:
Additionally, if you continue scrolling to the right, you will find numerous other column headers. It's important to note that the CSV file from Squarespace will have different column headers compared to Matrixify.
Therefore, you need to edit the Squarespace file to match the headers required by Matrixify. Please remember that the order of the columns is not significant. Once you have successfully formatted your Squarespace products into the Matrixify format and saved it as a CSV, Excel, or Google Sheets document, you can proceed to the next step of importing it into Shopify.
Step 4: Import each data sheet into Matrixify
Open the Shopify dashboard and go to Apps > Matrixify. Find the Import section and select the Add File button.
Select the file that you have recently edited to initiate the import process. Matrixify will present a summary of your import sheet, including information about the number of items being imported.
If there are any errors detected in your import sheet, Matrixify will provide specific details on how to resolve them. To proceed with the import, simply click on the Import button.
The duration of the import process will vary depending on the size of your file. Once the import is completed, you will receive a notification confirming its successful completion. It is common for errors to occur during the import, especially since certain fields in Squarespace are specific to Squarespace and may not seamlessly translate to Shopify.
To view the results of your import, navigate to the Products page in Shopify. This shows all the products that have been imported from Squarespace. The same process can be repeated for things like orders and customers.
Opening a product, for instance, shows the details you imported from the CSV sheet, such as product variants, categories, media items, and more.
For each entity you wish to migrate from Squarespace to Shopify, you will need to perform a separate import process. The steps involved are generally similar: navigate to the specific page in Squarespace, select the Export option, format the resulting sheet, and import it using Matrixify.
There are dozens of other entities supported by Matrixify (smart collections, custom collections, companies, etc.) but Squarespace doesn’t support the export of all these items. You can manually compile these entities into your own spreadsheets, but for automation through Squarespace, you must stick to orders, customers, and products.
How to manually migrate from Squarespace to Shopify
Given that a significant portion of the migration process, particularly website redesign, is often done manually, you might prefer to migrate all your data manually as well. If this is the case, follow these steps to efficiently migrate your website from Squarespace to Shopify.
Similar to using an app, the Squarespace to Shopify migration involves exporting multiple sheets from Squarespace and then importing them into Shopify.
Here is an example of manually importing products directly into Shopify:
Step 1: Export required data sheets from Squarespace
In Squarespace, go to Commerce > Inventory. After finding your inventory list, click on the Export All button, which downloads a CSV file of all products and their details to your machine.
Step 2: Format the CSV file to import it to Shopify
To facilitate a seamless data import into Shopify, utilize this provided sample product import CSV file. It is advisable to save the sample product file and then copy the relevant data from the exported file you obtained from Squarespace. The sample CSV file is structured as follows:
A simple export from Squarespace looks like this:
As such, copy the corresponding column data into the Shopify sample CSV, but keep the column headers provided in the sample CSV. This way, you maintain the column headers required of Shopify, yet you’re transferring all the data you pulled from the Squarespace sheet into the right columns. Keep in mind that column order shouldn’t matter for importing into Shopify.
Step 3: Import your files into Shopify
Go back to Shopify and select the Products tab. Choose Import.
To begin, click on the Add File button and select the desired file from your computer. Then, pick Upload and click Continue to proceed. Take a moment to review the import preview and ensure that everything appears correct. Finally, click on the Import Products button to finalize the process.
You should wait a few minutes depending on the size of your import file. Shopify sends you right back to the Products page, which provides the list of products imported.
To continue migrating data from Squarespace to Shopify, proceed with exporting data from Squarespace and importing it into Shopify for other entities, such as:
- Customers
- Orders
FAQs on migrating from Squarespace to Shopify
If you have any pressing questions about how to migrate from Squarespace to Shopify, this is the section for you. We’ve tried to answer each FAQ in the utmost detail to ensure you don’t hit any roadblocks along the way.
Why should I consider migrating from Squarespace to Shopify?
Although each ecommerce platform has its pros and cons, there are five main reasons you might consider migrating from Squarespace to Shopify:
- It’s an ecommerce-focused platform, whereas Squarespace is more for general websites (and it includes an ecommerce element on top of that)
- An app ecosystem that’s filled with thousands of curated apps
- Scalability from small business to large enterprise
- More flexible SEO capabilities
- A wider variety of cheaper payment options
Can I migrate my entire website from Squarespace to Shopify?
You can migrate:
- Customers
- Products
- Orders
- Some blog content
While migrating from Squarespace to Shopify, it's important to note that certain elements, such as specific SEO configurations and most design elements, cannot be directly transferred. Therefore, you will need to manually re-upload your logo and design the homepage according to your preferences. However, all the essential backend data that ensures the functionality of your online store will be transferred. Some migration apps can assist in mapping new URLs to image files, but typically, you will need to re-upload all of your images.
Can I backup my Squarespace site before migrating?
The best way to back up a Squarespace site before migrating is to go to Settings > Import & Export Content in Squarespace. Click the Export button to download an XML file to your computer. This XML file isn’t necessarily compatible with all platforms. IT’s primarily designed for WordPress, but you can also import an XML file into Squarespace.
There are XML to CSV converters that we suggest using—if you’d like to utilize the data in another platform like Shopify—but there’s not always a guarantee that the converter works perfectly.
It’s also possible to complete all the export steps covered earlier in this article for added protection, like downloading export CSV files for things like customers, orders, and products.
Finally, we recommend keeping your Squarespace account open until you completely migrate and publish your new Shopify website. Only after that should you close/delete your Squarespace account.
How can I select the appropriate Shopify plan for my business?
We recommend referring to our guide on Shopify pricing plans for detailed information. The ideal plan for your business should provide the necessary features while remaining cost-effective. Take the time to review each pricing plan to determine which one fulfills all your feature requirements without exceeding your budget.
Here are our recommendations:
- Shopify Starter Plan: This plan is perfect for social media influencers and content creators who wish to sell a limited number of items through their platforms. It costs $5 per month.
- Basic Shopify Plan: Designed for small businesses and individuals who want to sell an unlimited number of products through an online store with features such as checkout, payment processing, reports, and shipping discounts. The cost is $29 per month.
- Shopify Plan: This plan is suitable for small to mid-sized brands that want to enhance their ecommerce reporting capabilities or require additional staff accounts. It is priced at $79 per month.
- Advanced Plan: Best suited for medium to large businesses that require custom reporting and the lowest possible credit card processing fees through Shopify. This plan also offers more staff accounts. The cost is $299 per month.
Is it possible to customize the design of my new Shopify store to match my Squarespace website?
While it is not feasible to create an exact replica, you can certainly discover a Shopify theme that closely resembles the design of your current Squarespace site. Matching the primary and secondary colors of your website to what you had in Squarespace is also relatively straightforward. Additionally, you can upload your logo, strive to make your pages and blog posts similarly styled, and utilize custom code for any unique design elements from your previous site.
It is important to note, however, that there is no instant “copy and paste” feature available for transferring a site design from Squarespace to Shopify. Some manual adjustments and customization will be necessary to achieve the desired design on your Shopify store.
What impact does the migration have on my SEO rankings?
SEO rankings are primarily associated with your domain name, rather than the platform you use. Therefore, your SEO rankings should theoretically remain unchanged after migrating from Squarespace to Shopify. However, there are several factors to consider:
- A poorly executed migration that results in broken links, missing images, or improperly formatted content can potentially harm your SEO rankings.
- A new design may impact user-friendliness, which can affect search rankings if users and search engines perceive it negatively.
- Conversely, a well-executed redesign often leads to a simpler, more modern interface with optimization for mobile ecommerce. With Shopify, you have a good chance of improving your SEO after the migration.
Our conclusion on how to migrate from Squarespace to Shopify
To migrate from Squarespace to Shopify, you will need to export everything you need from Squarespace and transfer the store data to your Shopify ecommerce store, either manually or using an app. It is recommended to find a template on Shopify that closely resembles your Squarespace design and then customize your Shopify site with the same colors, logo, and custom stylings.
Before any data migration, always ensure to create a backup of your site to avoid any data loss. It is also important not to delete your old site until you are satisfied with the results and ready to launch the new one.
If you have successfully migrated from Squarespace to Shopify (or imported data in some way), we encourage you to share your tips or ask any questions in the comments section below!
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