Squarespace To Shopify Migration: A Quick Guide

Why do you need an eCommerce store? You are a photographer you are best with a portfolio Squarespace site for yourself, isn’t it? Recommended a friend of yours!

But shall we take you around? Why can you sell your lovely photographs on your own stores instead of just keeping them available for just viewing? Why can't you reach more screens by selling your clicked images and winning like other stock photo providers like Getty or Shutterstock, maybe you might have your own image aggregation one day if you start now!

So why are we telling you all this?

Recently we were going through some of the Squarespace stores and we noticed that this platform which was built for CMS websites in 2003 and soon shifted in 2013 to make eCommerce websites too lacks very much in the functionality and for sure there is a reason why most of the site owners plan to migrate from it!

Be it Restaurant owners, Artists, Food Gourmets all are shifting their way to the present day #1 platform for eCommerce which has all the capabilities of a CMS website to give you one complete solution: Shopify

Squarespace which started as a CMS website builder which was a perfect option for initial starters but with time to come there were real lacks in the features as well as capabilities of an eCommerce platform!

Squarespace Cons:

• Complex website editor
• High pricing
• Only one sub-navigation
• You can not edit blog and page title means not SEO friendly
• No preview mode and more.

So now after getting to know more about what is best for you let us guide you about how you can migrate your Squarespace site totally to Shopify.

Migrating to Shopify from Squarespace

Step 1: Exporting Your Data

All the data is required to be migrated first to the Shopify store for that you will have to export each of them separately be it page data or product data. Keep in mind that you should always keep your present Squarespace store up and running until we are done with the migration

For Products: 

• In the Home Menu, click Settings.
• Click Advanced, and then click Import/Export.
• Click Export.
• Select Products from the Export Site menu.
• Click Download.

For Content

This will include blogs, text and image blocks, and pages.

• In the Home Menu on Squarespace, click Settings.
• Click Advanced, and then click Import / Export.
• Click Export.
• Click the WordPress icon. Note: Click this icon even though you are going from Squarespace to Shopify, not Wordpress.
• If you have more than one Blog Page on your site, a “Select Primary Blog” message will appear. Only one Blog Page can be exported.
• Select a Primary Blog from the drop-down menu, and then click Export.
• Wait for the export to process. This may take a few minutes depending on the amount of content on your site.
• Download the exported file
• When the export is complete, a Download option will appear. Click Download to save the .xml file to your computer, or click Clear to erase the export.

Step 2:  You now have all the required data from your square space store now you may go ahead and start the steps of setting up the Shopify store

The First step here is to sign up for Shopify and start a staging site known as a development store. You can prepare everything for your new website here so once you’re ready to flick the switch and go live you’ll know exactly how the site will look and work.

You can follow this link to sign up for a 14-day trial. If you need more time than that, a Shopify Expert can give you access to a development store with no expiration date. If you sign up for the trial, please be aware that you’ll be charged with Shopify plan fees after 14 days, and it could take longer to complete depending on the complexity of the migration.

Once you have signed up on a required way now is the time to first take note of various headers of Shopify gets accustomed with the dashboard.

Step 3: Let's start with updating products and the content first.

For Products

There are 2 steps you can do that!

• Manually
• CSV Upload

If you do not get CSV files or your products are too difficult to get along the CSV way you need to go ahead manually uploading each product and adding them to the collections. For that, you need to go to

Products>All products>Add a Product

Add all the details of the product and save

If you have a set data of csv from your Squarespace you may go ahead uploading the same but in Shopify csv format which you can download from your dashboard goto

Products>All Products>Import/Export>Import>Choose your file and upload

If you wish to avoid problems associated with your inventory list, you can select inventory apps to track the product stock and check, if you don’t run out of items you sell.

Once the Products are uploaded now you can add the content and Customer data

Add the special content to your different pages goto

Online Store>Pages>Add New Page

You may also add your existing customers manually or using csv.

Step 4:

• Select your theme(Shopify has beautiful themes which are free as well as paid ) which is perfect for your newly migrated store to give it a fresh new look.
• Customize your theme go to
• Online Store>themes>Customise (Here you can do most of the homepage changes, font changes, color formatting, adding the banners and the sliders as well as add currency as well as language options!)

Step 5: Adding payment and shipping options

Shopify has more than 500 Payment Gateway options from all over the globe you may choose any of the payment gateways and go ahead with it

• Goto Settings>Payments
• Set the type of payment you want to accept and the payment gateway accordingly

Coming to shipping, Shopify has more than 200 Shipping partners which are directly integrated with Shopify so and order comes you are just a click away to ship it!

• Goto Settings>Shipping
• And set the zones and shipping details

Once you are happy with the total look of your store the shipping and payment now is the time to link your domain to it!

Step 6: Point your domain on to it link it to Shopify

• Online Store>Domains and set previously purchased or newly buy a domain from Shopify!
• Domain propagation normally takes 12-24 hours worldwide

Step 7: Test your store

Go ahead run a test order on your new web store to make sure your switch from Squarespace to Shopify was a success. Once you are happy with the test order to go and run a shoutout to all your customers that you are bigger and much better now!

Why Shopify is the best alternative

Shopify is a far more full-featured and powerful eCommerce platform as compared to Squarespace. It is the best available platform which has the best for everyone be it a small business owner or an enterprise-Shopify has got you covered., Also it is good for the initially Squarespace users who were artists, musicians, etc who wanted to monetize their work! E-commerce means Shopify today!

Though migration sounds easy it might be a cumbersome task for newbies. You may take this tutorial and give it a shot on your own after all it has become a DIY world but just in case you are stuck in the middle or do not think you are confident enough to do it do not give our heads an ache contact us we will love to sort out all your migration problems!

Now It’s Your Turn

Hope you enjoyed this ultimate guide about Squarespace To Shopify Migration.

Let us know about this post by leaving a quick comment below.