thread Re: 2018 Update Please: Re: Can I integrate Square with Squarespace? in Archived Discussions (Read Only)

Can I integrate Square with Squarespace?

rockyy — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 22:14:58 GMT

I am having an account on square-up and want to display all the Items(products) of my square-up on my squarespace site.

so can anyone guide or instruct me to implement the above mentioned functionality...?

Re: Integration of squareup with site on squarespace

Fresh1 — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 13:10:05 GMT

This is best explained throught the online guide found here:

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5111-set-up-and-edit-your-online-store

As you develop specific questions about setup, please reach out and we will do our best to guide you. As with all new things, there is a bit of a learning curve, but this one is not steep. Good Luck!

Re: Integration of squareup with site on squarespace

Sean — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 19:16:57 GMT

@Fresh1 - Thanks for sharing the link!

@rockyy - What Fresh1 shared was a link to our Online Store offering. You could use this as an alternative to your Squarespace site. While we don't offer a direct integration with Squarespace sites, it's definitely a feature request I've seen from our sellers. I'll be sure to update this thread if that changes in the feature.

PS) If my answer solved your problem, would you mind marking it as "Best Answer"? That'll help the rest of the community find what they're looking for. If not, just write back, and I'll continue to help. Thanks!

Re: Can I integrate Square with Squarespace?

Sean — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 23:13:59 GMT

Hi again @rockyy, if you currently have a content-only site on Squarespace and you'd like to add an e-commerce function - our integation with Ecwid can act as a plug-in / shopping cart app for your existing Squarespace site! If you have fewer than 10 items, Ecwid is also free. Here is how you would go about doing that once you've set up your eCommerce site with Ecwid:

1. Create a new page on your Squarespace site.

2. Choose Page Content block and Edit option.

3. Add Code Content Block to the page. To do that click on + Sign in the right top corner of Page Content block, scroll down to “More” section and choose “ </> Code”

4. Generate code for the Product Browser widget. Or you can find it in your Ecwid store Control Panel -> Dashboard -> “Create Store” step -> choose Yes, I have a website and Other platform options and you will see Product Browser code.

5. Copy and paste this code to "Add Code Content" block on your Squarespace site page. You may see a notice that Embedded scripts are disabled in Squarespace while you are logged in, however you can preview the script in Safe mode.

6. Save the changes. You can preview the store right in Squarespace administration panel or on the live site.

Let me know if you have any follow up questions. Hopefully we're able to offer a direct integration with Squarespace in the future!

Is there a way to code in a Square checkout page to Squarespace?

stellarey — Tue, 16 May 2017 11:14:41 GMT

My customers keep complaining about my only current option on my Squarespace Site which is PayPal (I'm also starting to complain because PayPal hasn't paid me yet). I would use Stripe, but my website is considered to be a "high risk". I really like Square, however I don't have the time to recreate my services and retail pages with the online templates and would just rather use Square for checkout only. Has anyone ever coded something like this? I'm tired of having to go in and create new e-commerce payment accounts and I seriously need help with this.

Re: Can I integrate Square with Squarespace?

RobHdT — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 22:02:39 GMT

I'd be interested in using my Square account with my Squarespace or Wordpress sites, but you need to create your own Square plugin. I don't trust a third party plugin for eCommerce. Do you have plans to create your own?

2018 Update Please: Re: Can I integrate Square with Squarespace?

jdbswl — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 16:44:01 GMT

I do technical consulting work. One of my clients is using Square to manage inventory for a collection of items that are sold in a physical shop. She wants to put these items up for sale through her website, which happens to be hosted on SquareSpace. Apparently, there used to be a 'Product Embed' option that supported this use case pretty well, but it has been removed (ostensibly supplanted by the various new e-commerce integrations).

After looking for a good workaround and not finding anything promising, I decided to call Square directly. I just spoke to a Customer Service Representative who told me the following:

There will never be an official integration that lets one put Square Items up for sale on a SquareSpace page, because Square considers SquareSpace to be a direct competitor.
Even if one develops a custom integration through Square's Transaction API, like you would do for a totally custom website, it will not work if the website is on SquareSpace because Square will prevent it from working.

Can someone from the company verify whether this information is correct? I hope the customer service representative that I spoke to was mistaken.

Thanks,

Jonathan

Re: 2018 Update Please: Re: Can I integrate Square with Squarespace?

Sean — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 19:36:17 GMT

Hey @jdbswl. Happy to provide a little more insight here (as far as our process for integrations). While we do promote a number of eCommerce integrations in our App Marketplace (like Weebly & BigCommerce), we open our public APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to all developers. The ones you see here are companies that decided to build on to our platform, meaning, they did the work to connect with Square (not us). The workaround I described above is because Ecwid built out this solution. We want our sellers to use whatever platform works best for their business, but ultimately, it's up to the individual website building companies to choose to expand their offering and do the engineering work to include Square.

There are some cases where you could hire a developer to build out a custom integration, but that would depend if the website building company has a public API available to do this. Have you already had a chance to reach out to SquareSpace to see if they have plans to do this in the future? It sounds like it would need to be something on their roadmap.

As for the discussion you had with one of our folks, I'm happy to touch base with them to make sure we're all on the same page! Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback. 🙂

Re: 2018 Update Please: Re: Can I integrate Square with Squarespace?

jdbswl — Thu, 12 Jul 2018 17:50:27 GMT

Thank you for the clarification!

Squarespace Customer Service will neither confirm nor deny that they are planning to do an integration, ever, but apparently they get this request a lot.

Can I sync inventory between square pos/retail and squarespace webstore?

OddsEnds — Fri, 13 Jul 2018 18:42:38 GMT

I already have a fuctioning webstore, but am interested in using the Square POS/Retail solution for in-store sales. Will I be able to have a common inventory between the two, where the inventory online updates automatically if something is purchased in-store, and vice versa?

Re: 2018 Update Please: Re: Can I integrate Square with Squarespace?

mightymissdsgns — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 04:26:44 GMT

@jdbswl

Hi Jonathan, I'm curious how you ended up helping your customer. I want to do the exact thing you described and am also stumped on a solution. Thanks so much! -Amye

Re: 2018 Update Please: Re: Can I integrate Square with Squarespace?

jdbswl — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 15:13:40 GMT

Hello!

Happy to summarize (and noting that my client uses Square for in-person transactions and is very happy with the purhcase flow: Doesnt want a different POS solution): It was very tempting to try and connect these systems in this way, beacuse they both existed and work well for what they do, but at the end of the day it isn't work the risks, uncertainties, or headaches. As a general matter, this is mostly because SquareSpace is pretty locked-down, which is totally fine if the features they offer are a good fit for your customer's website hosting needs. Remember, it looks like there was a workable solution on the SquareSpace side and the closed it because they don't want you doing this for all of the obvious and annoying reasons. So maybe we're down the wrong rabbit hole...

If SquareSquare (Website) is working well for your client outside of this. Keep it.

If Square (POS/Checkout/(basic inventory)) is working well for your client outside of this. Keep it. They appear to make it easy for 3rd parties to supply reliable integrations.... because they understand that they don't completely support your customer's use-case either!!!

If your customer is trying to build and grown an online store, they need one more product (like BigCommerce, Shopify, WooCommerce, etc). It's one more subscription, but the alternatives are effectively dead-ends.

We did the following:

Created a store on Big Commerce
Used the Square plugin for Big Commerce to enable synchronization between the two systems (this works well), to give the client an early preview, to get Square inventory data into Big Commerce (because you should probably handle the migration of existing products from Square to Big Commerce in a semi-manual way... Big Commerce should become the primary source of truth/managing interface for inventory (stock counts synchronize back from Square to BC very fast, so sales on the floor and in the store via a single Square store are fine) so this is an Awesome time to do a little cleanup and to create consistency in the product representations, which is usually exciting for the client), AND getting the minimal store up will give you time to...
[Important to start early and don't tell them until it works]: Set up, wait, test, test again: the client's redirect from "https://shop.squarespacewebsitename.com" or whatever to the Big Commerce store (their docs are pretty alright). We didn't even have to jump to the expensive plan for https to work all the way through, though some historical docs and comments suggest that it used to be necessary. Thanks be to the HTTPS-everywhere people!

I pulled the Square Data into Big Commerce so I could start from a correctly formatted csv for endless rounds of downloading it from BC, making local changes via a little Python framework that I wrote to get the job done and to make it easier to a) incrementally sanitize the product data, b) respect the constraints of the BC csv upload system (The category column must have a value for each product, but prouducts in multiple categories need to have that information represented as a single delimited string, example), and uploading it again to see how the everything looked.

N.B. You have to enable synchronization to initiate the first Square => Big Commerce copy. Just be sure to disable it before you start uploading test/dev product csvs or testing your migration tool!

Cheers!

Jonathan

Re: 2018 Update Please: Re: Can I integrate Square with Squarespace?

mightymissdsgns — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 18:49:28 GMT

@jdbswl

Thanks so much for this! It is very helpful.

I should have noted that I'm actually the customer (I'm not a developer with a customer who has these needs). However, I do have a web design/development background. Perhaps I can get all of this figured out. Unless you found it challenging and think I should seek help?

With this solution, I can keep my inventory in SquareUp? Or do you suggest moving it?

Has your customer ditched SquareSpace altogether? I don't think I understand where you guys ended up with that product.

Thanks,

-- Amye

Re: Can I integrate Square with Squarespace?

Gr3g — Sat, 09 Mar 2019 21:50:36 GMT

One killer caveat to using Ecwid to integrate between Square POS and Squarespace:

Live stock calibration between your Square items inventory and what’s displayed/available in your Squarespace site store is only available in Ecwid’s ***$100/month*** plan.

Squarespaces is easily the best value, most intuitively helpful and supportive drag-and-drop website builder. Square POS is the same for physical sales and inventory.

Of the web platforms that currently natively integrate Square for live inventory, Weebly (just purchased by Square) is easily the poor, poor cousin of website builders; it’s denuded of functions, put together so badly it’s barely standing, seems determined to crash your browser, and its support is borderline hostile in its sullen approach to sharing information. Big Commerce is laser-focused on online commerce, so, like Weebly, relies on freemium (ad-supported) 3rd party plug ins to give your site basic functions that Squarespace revels in. Square’s online store website builder is only available in the US, and reads as a basic function that satisfies only the least demanding of online sellers.

I was rapt to read of Ecwid’s bridging of Square POS and Squarespace, enabling the best of both worlds, even more so of the 10 items free. But this solution glosses over Ecwid’s USD100/mth premium to fire up live inventory syncing between your Square item inventory and Squarespace online store availability.

Without this live inventory integration, the requirement for something like Ecwid reduces dramatically, and your options broaden.

I’d be stoked to be corrected on this reading of Ecwid and be able to sync inventory between Square and Squarespace cost-effectively, or even hear of direct integration between the two, and free me from the hell of Weebly.

Re: Can I sync inventory between square pos/retail and squarespace webstore?

Gr3g — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 03:27:17 GMT

Great question. Square POS brought eftpos to the masses and Squarespace is one of the most comprehensive and intuitive drag-and-drop website builders. Selling Square items on your Squarespace website with live updating of inventory would be fantastic. But there’s no integration between the two.

Your options - as afar as I can discover - are:

1. Ecwid as a bridging integration. Ecwid takes your Square items onto multiple platforms, including Squarespace and also brings social media store fronts such as Facebook within your reach, so it looks super helpful. Problem is, integration with Square item inventory only kicks in with at the USD100/mth plan.

And that’s it. Square item inventory does integrate with 3 other web platforms:

1. Square online store. Only available in the US and too basic for even minor branding.

2. Weebly. Recently purchased by Square, Weebly is the lame duck of drag-and-drop website builders; functionally eclipsed by Squarespace and even Wix. It’s determined to crash your browser window, is denuded of the most basic features and has a support team that hoards helpful information like gold nuggets.

3. Big Commerce. Apparently well-provisioned as a commerce focused website builder, anything in the blog or other function areas relies on 3rd party, freemium, ad-supported plug ins. So, limited and eventually expensive once you add on all those plug-in fees.

So, yeh. If Square won’t play nicely with competent website builders, and demand I sacrifice my web experience for inventory management, we’re left with no choice other than to seek out POS providers who *will* integrate with Squarespace and its ilk.

Re: Can I integrate Square with Squarespace?

Mka — Wed, 20 Mar 2019 01:18:52 GMT

I only went with Squarespace as I believed it was created by Square... as I’m sure many others have done as well... seems misleading and almost fraudulent

Re: Can I integrate Square with Squarespace?

mobiustheory — Sat, 18 May 2019 20:14:27 GMT

Gr3g,

Thanks for detailing this because it is essentially the single definitive answer for this scenario.

I have done a great deal of research over 2 years, and have experimented with Ecwid's free plans with my Square and Squarespace accounts and got exactly where you landed.

I am at that point where spending an additional $100 for that integration is not cost effective for me (since I get so few orders online and updating inventory manually is easier than footing $100 monthly). The only case where this would be a problem is if during a show, I can sell the last of a particular item while it also sells via the online store. Or this happening overnight. And otherwise I am tied to a device and this is far from automated. Right now I just use the Squareup online store and that works fine, but the design potential of that site is so extremely limiting that it breaks my heart to have them leave my branded site for checkout.

With other workarounds, one idea was just manually syncing inventory on a schedule. That or hire a developer to truly make an API work but that would cost way more than a couple years of paying $100 a month, I think.

There is this: https://zapier.com/apps/square/integrations/squarespace

But all that does is make a customer. Further integrations probably aren't possibly due to the reason stated elsewhere in this thread, that the two are essentially competitors and it won't truly ever be "easy" or free to make this work.

My real plan is to justify the $100 a month and be done with it, since from what I have seen would truly be the best of both worlds.

Re: Can I integrate Square with Squarespace?

Gr3g — Wed, 22 May 2019 06:30:58 GMT

Thanks @mobiustheory

I read that Shopify, which does pretty comprehensive eCommerce (decent site templates and such), have just launched Point Of Sale hardware that would mean realtime integration of instore and online inventory.

https://www.shopify.com/pos

Seems like someone listened 🙂

Re: Integration of squareup with site on squarespace

homegrown1 — Tue, 18 Jun 2019 18:56:19 GMT

Has the ability to integrate Square as the payment method on a Squarespace eCommerce site been added? I have a Squarespace eCommerce site and love how it is set up, but would love to be able to use Square as my payment method so whenever I have pop-up shops, I can have my online inventory accurately updated. Could anyone tell me if this is possible/ If so, how can I add Square to my Squarespace site? Thanks so much!!

Re: Can I integrate Square with Squarespace?

homegrown1 — Tue, 18 Jun 2019 18:59:07 GMT