Your Square Online Store: Top Tips and eCommerce Site Examples

[Seamus]

Setting up an Online Store can be a daunting task. For some people, just knowing what’s possible can be a huge help when getting started. 

If you’ve just perfected your menu or if you’ve added new, professional photographs of all of your products or items -  share your site to inspire someone else.  If you can share any tips, that would be appreciated too!

Reply in this thread and include:

1. The URL for your site
2. Your business name and your business type (e.g. retail, food business, service provider)
3. ⭐ Bonus! A best practice or tip that will help someone as they’re getting started.

Here are some resources to help you get started:

• ✔️ Top Tips: How to start accepting online payments for your business 
• 📚 Webinar: How to Take your Business Online
• 📹 Manage Online Orders with Square

By sharing your knowledge or by simply sharing a link to your website you can lend a helping hand to someone else.

[Cantoopmq]

I’d love an email address where I can get some support for an issue I’m having with a square site.

[Seamus]

Hey @Cantoopmq,

You call support on 1800 760 137 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm Melbourne time) or email via this form 👍

[Eurovan]

Hi, 

I created my online store with Square and have found the process to be fairly intuitive. 

Am always looking for ways to improve, so feedback is welcome.

www.eurovanpartsstore.com

Eurovan Parts - Parts and Accessories for Motorhomes, Camper Vans & Caravan 4X4's.

My bonus tip is to also use https://squoosh.app for optimising file sizes for web images. 

[Seamus]

Thanks for the feedback @Eurovan!

I took a look at your website, it's looking pretty good to me! Honestly it makes me want to jump in a van and go for a long drive without a care in the world about where I end up 🚐 🌄

One thing I did notice was that the link to your Instagram page here is broken thanks to a stray "." :

The link seems to be fine in the other places it's featured! 

Thanks for the tip for image re-sizing! I tend to use Pixlr, however squoosh.app looks a lot simpler and easier to use - I've bookmarked it as a resource to share with other sellers!

[Eurovan]

Hey, thank you for the feedback @Seamus!

Yes, it's a growingly popular thing for people to do these days. See #vanlife

Hey, thanks for identifying that broken link.

I hadn't noticed it but have now corrected it and also taken the opportunity to add product tags.

Very much appreciated! 

[isospraytan]

Hello, had a look at your store. Well done great job. I'm still trying to figure out the platform

[tri-eco]

your site is fabulous, how did you get your return policy in the footer? i'm having trouble with that. 

[Eurovan]

Hey, thanks @tri-eco 

Website > Edit Site > Footer > Navigation > Customise Navigation > Add Navigation Link

Let me know how you go! 👍

[Seamus]

Hey @dimo10, thanks for reaching out and welcome to the Community 🙂

Happy to provide some feedback on your website, feel free to take or ignore any advice, this is just my opinion!

• Initial impressions of the home page are good - I like your logo, it's fun and looks good at the top of the page on the ocean background
• Having lots of social links is great and gives further avenues for customers to engage with your business. You're pretty active there too, which helps remind your customers you exist when they're going about their day to day social media browsing
• LOVE the video of potato scallops falling in slow motion on the FB page! I could watch that all day. I'm a sucker for a potato scallop covered in chicken salt. As a Queenslander living in Victoria, and a former fish and chip shop employee, I can say with full confidence that it's definitely a potato scallop not a potato cake 🙂
• Love that you included the stories page on the site and reading about how Square was able to benefit your business! Makes me want to read more about what's going on at Blue Sea Fish Shop in general on a day to day basis!
• An area of improvement/nice to have thing could be unique photography. I've noted you've used stock imagery on your categories, which is fine - but personally I love seeing what the actual food I'm ordering looks like, and it's obvious when I'm looking at a stock photo vs photography of food you've made. Adding individual item images would also be ideal
• With that said, it is an expensive undertaking to get professional food photography done - you've got to hire a photographer, cook up everything on the menu and set aside a day to do it - totally understandable if the cost/benefit ratio isn't worth it. Ultimately the taste and quality of the food is the most important thing and what will keep people coming back. Though, the images on your Instagram are pretty good! Could just be worth taking a few pics here and there and building up your own image library over time?
• You've made a typo in your URL in the post above - I was able to work out that it should read "fish" instead of "fiah", but keep an eye out if you've posting your URL in the future - you may get people clicking on it, not noticing a typo and then thinking the website doesn't work. I have been here before 😬

All in all, I really like what you've done with the sit and hope it's going well!

Do feel free to reach out or make another post should you have any questions 👍

[dimo10]

Hi Seamus,

Thanks for the reply.

Firstly, what you see are Potato Cakes.  

I fixed the link in my post so everyone can now check it out.

Thanks for the advise on the photo's, I found a lightbox on Kogan for $29 and took pictures of all our products.

Feedback from some of my customers said that it was a bit hard going in and out of categories so I have changed the layout to list list all items.  With the new pictures of every product it makes the order screen flow a lot nicer.

Thanks,

Chris

[scrunchandrun]

Hi! 

I think my store looks ok but id also love any feedback! still very new at this and although my products sell well in person, online sales are a struggle! any tips would be amazing!

www.scrunchandrun.com.au

thanks!

Lauren

[h3ctic]

Hi Lauren,

I had a look at your site. It looks great - stunning really, and has shown me that I have serious work to do on my site. 

As I built my site, I've found that there are a lot of limitations around building the site. 

Can you tell me what template you used to build your site?

I don't seem to have an option for a side navigation panel like you have - and I can't see how I can put my logo onto the Header of the page.

thanks

H3ctic

[Seamus]

Hey @h3ctic,

Thanks for reaching out! I'm not 100% sure how @scrunchandrun has things set up, but as some general advice:

1. You can get a side navigation menu by using the "Shop All" template under Category:

Note that this will be called "Order Online" rather than "Shop All" if you have the other template in use (designed for food and bev). You can still swap the template from here!

2. You can insert a logo into your header via the "Header" section of the web editor:

Hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions 🙂

[NaoWiv]

Your site looks great! Easy to navigate with clear photos 🙂

I've just followed you on Instagram as I'm on the lookout for scrunchies from time to time.

[zofrank]

This is my first website I have done myself, with my steadily growing handmade earrings business. I don't have a fancy photographer, I take all the photos myself and edit them myself, but I'm ok with this for this business. 

I would love some feedback or tips, I recently discovered the stock level indicators, and sales actually increased when they realised there was only one or 2 items left. Great!

zofrank.square.site

Thank you:)

Aimee

[dimo10]

Hi Aimee, 

I think your site looks amazing, so much so I bought a pair of earrings for my daughter for her birthday next week.

Only thing I would add is a about you page, more information about your process, vision, story so people get more of an understanding of what makes your product unique.

The other thing you can do is link you Instagram to your online store and then tag your products on insta straight to your online store.

Your photo's look great also, very clean and highlighting your products.

Great job and good luck.

Chris

[zofrank]

Hi Chris,

Thank you so much for the positive feedback, and also the order! You picked possibly my most popular set, so I'm sure your daughter will love them! 

Thank you for the suggestion of the About Us page, I have been wondering where I can put that sort of thing - perfect! 

Thank you again, earrings will be on their way tomorrow!

Aimee

[Seamus]

@zofrank I'm with @dimo10 here, your site is looking really good! I really like the prominent Instagram feed on the home page - it gives a visible realness to your business that isn't always apparent on websites.

One thing you might want to add in the future to further engagement in your business is a stories section. An example I have at hand is where Uncle Funk have used it for recipes, but you could use it for whatever you wanted to talk about - upcoming markets, the process you use creating your work, influences and inspiration etc. Obviously it's a bit of a lift in terms of requiring work creating content so that's something to weigh up, but if you had the time and inclination it's the kind of content I always like seeing on online stores, and will help your audience engage in the story behind your business!

[NaoWiv]

I love your site, Aimee. The about page you added is interesting and I really like the 'process' info you added. It's something I'm missing and I think I'll add too.

[judithah]

Hi all, I am in the process of building the website, a little daunting I must say. The examples on here are great and give me hope that mine too will look good when done. 

I will no doubt be back with some questions very soon.

Judith