Thinking of using Weebly for ecommerce, website and teaching

[Sundownalpacas]

Hello,

I am a square user and have a free squareup online store. I need to upgrade to something more powerful. I have been doing research and wanted to ask the community here a few questions.

I want a website with a blog, ecommerce store and a private area for customers to be used for online classes. Will I be able to have both physical products and digital download products within the same store? Can you configure landing pages on your own website? I use mailchimp currently.  Can you do the famous popups to collect email addresses and offer a coupon or pdf in exchange?

I also need this site to tie in with google analytics, Pinterest (Pinit) Square (duh), and paypal.

Shipping, I currently use a flat rate with FEDEX express and as I have my own pricing with my business account with them. Can I set that up or do I have to use Weebly's shipping? I am interested purchasing the weebly business plan for everything. I know that it will intergrate with my Square inventory as I sell at shows in person. My other question is there any possibilty of importing my squareup store pics and descriptions?

Thanks for reading this and helping me in my decision.

Liz

[Adam7]

Thanks for posting, @Sundownalpacas. I'll try to answer your questions as best I can:

1. You can start a blog from within your Weebly account by following the steps of this guide: https://www.weebly.com/app/help/topics/start-a-blog

2. You can also create members/groups only pages of the site (https://www.weebly.com/app/help/topics/limiting-page-visibility-to-members). For any products you add to those pages, I would also make sure to change the visibility of the product to "hidden", that way they are viewable by members but not shown in default store pages where non-members might be able to find them (you'll see this option when editing a product).

3. You can have both physical and digital products: https://www.weebly.com/app/help/topics/add-a-digital-product

4. Landing pages are no problem - select the "splash" header type for any landing page. You might need to change themes since not all themes include the "splash" header type. https://www.weebly.com/app/help/topics/create-pages-and-navigation

5. From within your account, click on "Home" at the top and then click on "Marketing". You can create your popups from there as well as manage contacts, create email campaigns, etc. While you can't attach a PDF directly to an email, you can create a hidden page on your site which has a download link on it.

6. Google Analytics and Pinterest are as easy as adding some code to Settings > SEO > Header Code. https://www.weebly.com/app/help/topics/google-analytics https://www.weebly.com/app/help/topics/verify-your-site-with-pinterest

7. Using PayPal and Square is also easy; all you need to do is connect to both in Store > Setup > Checkout.

8. With shipping you can set up manual rates rather than use real-time shipping, that way you can special your flat rates based on region and either weight or price. https://www.weebly.com/app/help/topics/set-up-shipping-areas-and-rates

9. When you import from Square, it will bring over during the initial import: https://www.weebly.com/app/help/topics/importing-and-syncing-your-products-with-square

Let me know if you have any other questions! I know I just gave you a whole lot of information to digest.

[Sundownalpacas]

Thank you for the quick response.  It sounds like Weebly is capable of filling all my desires for a website. I also forgot to mention that I have a domain registered with GoDaddy. Right now it points to my squareup store and a blog on blogger.  I assume that I can design this site first before transfering the domain?  

I am looking at the themes, but not sure which one has the splash header that you mentioned?

Thanks for your time.

Liz

[Adam7]

Absolutely. Once you're ready to use it with your site you can point it as shown in this guide: https://hc.weebly.com/hc/en-us/articles/201372693-How-to-Use-a-Domain-You-Purchased-Elsewhere

For themes that include the Splash type, "Slick", "Paper", and "Brisk 2" are the first few themes I checked and they all have the Splash header type. Most themes might actually support it at this point.

[NRD618]

Adam,

      this question is similar to my own. When clicking the link for the site you mentioned about adding a blog to your weebly account, it comes back as an error page that there is no content available. Can you please point me in the right direction for adding a blog to my weebly account? I currently have an ecommerce site and would like to have a blog attached as well.

Thank you!

[Bernadette3]

Very sorry for the confusion, @NRD618. You are using our new Square Online Store editor. At this time, the editor you have does not have a built-in blogging function. I believe the teams are discussing ways to implement a blog option, but for now, you can always link to an external blog page in your navigation. We have a lot of stores using Square Online Store that do this now and it has been working out okay for them.  

[COOKIESTHICC]

What can the square weebly thing actually do? 

How do we get off the square weebly site and get the actuall proper editor. I'm screwed if I have to use this weebly square integration that can't access any apps or allow me to grow at all! 

[Sundownalpacas]

Did you upgrade to a business plan? That is what I did.

[sayra]

Hello @COOKIESTHICC. Thank you for reaching out. You can open a Weebly account directly on our website here: squ.re/WeeblyStart, and choose the best plan for you. You also have the option to start a Weebly website in your Square account. As mentioned by @Sundownalpacas you can upgrade your plan if you have already created a website through Square for additional features and Apps.

[COOKIESTHICC]

I don't think this is correct.

Firstly I already tried upgrading to the top version and still couldn't access apps on the app store.

And also app store is not even listed as a feature on the premium versions.

See here list of features on Weebly. 

https://www.weebly.com/checkout/plans?site_id=957355262523486842&site_refer=springboardDashboard&sou...

I just need to know how to add ANY app from the app store, they all say 

Can't add apps/

Also, the weebly app store is just broken in general, look when you click 'Sites' and it takes you the'weebl.com/au/home , its a 404! , 404 on the home page? I can't be the first person to notice this... And its been like this for a week

app store is broken. 404!

[Adam7]

Sorry for the confusion, @COOKIESTHICC. The App Store is not currently available for Square Online Store websites. In order to use the App Center, you'd need to sign up for an account directly through Weebly.com and choose the option that you don't want to sell / just want a website (don't worry, you can still set up a store though it will not sync items with your Square account).