👋 Welcome new Seller Community members 👋

[Seamus]

Welcome to our new members of the Seller Community! Feel free to take a look around the Community and check out our Orientation Guide and Community Guidelines.

Feel free to say hi and introduce your business 🙂

If you feel like posting about your business and what you do then go ahead, reply below to let us know your business name and where you are in the country! Feel free to share Instagram handles or your business websites too.

I look forward to learning more about you, please let me know if you have any questions or need a hand with anything!

- Seamus

[Seamus]

Hey @LotusEarth,

Welcome to the Community 🙂

Effectively marketing your business and knowing how to reach your audience is a bit of an age old conundrum and isn't always straightforward - and while I don't have any secret formulas, you may want to check out this thread for tips from other Square sellers.

My general advice would be to leverage social channels as much as possible, be really active on social media, build an audience, look into SEO, think about how you market, brand and present your business to the world and make changes to help enhance your brand's image. Have a look for guides on Google, there's various rabbit holes of resources out there. They may not all work for you or be suited to your business, but don't let that dissuade you and keep trying until you find things that do have an impact on growing your customer case and audience reach.

It may also be worth speaking with a business consultant, never underestimate the impact an expert can have!

[LisaButler]

Hi Sharon,

I tried to Google your business name but nothing came up for Lotus & Earth Homewares. Want to share your website address so i can take a look? 

Kind regards,

@LisaButler

[Paulartist]

Hi Seamus
I am based in Brisbane.

I have used Square in the past, but it was a few years ago.

I have been online for most of the afternoon and I am a bit confused.

Here is what I am trying to do.

I am an artist (amongst other things) and I want to set up an online shop, as well as sell direct from my studio, as well as an pop up exhibition on 5th December.

Until recently I had a Wix site, and now migrating to Squarespace.

I was hoping to simply set up an online shop on Squarespace and use Square for in-person sales, but I see that only works in the USA.

I have a general idea of how it will work but started to get confused when I started looking at the options for Online, Online checkout, Square for retail, and then where the Square website fits in (not to mention how the facebook shop and Instagram side of it) and how the QR code works.

I am ok with having a link from my SS website that links to my Square website.

Ideally, I would like to be able to publish my site a few days before the show to allow customers to buy online, but then to make sure that the sold items are then not available on the day of the pop up. (and will add physical red dots so people know) 

They are one off artworks btw. 

What is the best way for me to navigate all this? 

Paul 

[Seamus]

Hey @Paulartist,

Welcome to the community!

Hopefully Squarespace will make Square available as a payment provider globally in the future - we do see a few requests for it, but it's ultimately up to them to build us into their platform everywhere.

For the Square side, I'll start by trying to clear up some of the confusion between the different products you've listed, then recommend what I think the best setup might be based on what you're trying to achieve here 🙂

Square Online - This is where you can build a complete Square Online website. You could list all your works for sale and they can sync with your Square inventory. 

Online Checkout - You can create basic checkout links within a couple of minutes to sell an individual item online - this is more of an alternative to building a full Square Online website. The intent is to create item links quickly on the fly, as needed. They won't appear on your Square Online website. In your situation one option would be to avoid creating a whole new Square website, display your art on your Squarespace website, and then link to a Square Checkout Link - it's basically just a payment link for the item. They can also sync to the same Square inventory.

QR Codes - You can generate a QR code and print it for display. Your customers can then scan that QR code on their phones to bring up the item on a web page and place an order. You can generate QR codes for both items on your Square Online website, or items created with Checkout Links. You could in theory print a QR code next to a piece of art and someone could scan the QR code to buy it. That said it may be difficult to keep track of your red dots if you have everyone placing orders at once, so I'd recommend probably just using the Card Reader and Point of Sale App in person. You may always find some other creative use for QR codes in the future!

Facebook and Instagram -  Check here to see a guide on linking a Square Online website to Facebook and Instagram. I'd look at doing this once everything else has been completed. I've taken a look and can't find any mention of Checkout Links having the same Facebook/Instagram integration as a Square Online website, so note this looks to be only available for Square Online websites

Square for Retail - You probably don't need this, though you can check it out and see if it might be right for you. It's a speciality POS that runs on an iPad with both free and paid versions designed to be used in retail stores. For in-person sales of once off works of art, the free Point of Sale app is probably more than enough, easier to use and you can run it on a wider range of mobile devices including iPhones and selected Android devices.

If everything you're selling is a once off piece, you'll want to create your items and then assign each item an inventory level of 1. Once you've created your items and have a website, you can sync the inventory between Square and Square Online so that they share the same inventory and you can only sell one of each. Checkout Links can also share the same inventory if you use them (you won't need to create a website, it should just work once the Checkout Link is created).

Once you set up items with inventory counts of 1, if something gets bought prior to the exhibition it will be marked as "Sold Out" online and in the Point of Sale app. One thing to note is that while customers can't buy a sold out item online, the Point of Sale app does allow you to over-ride this - something to be aware of, though it does display the red text "Sold Out" to let you know.

In summary, looking at what you've described as your business setup I'd recommend:

1) The Square Point of Sale app for your in person sales (studio and exhibition)

2) A Square Card reader with a compatible mobile device, or other Square hardware. You wouldn't need more than the basic card reader to take a card payment, though if you want to check out some of our other hardware you can read this guide. Check out our compatibility guide top ensure you have a compatible mobile device.

3) Either a Square Online website or individual item Checkout Links to link from your Squarespace website. Go all one or all the other to keep things simple, at least to start with!

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions and also check out our Support Centre as a general base to find more information on Square's products and how to use them.

If you need further help keep in mind you can reach our support team on 1800 760 137. Lines are open Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm Melbourne time. They will also have a lot more insight into your account that we have on our public forum, but I'm always happy to help as much as I'm able 🙂

[Paulartist]

Wow, Seamus. that is fantastic. That certainly makes it much clearer. I like the idea of the payment link from my SS website so that when they do open up that gateway it will be an easy transiton. I **bleep**ume also if I do that I wont need a commerce level sub on SS. The only thing is would be great to be able to sell directly from Instagram, but I **bleep**ume from what you are saying to do that I would need Square Online Website? which would then be a double up if I had on SS as well.  I will give them a call in Melbourne. Cheers Paul 

 Best Answer

[Seamus]

No worries @Paulartist!

Yep, from what I can see you can only currently link with Instagram for Square Online websites. Do let me know if support happen to have a way to do this with Checkout Links, but I'm fairly certain it's just with a full website.