Selling digital products on your website like ebooks, online courses, templates, and more is a great way to earn passive income. With the right tools and strategy, you can build a profitable online store without dealing with physical inventory or shipping.
Squarespace is one of the most popular website builders that makes it easy to create an online store and sell digital goods.
With its beautiful templates, built-in e-commerce features, and marketing tools, Squarespace provides everything you need to start selling digital products from your site.
This comprehensive guide will walk you through setting up a digital store on Squarespace, adding products, configuring payments, delivering files to customers, and marketing your store effectively.
Getting Started to Sell Digital Products on Squarespace
The first step is signing up for a paid Squarespace plan. While you can create a basic website with Squarespace for free, you need to upgrade to a paid plan to unlock e-commerce features. Some of the best plans for selling digital goods are:
- Business ($23/month) – Lets you sell up to 100 products
- Basic Commerce ($40/month) – Allows unlimited products and advanced shipping options
- Advanced Commerce ($70/month) – Gives you the most flexibility with advanced features
You’ll be prompted to connect your custom domain name when signing up. This gives your store a professional appearance. After signing up, you can choose one of Squarespace’s beautiful templates to build your site quickly. Look for templates under the “Online Store” section optimized for selling products online.
Setting up Your Digital Store
Connecting a Payment Processor
Connecting a payment processor is one of the most important steps in setting up your Squarespace digital store. This allows you to accept customer payments when they purchase your digital products. Squarespace integrates directly with popular payment processors like Stripe, PayPal, and Square. To get started:
- Go to the Commerce section and navigate to the Settings tab
- Click on Payments
- Choose your preferred payment processor like Stripe or PayPal
- Follow the steps to connect your account by entering your API keys or credentials
Once connected, Squarespace will automatically send checkout information to the processor when orders are placed. The processor will deposit funds from sales into your bank account regularly.
Configuring Taxes
You must configure tax settings in Squarespace if you need to charge sales tax on your digital products. Navigate to the Settings tab and go to the Taxes section. Here you can:
- Enable or disable tax collection
- Set tax rates for different locations
- Choose whether to collect by billing or shipping address
- Add tax exemptions if needed
Squarespace will automatically calculate taxes at checkout based on the rules you set up. This saves you time on tax compliance.
Setting Up Shipping Zones
While digital products don’t require physical shipping, you may also sell physical products like merch. In that case, you’ll want to configure shipping zones.Go to the Settings tab and click on Shipping. Here you can:
- Create shipping zones for countries/regions you ship to
- Set flat rates or carrier-calculated rates per zone
- Enable free shipping thresholds
- Restrict shipping on excluded products like downloads
This allows you to streamline shipping for physical orders. Digital orders will skip the shipping step at checkout.
Adding Digital Products
Once your settings are configured, it’s time to add digital products. Go to the Products tab and click Add Product. When adding each product:
- Select Digital Download as the product type
- Upload your digital file, such as an ebook, music file, etc.
- Add details like name, description, price, images
- Set the number available if inventory is limited
Repeat for all your digital products. They will now be available for purchase in your Squarespace store.
Enabling Your Store
The final step is going live. Preview your store and test purchases to ensure everything is working. When you’re ready, navigate to the General tab in Commerce Settings. Click the button to enable your store.
Your digital products are now live and ready to sell on Squarespace!
Adding Digital Products
When adding a new product on Squarespace, choose the Digital Download type.You can now configure details like:
- Name – Use a clear, descriptive name
- Description – Explain what customers get when they purchase
- Price – Set a fair price aligned with the value you provide
- File – Upload the digital file customers will download (max 300MB)
- Image – Upload a high-quality product image
Make sure to categorize your products so customers can find them easily correctly. You can add unlimited digital products on higher Squarespace plans. Use separate products for different file types or bundles.
Delivering Digital Products
Preparing Your Digital Files
Before adding products, you’ll want to prep your digital files:
- Use clear file names without special characters
- Compress large files into a ZIP folder if needed
- Have any licensing info, disclaimers etc ready
- Optional: Create a title page, branding, watermarks
Keep files organized on your computer for easy uploading.
Configuring Product Details
When adding each product in Squarespace:
Photos and Description
- Upload a visually appealing cover image to showcase the product
- Add supplementary screenshots and previews as additional images
- Write a detailed description highlighting what the customer gets
- List the file types, number of files, key features, uses, etc
Pricing and Inventory
- Carefully consider pricing based on value delivered and competition
- Enable volume discounts for multiple purchases
- Set inventory levels if offering limited quantities
Categorization
- Organize products into relevant categories and tags
- This helps customers find related products while browsing
SEO Optimization
- Use target keywords in the product name and description
- Fill out the SEO title and description to optimize visibility
Uploading and Delivering Files
To upload the product file(s):
- Click “Upload File” in the product editor
- Select your prepared digital file or ZIP folder
- Customers will receive this file via email upon purchase
For large files, upload to a cloud storage service and provide the download link.After configuring all aspects of the product, click “Save” or “Publish” to make it live in your Squarespace store.
Post-Purchase Experience
- Customers receive an order confirmation email with the download link
- The link expires after 24 hours for security
- Customers can access purchases in their Squarespace account indefinitely
Delivering digital products is handled seamlessly by Squarespace.
Marketing Your Digital Store
Now that your store is ready, it’s time to drive traffic and sales through effective marketing:
Optimize Your Website
- Use SEO best practices like meta descriptions and alt text on images to improve site visibility.
- Include natural keywords in your content to help customers find your products through searches.
- Create dedicated landing pages for your most popular digital products.
Promote on Social Media
- Share your new products and offers on social channels.
- Use beautiful product imagery and videos to showcase your digital goods.
- Run paid ads on platforms like Facebook and Instagram to reach more potential buyers.
Send Email Campaigns
- Offer an opt-in incentive like a discount to build your email list.
- Send broadcasts when you launch new products or have special promotions.
- Create automated post-purchase emails to encourage repeat sales.
Build Partnerships
- Guest post on blogs in your niche to gain exposure to new audiences.
- Partner with influencers and other brands to promote your products through collaborations.
- Attend virtual events and conferences to network and connect with your target customers.
Analyze Performance
- Use Squarespace’s built-in Analytics to see which products perform best.
- Monitor sales numbers and metrics to gain insights on how to improve your store.
- Read customer feedback and reviews to identify issues and opportunities.
By actively promoting your store and products through a variety of online and offline tactics, you can establish a steady stream of sales and new customers.
Expanding Your Digital Store
Once you have gained some traction, there are several ways to take your Squarespace digital store to the next level:
- Create membership options that give customers access to all your products for a monthly fee
- Integrate webinar software like Zoom to sell virtual classes and workshops
- Partner with print-on-demand services to offer custom merch with your designs
- Build a community forum for your brand using add-ons like Discourse
- Expand globally by translating your store into multiple languages
- Integrate email marketing software like MailChimp for more advanced campaigns
- Use Zapier to connect your store with 2,000+ other apps and services
The possibilities are endless when you leverage Squarespace’s capabilities and third-party integrations. Keep experimenting and expanding your offerings over time.
Why Squarespace is the Best Platform
Squarespace indeed provides everything you need, all in one place, to create a successful online store for selling digital goods. Compared to other website builders, here are some of the biggest advantages of using Squarespace:
- Beautiful templates – Make a great first impression with Squarespace’s professionally designed templates.
- Built-in e-commerce – Get complete store capabilities without needing third-party plugins.
- Powerful marketing tools – Send email campaigns, promote on social media, and more right within Squarespace.
- Top-notch security – Squarespace adheres to the highest security standards to protect your site.
- Award-winning support – Get help from real people whenever you need it.
- Easy scalability – Grow your catalog and sales without technical hurdles.
Squarespace provides the easiest all-in-one solution for anyone looking to earn money online by selling digital products.
Conclusion
Selling digital products online enables you to earn income passively from content and assets you create once but can sell again and again.
This comprehensive guide gives you everything you need to get your digital store up and running on Squarespace.
Focus on creating high-quality products, marketing them strategically, and providing excellent customer service. The opportunities are endless for turning your knowledge, creativity, and content into digital products that generate revenue 24/7 through your Squarespace online store. If you want to know more about Squarespace, read our Squarespace vs Samcart comparison article.