Big Cartel Vs Squarespace- Ultimate Guide In 2023
‘You should sell these!’
I am sure as an artist with excellent talent, you have heard this sentence more than once in your life. However, there is an astronomical difference between creating art and adapting the methods to make an intimidating sale out of it.
So, if you are one of them trying to launch your art in the market and you find yourself lagging behind it does not mean you are not a good artist. People who dwell with artistic abilities aren’t automatically competent to understand the magnitude of a business world. That’s why you will need online business platforms with features to ease your work.
Either a place entirely to launch your business or an expert in website building. Two such websites are Big Cartel and Squarespace. Now, the question is which one should you go for? Would you rather have your business launched for you where you can start with selling products individually or take assistance in creating an alluring website with the store within it?
Sit back as we dive into detailed Big Cartel Vs Squarespace and its pros and con evaluation.
What Is A Big Cartel?
Big Cartel is a platform for the artists by the artists as most of the executive board members also have their own independent store on the website. They are a close-knit harmonious society that supports artwork and helps the makers through the initial phase of launching their business. Since 2005 it has helped people to sell $2.5 billion dollars of their work.
This entity is filled with painters; illustrators; graphic designers; filmmakers and so on and so forth.
Features Of Big Cartel:
Let’s start with the features offered by Big Cartel
Big Cartel has three plans:
Out of which the Gold membership is free. The Platinum and Diamond ones cost $9.99/month and $19.99/month respectively.
Gold
- 5 products per artist.
- You are allowed to give one image per product.
- Real-time statistical reports of your product.
- Free themes that you can customize.
- They also provide discounts and promotional runs.
- Track your shipment.
- You can also have a product option group [Product Option Group is where you can create sections for Colours; Sizes; Cuts and other options].
Platinum
- 50 products per artist.
- You are given free themes that you can customize. Those theme codes can be further edited
- Five images are allowed per product.
- Real-time statistics data.
- A custom domain is also presented to you. [A custom domain is where you can give a unique brand name to your store].
- Editing can be done in bulk without any extra cost.
- You can also track your shipment.
- You can customize your product option group.
Diamond
Other than all the above-mentioned advantages, the additional ones are.
- It gives you more unique themes and customizable options for them.
- You are getting free Google analytics which will help you track your website performance. This is an excellent business strategy that will help you boost your overall business performance once you start evaluating what your customers are more interested in.
What Are The Pros And Cons For Big Cartel
Before we talk about the features of Squarespace and discuss Big Cartel Vs Squarespace, let us first understand the pros and cons of Big Cartel in detail.
Pros For Big Cartel:
- It doesn’t charge any loyalty from the artist’s sale.
- It is the only platform that gives a Gold membership free of cost. On top of that, it provides numerous compelling features which are not free of cost in any other e-commerce website.
- You needn’t have a brand name or website ready at your fingertips. Instead, you can start selling with just a few individual products.
- Again, it is one of the prominent platforms that allow navigation for the buyers and a good communication link between the buyer and the seller which creates a very friendly environment.
- With novice business starters who don’t have any prior experience, Big Cartel gives you prompts and advice to navigate through your first start.
Cons For Big Cartel:
- In order to get most sales out of the website, you will need knowledge about coding which naturally is not everyone’s cup of tea.
- The customization is the bare minimum for the free themes so if you want to do something out of the ordinary you will have to buy one of the plans.
- For online orders, you have to download either Stripe or PayPal as Big Cartel only allows these two services.
What Is SquareSpace?
Squarespace is an award-winning platform that is known for its exquisite website designing capabilities no matter what your personal or professional need.
Whether you are a new seller or have an established business, from individual website building to blogging to everything you need for your online store to grow on this website.
Features Of Squarespace:
- It gives you an entire website builder from an online store, to a portfolio to the blog post and in website advertisements.
- All the templates in the website are customizable through custom css. Therefore, you will stand out without worrying that everyone is using the same template and your design is overlapping on the default template.
- If you are a beginner, you will be given an entire option of a starter layout through which you can start building your initial website.
- There is no limit to the contents you can add to your website. Links; Social Media links; pictures; texts; charts; quotes, the options are endless
- If you don’t know anything about designing, you can learn and apply the designing tools that are offered to you.
- It has a commenting system that gives you the opportunity to constantly interact with your customers and implement their feedback on the website or product.
- Your website can have multiple contributors if you build it through squarespace. So you can give access to a content editor, auditor, schedule editor, trusted commenter, etc.
What Are The Pros And Cons Of Squarespace?
Here are a few Pros and Cons of the platform you should evaluate before you make a decision to invest on this platform.
Pros Of Squarespace:
- You will need no prior coding knowledge to build an attractive website as most of the work will be done by Squarespace.
- It has built-in G-suite integration which will help to keep your website safe from malware and protect your data through the cloud.
- You will be dealing with a fantastic support team.
- It is a mobile-friendly platform.
- You will have control over your Ecommerce website. There will be no middleman interruption from Squarespace’s end.
- It has some useful widgets that can boost the overall performance of your website. The varieties are even more versatile than WordPress widgets. These widgets can make your website a different individual from the standard squarespace website.
Cons Of Squarespace:
- Here are a few distinctive Cons for the platform before we discuss the Big Cartel Vs Squarespace comparison.
- There are no free plans for this platform. The lowest-paid starts from $12/month.
- Squarespace will take a minimum 3% commission on every sale you make through them.
- It is not completely idiot-proof so you might take some time to comprehend as the drag and drop feature is not entirely easy.
- Because of the heavy payment, you are opting for, SEO optimization is limited. Hence, you have to rely on other advertising tools to get recognized.
Which One Is Better Big Cartel Vs Squarespace?
Now let’s come to the subject that we all have been waiting for. But when we discuss the comparison between Big Cartel Vs Squarespace, I would like to put a disclaimer first.
These two platforms are quite different in their own ways with their individual unique features. The pointers on which we will be going forth with the comparison are as follows:
Big Cartel Vs Squarespace
- Costing
- User Friendly
- Versatility of Features
- Customer interaction
Costing
When it comes to costing, Big Cartel has an advantage over Squarespace as it provides its user with a free plan that has compelling features
However, with just the simplest payment plan for Squarespace, you get features like G-suite integration, customization CSS. Which is not present in Big Cartel.
On the other hand, Big Cartel doesn’t take any extra commission from its sellers after completion of a trade which Squarespace does.
User Friendly
Both the domains will assist their users in building a platform. But, Squarespace takes the cake when it comes to heavy customization features. However, building a website using Squarespace is a little more complicated than Big Cartel.
The simplicity of usage is more or less the same for both.
Versatility Of Features
When it comes to the versatility of features, it is definitely a win for Squarespace. Firstly, they allow you to build an individual website with all the key features which will help you get recognition. This is possibly not an advantage for those who just want an e-commerce domain to sell individual items without putting the extra effort to build a website.
Other than that with Squarespace you can add links, pictures, texts or anything else under the roof of digital marketing endless times.
In Squarespace you can even share access to everyone working under the website, creating a harmonious business environment.
Customer Interaction
Big Cartel has its own features through which you can live chat with your customers and also track the shipment but with Squarescape you get an inbuilt comment section on your website where people can send feedback or ask questions before purchasing can be done.
Sellers can take this feedback into consideration to build their website better.
To End Of Big Cartel Vs Squarespace:
It is intimidating to start a new business. Especially when you don’t have a team and you are the talent as well as the business head. Therefore, using platforms Big Cartel and Sqaureapce can take some of the pressure off of you.
Additionally, if you were already aware of these domains and wondering which one would suit your business the best, hope the Big Cartel Vs Squarespace comparison helped you.
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