WordPress vs Squarespace vs ???

El Guapo!

Has anyone here got experience in using WordPress or Squarespace?
I'm looking into opening an ecommerce store and wondering what are the pros and cons of each. Specifically, I'd like to find out more about different options regarding payment gateways. As far as I know, Squarespace comes with Stripe as standard but I'm not sure what options are available with WordPress.

Also, as a side note, when registering a domain is it best to go for a .ie or a .com? The business would be solely based in Ireland so I'm thinking a .ie is a bit of a no brainer but I'm open to correction on that.

Any advice is much appreciated.

PaulPinnacle

They're very different tools, so hard to make a direct comparison there.

With Squarespace, you pay a fee to access their site builder to provide you with an easy (relatively speaking) drag and drop interface for building sites. It means you don't have the cost of paying for a professional web designer, but that also means you don't have a professional design or the flexibility that would come from usnig a more powerful CMS like WordPress.

WordPress is a blogging platform that has now gone on to become the CMS behind a large portion of the web (assuming we're speaking about a self-hosted WordPress.org site and not a WordPress.com blog). The open source nature of it means that there are thousands of developers developing countless themes, apps and customisations for the platform. You have the ability to control the smallest details of your site, but this comes at the cost of it having a far steeper learning curve than a Squarespace site. The ability to control these details mean that you can (assuming you hire a decent designer or spend the time learning the skills yourself) end up with a higher quality, better customised and much better performing (from an SEO point of view) site.

With WordPress you'd have the option of using any payment processor you liked, you'd just need someone to take care of the integration of it for you (or learn how to do it yourself).

As for the TLD (top level domain, the .ie or the .com), where are the customers you'll be targeting?

If you'll only be targetting the Irish market and there's no chance of expansion to international markets at any point in the future, it makes sense to go with a .ie. The hurdles you have to jump through tend to lend the TLD a little more trust with users and it'll be instantly recognised as being relevant to the Irish market.

If you'll be targetting international customers (or have the potential to do so at any point in the future) you'd be better off going with a gTLD (generic top level domain) like a .com/.net/.irish/.org/.co/etc. This gives you more flexibility at targetting the site at different geographical areas in the future as you expand.

EIREX

Sqaurespace sites tend to look very professional however the e-commerce back end is cumbersome and slow especially if you have a lot of products to upload. Also the number of templates available are limited and if the 'hipster' look doesn't suit your business it may not be for you.

El Guapo!

Thanks for the replies.
I've had a good look around Squarespace and while I do like the "drag and drop" abilities, I think the available styles wouldn't suit the niche I'm aiming for. It also seems a bit restricted whereas I like the endless possibilities of WordPress.

With WordPress, is WooCommerce the way to go for most ecommerce stores? I'm not aiming for anything too complex. I want the end product to look professional yet still basic and easy to use for the customer.

Graham

El Guapo! wrote: »

With WordPress, is WooCommerce the way to go for most ecommerce stores?

WooCommerce would certainly be the market leader in the WordPress e-commerce space. That means plenty of themes/addons/experience out there for it.