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Square Online

Score7.5 out of 10

125 Reviews and Ratings

What is Square Online?

Square Online (formerly Weebly) is a basic content management system with blogging and eCommerce features. It can be utilized for building standard websites or specialized webpages for online stores.

Top Performing Features

  • Mobile optimization / responsive design

    The CMS helps users build webpages that work well on mobile devices – whether m-dot pages or responsively designed pages.

    Category average: 8.5

  • WYSIWYG editor

    What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get editing tool allows users to build pages without writing code.

    Category average: 7.9

  • SEO support

    The CMS helps users create the right website infrastructure (pagination, page headers, titles, meta tags, url structure, etc.) to increase the site’s visibility in search engine results.

    Category average: 7.4

Areas for Improvement

  • Internationalization / multi-language

    The software supports multiple languages, countries, currencies, etc.

    Category average: 7.7

  • Availability / breadth of extensions

    There is a broad library of extensions, plug-ins, modules or add-ons that allow users to easily customize their websites without building custom code.

    Category average: 6.9

  • Role-based user permissions

    Permissions to perform actions or access or modify data are assigned to roles, which are then assigned to users, reducing complexity of administration.

    Category average: 8

Great for ANY Business

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it to manage our ecommerce offerings for t-shirts, hats and other related outdoor adventure gear. We also use it as a POS system that helps us make both online sales and in-store sales. We have about 150 different products that we sell and track through Square.

Square allows us to track and sell our goods alongside our RV dealerships main fare... RVs. But t-shirts and gear are marketed and sell differently, so we needed to have a secondary ecommerce solution.

Pros

  • Tracks our inventory and its variables
  • Keeps tabs on our collected and billed sales taxes
  • Tracks our employees and how they each individually interact with the POS processes

Cons

  • Sales Tax reports could be more accessible and thorough
  • Graphics utilizing transparent backgrounds in PNG format should show better in the system
  • Connecting to Woocommerce more directly with all elements connecting correctly

Return on Investment

  • It has made our business more professional when offering our ecommerce products
  • Return on Investment has been high because we've been able to tailor our system to our specific needs using Square
  • Reporting using Square has helped us represent our business correctly internally with high-end business analytics

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Stripe Payments and Avalara

Other Software Used

Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Illustrator CC

Square Online is simple enough to quicky launch your E-Com, but don't expect much more.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used Square Online to launch an independent quick e-commerce website to connect to marketing landing pages for social media. The goal was to quickly and easily get another shopping cart online so targeted users could have an easy place to check out with simply one or two products after they have been educated (from the landing pages).

Pros

  • Easy to get up and running
  • Easy to load products, prices, and shipping costs
  • Easy to run simple accounting reports for sales
  • Simple enough for the customer to use
  • Connects into various checkout methods for the customer

Cons

  • Beyond a simple website, complexity of customizing get limited
  • Customized Shipping options are lacking
  • Customized Coupon Code options are lacking

Return on Investment

  • Get up and running very quickly, saving employee time and hassle
  • Simple checkout with various payment integrations
  • Easy to use admin area

Usability

Alternatives Considered

WordPress, Wix, Adobe Commerce (Magento Commerce) and Shopify

Other Software Used

Shopify, Wix, WordPress

Square Online is Easy to Use, Perfect for On-The-Go, and Affordable - Highly Recommend!

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Square Online a lot for our fundraiser and outside events. For example, we were selling brats and hotdogs, chips, drinks, etc., and we could use Square Online to add all of our menu items and have a quick and easy checkout process. It has been very helpful for on the go sales and is very easy to navigate, so that we can put pretty much anybody behind the tablet!

Pros

  • Organizes Products Well
  • Quick and Easy Checkout Process
  • Fast Processor

Cons

  • Customer Support Hours (we use on weekends and on non-typical business hours, which can be frustrating if we run into a problem)
  • Transaction and Processing Fees add up
  • The Free Plan doesn't offer as much as we would like and is not feasible for a bigger business like ours

Return on Investment

  • It allows us to take sales on the go
  • It is user friendly - customers love it
  • The Fees do need to be factored into our profit margins as they do add up

Alternatives Considered

Shopify and PayPal Zettle

Other Software Used

PayPal Zettle, Shopify

Square makes business a breeze!

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I actually got started with Square quite by accident. For many years I have used Weebly to create and run my websites, and then a couple of years ago Square bought out Weebly. Suddenly I had a lot more e-commerce options without a lot of extra learning curve. So when I got ready to open up a physical location for my shop I really loved how Square integrated with what I was already doing. Now with an iPad and a card reader I can have a great POS system while still being able to maintain my website. Years ago I remember having to have one provider for X, and one provider for Y - so it is nice to have it all in one place, and affordable to boot!

Pros

  • POS system
  • website integration
  • lots of value for the price

Cons

  • better integration with shipping partners
  • more options for personalization of products

An easy drop and drag option for your business website

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Weebly as our website designing platform. We needed an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop option to rebuild our website. WordPress is harder to use and isn't user-friendly. With Weebly, we can easily make changes when needed and it doesn't take a professional website designer to handle it.

Pros

  • Drag and Drop Ease
  • Easy page management
  • Easy to understand terms and pricing
  • Easy to purchase domains

Cons

  • The mobile app is almost worthless
  • The only way to insert a document is using Scribd, which shows the branding and isn't easy to view
  • There are very few themes to choose from. If you change a theme, items become misplaced and distorted.

Return on Investment

  • Can easily be managed in house without paying third party
  • Make changes any time with no delay
  • Increase web presence

Alternatives Considered

WordPress and GoDaddy

Other Software Used

ServiceTitan, PlanGrid, GoDaddy