Best Ecommerce Platform for Beauty Brands: WooCommerce vs. Shopify vs. Squarespace
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I’m delighted to see you here today, because it means you’re not pondering how to start a skincare line anymore, but you’re actually committed to setting your shop up and getting the ball rolling. Congratulations!
Since you’ve landed here, you already know that your next step is to choose an ecommerce platform that fits your brand. With the saturated ecommerce market in front of you, it can be difficult to determine what you and your customers need. Luckily, we’ve put this comprehensible guide together that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the most popular ecommerce platforms out there.
Without further ado, today we’ll compare WooCommerce vs. Shopify vs. Squarespace. Let’s go!
What Beauty Brands Need in an Ecommerce Platform
Choosing the right platform for your business is an important decision, and you should look at several factors as you’re considering your options. Before we go into all the nitty-gritty, here are some important tips to keep in mind:
1. Easy Website Setup
Many beauty brands start small, without a big team or significant financial backing. That’s why your first ecommerce platform should be comprehensible enough for someone who doesn’t have coding experience behind them.
Some features that’ll make it easier to set up your website are: drag-and-drop builders, ready-to-use templates, and intuitive, clear dashboards.
A couple of template examples from Squarespace
2. Dropshipping Support
An increasing number of beauty businesses choose skincare dropshipping with private label skincare products, working with a partner that fulfills products under their brand.
If you’re one of the brands selling private label cosmetics, your non-negotiable in an ecommerce platform should be whether it can seamlessly connect with your private label partner, so your operations can run smoothly with as little manual input as possible.
3. SEO and Marketing Features
Building and launching a website is a great achievement, but it doesn’t stop there — your platform needs to have features that’ll help get your brand the recognition and reach it deserves.
When looking into different platforms, research if they provide built-in, intuitive SEO features, content marketing tools, and integrations with email and social media platforms. When you have these in place, your website will function like a well-oiled machine, making your brand findable for potential customers and easier to set up personalized marketing campaigns for existing ones.
Source: WooCommerce YouTube
4. Customization and branding flexibility
Branding is one of the things that makes your brand instantly recognizable and distinguishes it from the competition. Your ecommerce platform should be able to support your branding and identity, so that your website is polished, doesn’t look generic, and is on-brand.
Pay attention to nuances like fonts, colours, and product layout options to ensure your chosen platform doesn’t jeopardize your branding.
5. Scalability as You Grow
As a small skincare dropshipping brand, you might not yet be thinking about scaling your business. But what happens when you find success? Will your ecommerce platform be able to support your growth?
I know it might seem distant at the moment, but you should check if your ecommerce partner can support a higher number of SKUs and orders if you happen to go viral overnight, if an influx of orders won’t crash your site, or if they support global currencies and shipping.
Source: Shopify
You might find a platform that’s better for small brands now and switch to one best suited for growing brands in the future (e.g., if you want to change your model to skincare wholesale), or you can stick with one all the way through. Consider if you’ll be okay with the effort of migrating all your products and systems.
6. Compliance and Product Presentation
Being a player in beauty and skincare is no joke, and you have to comply with regulations and laws to sell your products in the first place. That means your website should clearly present crucial information, like ingredients, product descriptions, and certifications.
Product presentation matters too, because it’ll be what draws your customer in. See what visuals and product displays your ecommerce platform can provide for you, so it’s easy for your customers to navigate and find products.
Squarespace for Beauty Brands
Price:
$16/month (Personal Plan)
$23/month (Business Plan)
$27/month (Basic Commerce Plan)
$49/month (Advanced Commerce Plan)
Squarespace is an all-in-one ecommerce platform that combines design templates, website hosting, basic ecommerce, and marketing tools. It focuses on ease of use, design, and strong visual storytelling.
Source: Squarespace
Pros
Designer-friendly visuals and templates. Squarespace is known for its aesthetic templates that support high-quality visuals and other advanced design elements.
Low technical barrier. This platform promises a relatively easy UI and drop-and-drag functionalities, without needing too much technical website-building knowledge.
All-in-one platform. With Squarespace, you don’t need to worry about website hosting, buying a domain, or basic analytics, as these features are built in, and you don’t need separate plug-ins for them.
Cons
Less flexibility for large or complex catalogs. This ecommerce platform is less adaptable if you want to carry a large number of products or SKUs or have advanced inventory control.
Fewer third-party integrations than other platforms. Squarespace doesn’t support as many extensions and integrations, compared to, for example, Shopify or WooCommerce. So if you need niche extensions, chances are this platform won’t be able to handle it.
Squarespace is best for:
Businesses with a strong emphasis on branding and design, solopreneurs with design experience, or a brand that employs designers.
Brands with smaller catalogs and SKUs.
Shopify for Beauty Brands
Price:
$5/month (Starter Plan)
$29/month (Basic Shopify Plan)
$79/month (Shopify Grow Plan)
$299/month (Advanced Shopify Plan)
Custom pricing for Shopify Plus (for enterprise-level merchants)
Shopify is an ecommerce platform built specifically for online stores. It’s one of the largest and most versatile platforms with a large ecosystem of plug-ins, apps, and integrations. Its main focus is on reliability and ease of use for brand owners.
Pros
Easy setup. Users without a technical background can easily set up their website, and the admin dashboard is easy to navigate.
Huge app ecosystem. Shopify’s strength is the thousands of apps in its store that can support you with things like marketing and dropshipping, without too much hassle.
Growth support. Shopify has many features that support brands as they grow (multi-channel and global selling, multiple currencies, etc.)
Cons
Restricted support for unusual workflows. Shopify has fewer customization options than, for example, WooCommerce, and you might hit constraints if you want to implement unusual workflows.
Escalating costs. Although entry costs can be low, they can quickly add up if you wish to use premium themes and apps.
Shopify is best for:
Beauty brand owners without technical experience who want to launch quickly.
Businesses that want robust customization options.
Growing brands looking to scale and sell in multiple channels.
WooCommerce for Beauty Brands
Price:
Free (WordPress plug-in), but additional fees may apply (domain, hosting, transaction fees)
WooCommerce (Woo) is an ecommerce plug-in for WordPress. This platform gives you full control over the design and hosting, plus its strong side is the content management you get with it being on WordPress (blog, SEO), along with ecommerce features.
Pros
Complete control over customization. With WooCommerce, you can fully customize your store from themes and product displays to checkouts and plug-ins.
Strong marketing integrations. Since Woo is WordPress-based, you get many marketing tools, like SEO plug-ins, control over metadata, your content, and the native blogging feature.
Affordability. Both WordPress and the WooCommerce plug-in are free to use.
Cons
Needs more technical knowledge to operate. As you get that extended control over your store, you also need developer-level knowledge to operate your WooCommerce store.
Additional costs. Starting with Woo is free, but everything that comes on top (premium plug-ins, multiple currency support, shipping controls, etc.) will quickly add up.
WooCommerce is best for:
Brand owners with developing experience or in-house/outsourced developers who can help with managing the behind-the-scenes of your store.
Brands that are looking to build highly customized stores.
Businesses that value easy integration with marketing features.
Comparison: WooCommerce vs. Shopify vs. Squarespace
| Squarespace | Shopify | WooCommerce | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $16/month (Personal Plan), $23/month (Business Plan), $27/month (Basic Commerce Plan), or $49/month (Advanced Commerce Plan) | $5/month (Starter Plan), $29/month (Basic Shopify Plan), $79/month (Shopify Grow Plan), $299/month (Advanced Shopify Plan), custom pricing for Shopify Plus (for enterprise-level merchants) | Free (WordPress plug-in), but additional fees may apply (domain, hosting, transaction fees) |
| Ease of use | Easy to use without technical knowledge, but may need designer support. | Very easy to use without developing or designing experience. | Requires developer-level knowledge for setup. |
| Integrations | Moderate amount of possible integrations, but can support the basics (payments, marketing, analytics). | Strong support for integrations for all kinds. Thousands of options in the Shopify store for marketing, dropshipping, ecommerce, and logistics. | A big ecosystem for marketing integrations. Also supports third-party apps and integrations. |
| Dropshipping support | More limited support compared to other platforms, but dropshipping is possible via third-party integrations. | Excellent support for dropshipping and print-on-demand apps. | Good support for many dropshipping plug-ins and tools for automation, inventory management, etc. |
| Beauty-specific features |
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Time to set up shop
With picking an ecommerce platform, there really is no one-size-fits-all formula. It all depends on your current business priorities and where you want to be in the future.
But at the end of the day, you should find a balance between your technical resources, budget, goals, and how you want your brand presented to the world. I hope this WooCommerce vs. Shopify vs. Squarespace comparison gives you a clearer outlook on the possibilities of all the different platforms and what direction could be the best for your brand. Good luck!
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