mikewr

Small addition I'll add: according to Squarespace's documentation, regarding inventory counts, only "Availability - Whether or not there's at least one of the product in stock." is synced. However, in my Facebook shop catalog, I can see that the inventory counts for my items were synced from Squarespace, so perhaps this functionality was added and the documentation was not updated to match yet.

Yea I feel exactly the same way. I don't have enough confidence that everything will work as expected, like everything is sort of cobbled together and prone to issues. While I can't speak exactly for your use case of routing order information to your drop shipping company, depending on what they need to fulfill and order, you might be able to forward the order notification from Facebook to them, assuming Facebook sends one (which I'm not sure why they wouldn't). Maybe you could set up an auto-forwarding filter in your e-mail to handle this. I don't think orders made via Facebook Checkout would appear in any way in your Squarespace Orders screen, but I don't know for sure. In terms of inventory management, my understanding is that if using Facebook Checkout, your Facebook/Instagram shop is essentially a completely separate store, with its own inventory and order fulfillment process. Thus an order made from FB/Instagram would trigger (I assume) a notification from Facebook that you have a new order, then you need to fulfill it however you do that. It would then decrement the inventory in Facebook's system by one (or however many items were purchased) and the cycle would continue. Except that Squarespace is syncing data at a regular clip from your Squarespace store to Facebook, including, as far as I can tell, inventory counts. My understanding is that this is a one directional aka Squarespace overwrites everything in Facebook and nothing is sent back to Squarespace from Facebook. Thus, inventory management would have to be adjusted manually in Squarespace for orders made from Facebook. An order would decrement the inventory count in Facebook's system, but unless this is also somehow (I assume manually) decremented in Squarespace, that would be overwritten when the sync happens and inventory counts would get all messed up. That's basically where I'm stuck--seem to be quite a few gaps. I think a two way sync would largely solve this problem, but maybe that is not technically feasible.

Thanks, @creedon. That did it for the first issue of clicking on the title! I don't know how I missed that in my search; I think I was searching for "dropdown" instead of "folder". But anyway, thanks for pointing me to it. I used the code from Beaver Hero: https://beaverhero.com/squarespace-make-folder-clickable/#Squarespace_71 Only used the desktop block (not mobile) and it worked exactly as expected after I updated the parameter to point to the name of my folder slug and whatnot. The folder/dropdown title is clickable on desktop and goes to the assigned link, while it isn't clickable on mobile (it opens the folder as usual in the mobile menu). Will do more testing, but so far looks good. Still no luck on the underlining of links in the folders though, but that's a different problem and maybe much more convoluted to solve. I've opened a ticket with Squarespace about that specifically, so I'll see what they say. Thanks again.

Hi everyone, I recently changed over to Squarespace 7.1 from my Brine 7.0 template and am facing an issue where clicking the dropdown title in my site's main navigation doesn't open the first page in the list. I know that according to Squarespace's support article, this is the expected behavior in 7.1, but I liked that feature in 7.0, so I would like to see if it is relatively easy to get back with a little custom code or tweaking. It's a shame that it no longer functions the same and I wonder why they removed it. Has anyone been successful doing this kind of thing? Is there relatively easy code that can be added to make this work? Also, I should note too that it seems that if links are added to the dropdown list, they don't get underlined when the links are clicked and the underlying page displayed. I recall this used to work back in 7.0 (although I could be mis-remembering). Is this expected behavior? Is there anyway to get this functionality back (for example, so I can link to all the product categories of my store in this dropdown and have the links be underlined when the user is browsing that specific shop category page)? Thanks for any help! -Mike

Thanks for the reply. Glad to know I'm not the only one facing issues with this feature. I second that this is very disappointing to hear--it certainly seems like they have quite a lot to fix up with this, as well as scramble to figure out a solution before the Facebook cutover. Too bad that an advertised feature has so many issues, but hopefully they can get it all fixed up and have a good solution soon.

Hi All, For those who sync and connect their Squarespace e-commerce store to Facebook and Instagram Shops, how are you handling the changes by Facebook/Meta to no longer allowing users to checkout through your Squarespace site? Facebook no longer allows "checkout on your website" since June of last year and after April 24th of this year (so in a month and a half or so) all sites using this option will be disabled. Here are some links about this: https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/27/instagram-facebook-force-checkout-experience-shops-soon/ https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1164525704208548 I contacted Squarespace support regarding this, and they are telling me only "checkout with your website" is supported, but I was kind of surprised to hear this as this option is no longer supported by Facebook. Squarespace support directed me to the following support article: https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001257067-Selling-products-on-Facebook-and-Instagram#toc-manage-your-shop-on-facebook-and-instagram So I guess I'm a little confused and surprised that there doesn't seem to be a solution so close to the deadline. I don't have the option to go back to "checkout with your website" in Meta Commerce Manager and this won't even be allowed after April 24th (all shops using it will be disabled), but Squarespace tells me that this is the only supported way to integrate my Squarespace store with Facebook and Instagram Shops? My main concern is syncing inventory, as I manage that centrally in Squarespace and don't want to have to manage two separate inventories for Squarespace and Facebook and Instagram Shops. Any suggestions, advice, or best practices here would be much appreciated! Thanks.

Does anyone happen to know if Squarespace integrates with GovX (or something similar) to offer military and first responder verification and discounts in a standard way? Alternatively, anyone have a good way to do this? I've seen other sites use GovX so that's just what I figured was easiest way to do this but I'm open to other mechanisms. I don't want to just offer a generic discount code listed somewhere on my site since everyone would use it, not just veterans or first responders. Thanks.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. There's a couple things here: I'm trying to keep this fully automated and reuse as much of the pre-existing feed plumbing that exists in Squarespace as possible so that I can use the sync feed as an input for various platforms (besides just FB). In other words, I'd prefer not to have to do manual exports every time I make a change or to update stock counts (and thus, probably, manual imports to these other platforms or at least an intermediary location like Google Drive). I realize that maybe that is the only option and there's no way around the manual export, in which case I'm out of luck. Is there anyway to automate those exports at least, for example to trigger it any time there is a change in the product listings or once per day? Interesting that the CSV export done manually (that you show a snip from) is formatted differently than the CSV export that is created by the feed Squarespace uses to sync with Facebook Marketplace/Instagram. No HTML at all in the description field in that one. Don't know what to make of that. Maybe that's another showstopper to doing this in an automated way reusing that stuff. Ultimately it sounds like there's no way to get a little extra padding in there before so that it makes its way into the CSV or CSV generated for the sync feed. I guess doing a manual export of the CSV is a hard limitation, or is there some way to automate that at least so I can try delving into what you suggest and make some kind of script or formula that could make the proper tweaks while the file is hosted in some intermediary area? Thanks again for the help.

Hi all, I'm trying to figure out how to add some white space as padding to the end of paragraphs/lines in product descriptions. As far as I can tell, Squarespace automatically strips white space at the end of lines when saving, so I can't just add a few spaces and call it a day. Chatting with Squarespace support, they suggested that custom coding might do it. However, I have no idea where to start so looking for some help how to achieve this For some context, the reason I am doing this is to workaround an existing bug in Squarespace where rich text formatting in product descriptions does not properly get transferred over in export (e.g. when integrating with Facebook Marketplace to export product listings to that platform). I suspect this may be due to the fact that behind the scenes all the product information is being exported via CSV (the feed URL downloads a CSV if I put it in my browser), which can't really retain things like bullet points. This results in all my product description text being smashed together into one long paragraph without any carriage returns and the bullet points and other styling removed. I could live with this until a proper fix is in place IF I could figure out how just to pad the lines a little so when they are all clumped together into one large paragraph without bullet points they had proper spacing between sentences. To get an idea of the problem I'm trying to overcome, see attached screenshots. The formatting as I enter it into Squarespace appears on the website with the proper rich text formatting (e.g. bullet points). When this gets put into the CSV, all the rich text is removed and all the lines are smashed together into one big paragraph. In Facebook, the description results in basically the same (although it turns the ASCII codes for some of the advanced characters back into what they should be which is nice). Thus, how do I add a little bit of padding/white space to the end of lines in Squarespace that make it into the CSV export and thus properly appear when imported by the final destination, without affecting how this all appears on my Squarespace site? Any suggestions would be much appreciated! Thanks.

For what its worth, I also think the issue about the descriptions formatting being stripped might actually be because the sync happens behind the scenes using a CSV file (when I paste the feed URL provided by Squarespace into my browser, it downloads a CSV), which can't really store rich text. So even if it makes it to the right field in Facebook's database, it has already stripped out the rich formatting before when it was put into the CSV.

This is really good and useful info. Thanks for raising the question and the helpful responses! Out of curiosity, what's the risk here? Let's say I add some of this custom code, then Squarespace goes and updates the confirmation page to add this stuff standard, will anything break? Will the information just sort of be duplicated? Or is it hard to tell what the impact would be since we don't know how Squarespace would implement these things? Is there a good and simple way to stay ahead of this kind of stuff happening in a systematic or programmatic way such that if a change is made, either I can limit the amount of time that a "broken" confirmation page is displayed, or even automatically hide/remove the custom changes until I have a chance to review their impact with the platform's changes (to prevent customers seeing something broken)? Thanks for any thoughts on this.

Looks like it is official with Meta/FB/Instagram changing some things in the ecommerce department: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1164525704208548 Not sure what this means for integration between Squarespace and FB. Maybe nothing, since it seems the only change is now we will no longer be allowed to "Checkout on your website" and be forced to switch to "Checkouts on Facebook and Instagram." I guess FB wants to charge a transaction fee and get a cut of all those sales. Not surprised I guess, but will be kind of a pain since I assume we'd have to manually manage/split inventory between Facebook's ecommerce platform and Squarespace's. I wonder if there's a way to share inventories between these two platforms, or if that's something that could be made part of the integration. Would certainly simplify inventory management a whole lot. Hopefully it is on the docket and I wonder what Squarespace's plan is for all this.

Would you mind sharing where you read that FB is "pulling back from commerce"? I hadn't heard that and I'd be curious to get some insight into their thought process/intent (e.g. would they ultimately remove shopping options down the line?). While you are probably right that the prudent thing to do is not hold my breath, I do hope this get's resolved as I would like to finally get an Instagram shop for my business. Let's see!

A lot of dimensions to this--it in large part boils down to which tradeoffs one is willing to make and accept--but below are some tips based on experience and my own research/learnings (I'll use Amazon as the marketplace example): A business will need to spend quite a bit on marketing and advertising in the early days to build the trust needed for customers to buy directly from them that they haven't necessarily earned yet (for example, people trust Amazon that they have their back if there's an issue). Yes, one can in theory save on that 15% cut that Amazon would otherwise take, but in the short term that is invested into convincing customers to take a bit of an extra risk buying outside of the comfortable walled garden of Amazon (they basically lose that psychological comfort). An already trusted brand/business can help to overcome some of this, but there are still a few mental hurdles folks have to make to get over switching from an existing marketplace to buying direct from a brand that previously sold on a trusted platform. To help reduce those costs, reduce the friction as much as possible. Make checkout--and getting to checkout--super simple (Squarespace has a nice, easy to use checkout form that is pretty standardized--just don't add too many extra form inputs) and make a simple return and privacy policy so people don't worry too much should they face an issue. Quality customer service can help a lot here. If there are any other incentives one can provide to buy direct (e.g. having exclusive products on your site you can't get on one of the marketplaces, or even in the short term maybe offering discounted pricing), those help. Might also need to risk displaying a brand's Amazon review score for some time while one builds up a collection of reviews from direct purchases. But at the end of the day it is a bit of a change management exercise, and none of this is a replacement for a compelling sales pitch/message. Don't expect to be saving much compared to the 15% cut Amazon takes in the short term since most of that is invested in changing people's existing buying habits and building trust. To some extent it may actually be easier to start with an an emancipated and independent online presence without ever caving into Amazon, since there's no brand association to break--along with the costs inherent in that. Some ideas and tips to get started. This is certainly not an exhaustive list and there are a lot of dimensions to the topic--nor am I any kind of "expert" or anything--but hopefully it gives some ideas about a few of the maybe less-than-obvious things that need to be considered.

I should also say that I looked through Facebook's commerce settings as well to see if there was some way to enable rich text (like @niteshifte suggested), but couldn't find anything like this. One of the things I brought up with their support, but of course received basically no help on it so that ended in a dead end.