Orla

I saw Sumup offered as a payment option here on SquareSpace, but it seems to have disappeared, does anyone know anything about this? PayPal is ridiculously expensive in Ireland, the only other option is Stripe. Does anyone know anything? Where and how I can add Sumup? 

Thanks in advance. 

Orla 

Hi, apologies for not replying sooner, I have just spent some time checking and I think I can answer some of your questions. I am NOT an experienced website designer, I don't know the technical names, so please bear with me. 

I created the website nearly 2 years ago and have since been adding to it and making small changes. 

My conversion rate? You mean how many sales have I made through the website? None. Zero. It's frustrating because I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong - but then art is difficult to sell at the best of times, and right now the global economy is nuts. I'm really glad you mentioned Delivery Methods steps - do you mean the Fulfillment section? I don't know if this information is being collected automatically in the Delivery Methods section. And I don't know how to fix that. 

I did do a test sale a few months ago using a different email address and it all looked okay. The only thing it didn't provide was a shipping rate for the artwork in question, which was so small that it wouldn't weigh much anyway. In the email for this test it said that the shipping cost would be provided over the next few days, at that time I didn't have the information entered into the Google Merchant Centre.

Which leads me to my other question: other artists I know use the Irish postal system An Post for deliveries outside of Ireland, but I am concerned that potention buyers won't be familiar with this company and therefore suspicious of it, which is why I am thinking it might be wise to add DHL or similar as an option, but I can't see how to do this - and I'd need to add it to the Google Merchant Centre as well, I think. For some of the very large artworks, I would need to use a dedicated art courier and delivery times could be very different again. However, I've just seen some of the new things there like EasyShip, so I'm going to investigate that, it might be a solution for me. 

One more thing I am working on right now is creating Print on Demand art prints of some of these artworks, and I intend to have a button under the Buy This Artwork button that says something like Buy A Print of this Artwork, and then use Printful or similar. I also want to create e-books and possibly POD versions of those as well. 

Sorry for the long text, but I do appreciate your help. I'll have a look at the other suggestions you made as well, to see if I can do anything with them. 

And while I have you, which is better: using MailChimp for sending newsletters, or the Squarespace set-up? I have a feeling the MailChimp works out better in terms of price .... Other suggestions are also welcome. 

Thank you so much for your feedback. Have a great week, may your karma  be stellar!

Orla 

Hi, I've had this website up and running and add paintings to sell as often as I can, which is not as often as I'd like.

However, I am wondering about a couple of things which might be putting potential buyers off, but don't know how to check them, so am hoping that some of you lovely people might take a look ....

1. I thought I had created a Customs form, as I intend to sell to countries outside of the EU (I'm in Ireland). Can ye check what's there? And if you have any insights as to what needs to be included on the Customs form, please share - I know I need the buyer's name and address, my own name and address, a declaration of what's in the package, the sale price of what's in the package, but I am not sure if I need to include anything else. At the moment I am VAT-exempt in Ireland, and also have my Artist's Exemption from paying tax on their sales of artwork, it's an Irish thing. So do you see a Customs Form?

2. I am also looking into adding another Shipping company, and I'm a bit confused about how I can do this. I can use the Irish postal system (An Post) but only up to 20 kg and only for a limited size. Obviously for really large artworks I'll be using a dedicated art shipping company, but am thinking of offering an option to use DHL or another company as well. (I have also realised (just now, as I write) that I don't have insurance cover for shipping more than a certain size .... arse.) 

3. If you notice anything else that can be tweaked, please let me know. 

The website in question is www.orlaclancycontemporaryart.com, and thank you for all your help. 

Hi everyone. 

To date I've asked for help twice already and all the info I've received has been REALLY helpful. So thanks to all who contributed. It is GREATLY appreciated. 

Now, my new thing: I want to create a slide show of about 25 images which I want to start showing as soon as the visitor hits the page, and use it as a promotion for the landing page, which is the page with the Statement and Bio information. Basically I want to offer one of those images (or ones like them) as a free gift to new buyers from the website. I want to be able to change the images I use every month or so. 

My question is: how do I go about creating this? Normally I'd use PowerPoint to create a slideshow, but I don't think that would work here. I know I can upload PowerPoint to YouTube and I was planning on doing that anyway, but I don't think I can have the YouTube video on the SquareSpace page (not so familiar with how YouTube works anyway, truth be told). 

I've seen something like this on pages made with other platforms, so I would imagine it's a doddle to do once you know how. 

Thanks in advance, lovely people. 

Orla 

Thank you for this. I should have mentioned that I am using MailChimp for the user data, I decided to add it since I posted my query up, having done some research. If I was to the SquareSpace data storage, I would have had to pay extra for it, but could get a free version from MailChimp.

Since posting this I have improved the Privacy Policy, Terms of Sale and Returns and Refunds, and just put all that stuff on one page and provided a link to it from the information on the artworks. If you could take another quick look for me, that would be great. *Pretty please*

1) Do I need to add anything else to the actual GDPR text? I do have terms and conditions of sale already in the checkout section, and I also had them as information with the actual artwork information.

2) Should I put this on every page of the website, and if so, how? Too many banners would look messy - I'm planning on a newsletter pop-up thing later - but could I simply have a link at the bottom for GDPR and Terms & Conditions, so that visitors can just go and read these and we'll all be in the clear?

I'm in Ireland and the EU so I HAVE to do the GDPR thing. 

Thanks in advance, everyone. 

I went in there and made a couple of changes, I wonder, would you mind having another quick look and telling me what you think? I got rid of the email prompt and the express checkout option. 

Your feedback is very helpful and appreciated. 🤩

This feedback is HUGELY helpful, thank you so much. I will remove the redundant bits. 

It's the first time I've ever tried to put together anything remotely resembling an e-commerce website, so any tips at all are really welcome. 

Yep, Hi, just need someone who knows how to get in there to tell me if my checkout is actually enabled or not. I don't see my own URL in the checkout test line (when I went looking through the E-Commerce tab) but then I read that if you're using your own domain, it isn't necessary - my domain is www.orlaclancycontemporaryart.com. 

If one of the tech people could check this, it would be great. Thanks in advance. 

24 minutes ago, Ziggy said:

img.ProductItem-gallery-slides-item-image {
  object-position: 50% 0%;
  object-fit: contain;
}

Yes, that's another situation! But the same problem, try the CSS above.

Thanks again - I actually didn't use this, I went into the section design and adjusted it there. But thank you for your help anyway .... 

On 9/27/2022 at 11:31 AM, Ziggy said:

Great, yes, it looks like it's work to me as well. If you could mark my first response as the answer to your question that would be much appreciated.

Erm, Ziggy, I have spotted something. The code you send me above seems to be working fine on the web page Available Works with the different images with information on it. However, when I click on one of the works to look at it more closely, it appears to be cropped. This seems to be the case for all of the except the artwork entitled All Time, Everywhere, Anyone - this was the one I was working on when I entered that code. 

This is making me think that if I entered that code in the same way with the individual images, they wouldn't be cropped when I click on them to open them - but I thought I'd better run this past you before attempting it. What do you think, so I have a go?

Again, am very appreciative of your help with this. 

37 minutes ago, Ziggy said:

You need to put it in the Custom CSS, under the Design tab in the dashboard.

This guide should help if you can't find where to place it.

https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206545567-Using-the-CSS-Editor#toc-add-css-code

You also don't want to be placing this directly on the page.

I think it worked. Yes, the images are slightly smaller, but they are fully visible. Thank you for your help. 

10 minutes ago, Ziggy said:

Hi @Orla try adding this to the Custom CSS of your website. It should force the image not to fill the container and crop. This will make the images smaller.

.products.collection-content-wrapper .grid-item .grid-image-cover {
    object-fit: contain !important;
}

Please let me know if this has worked for you.

Thank you, Ziggy! Should I put this above or below the image when I upload it? 

Site URL: https://sphere-perch-tsl5.squarespace.com/available-works

I want to display my artworks but in their full sizes, the system is not allowing me to do this. This is why I have investigated the Custom CCS option. 

So far I have deleted the image for one that doesn't show all of the artwork, and attempted to insert a  new image file uploaded from my computer, but it keeps telling me 'Syntax error on line 1' and the https:// is highlighted in purple. 

I didn't enter any code above or below this. I don't know if that matters. But if it does I want to know how I can fix it so I can have all of my images showing properly. At the moment most of them are cropped - not good.

I should add that I'm a complete ignoramus when it comes to coding, so you're going to have to explain it to me like I'm a toddler. (Sorry!) 

Thanks in advance for the help. 

Orla