Squarespace is NOT fit for purpose as an e-commerce solution

After spending a lot of time setting up my online store in Squarespace, and finding solutions and work-arounds to the many problems and issues one is faced with, I have now reached a complete stop with a particular issue.

When you sign up to use Squarespace (or indeed this forum) you are faced with checkboxes that require you to agree with Squarespace's Terms and Conditions, Terms of Service, Privacy Policy etc. No such action is available for me to put on my site. It makes me (and Squarespace) look 10 years behind everyone else. And it is certainly not compliant with any kind of contract law, no matter what territory you may be operating from. We are well past the old days when users of e-commerce sites "agreed" to the Terms and Conditions just by virtue of them using the site. Look at how we have to allow users to agree to the use of cookies.

I am at a loss on a solution around this problem. These are the options that I have tried but are not viable:

Use Squarespace's fields for Store Policies
Terrible. The links to these pop-ups are just dropped, like a second thought, underneath "Review and Purchase". There isn't even a prompt to get customers to read them. I'm not sure what they were thinking by putting this here. At lease allow us to place some text above them like "by continuing you have read and agree to the store policies below"

Custom Checkout Form
This was almost a winner. But no. You can add a checkbox requiring customers to "agree to store Terms and Conditions". You CANNOT, however, add an HTML link to these "Terms and Conditions". Why? Because you cannot add HTML to forms in the checkout area like you can elsewhere. You cannot ask someone to agree to something they cannot read. The only way around this is to ask customers to copy and paste the URL to your Terms and Conditions. I don't think so.

Add text to the Shopping Cart Page
I found a way in this forum to add some text to the Shopping Cart Page to read: "By continuing to checkout you have read and agree to our Terms and Conditions". However, this is not a very elegant solution. It really needs to be at checkout. It is also tricky to control where this appears on this page and on a mobile for example. And I have not been able to find away to stop showing when the cart is empty (I'm sure there is a way). Perhaps there is an elegant solution along this route. I have just not found it yet.

Checkbox Form or Text on the product page
I have also seen suggestions to get agreement to Terms and Conditions on the product page itself, before customers add to cart. This is not a great option as it is kind of off-putting and a few steps behind actually placing an order.

Does anyone have any ideas about solutions to this problem?

I'm so irritated with Squarespace's lack of of fulfilling this very basic requirement for e-commerce. And it is one they use themselves!! So annoying. I think I'm going to send this post to their CEO.

I could not agree more with everything you've said.  I have a client who needs to have customers confirm that they have read the terms and conditions.  To have the links to these only visible in the final stage of the checkout (after they have entered payment information), rather than viewable at all stages throughout the checkout process is not something I have come across with any other eCommerce platform.

This is not the best solution, but it does help put Terms & Conditions in front of a customer just before they are about to make a purchase. I still have the Terms and Conditions within the checkout pages and on the footer of every page. 

I used some code for something else I found from @tuanphan (who has so many many helpful snippets of code, the saviour of Squarespace). I'm still using the .tuan in there. 

I put this as code injection into the header:

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.5.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
$(document).ready(function() { 
		$('.CartFooter-checkout-28MW2').append('<div class="tuan">By continuing to checkout, you have<br/>read and agree to our <strong><a style="color: #7a6e65;" href="https://theneuter.com/terms-and-conditions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Terms and Conditions</a></strong></div>');
	});
</script>
<style>
  .tuan {
    display: block;
    height: auto;
    text-align: left;
    color: #000000;
    background-color: transparent;
    font-size: 1.1rem;
    line-height: 1.5em;
    margin-top: -82px;
    margin-bottom: 300px;
}
</style>

And this in Custom CSS for Mobile

@media screen and (max-width:640px) {
.tuan {
	text-align: center !important;
	margin-top: -20px !important;
}
}

I've had this up for the past month or so and it seems to be working fine. The way the text gets appended means that it also disappears if a customer removes all the items in their cart. 

My site URL if you want look at it live: https://theneuter.com/

Hey @SergioC, your website is so cool! So clean and elegant. Complimenti!

On 10/29/2020 at 4:34 AM, SergioC said:

This is not the best solution, but it does help put Terms & Conditions in front of a customer just before they are about to make a purchase. I still have the Terms and Conditions within the checkout pages and on the footer of every page. 

I used some code for something else I found from @tuanphan (who has so many many helpful snippets of code, the saviour of Squarespace). I'm still using the .tuan in there. 

I put this as code injection into the header:

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.5.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
$(document).ready(function() { 
		$('.CartFooter-checkout-28MW2').append('<div class="tuan">By continuing to checkout, you have<br/>read and agree to our <strong><a style="color: #7a6e65;" href="https://theneuter.com/terms-and-conditions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Terms and Conditions</a></strong></div>');
	});
</script>
<style>
  .tuan {
    display: block;
    height: auto;
    text-align: left;
    color: #000000;
    background-color: transparent;
    font-size: 1.1rem;
    line-height: 1.5em;
    margin-top: -82px;
    margin-bottom: 300px;
}
</style>

And this in Custom CSS for Mobile

@media screen and (max-width:640px) {
.tuan {
	text-align: center !important;
	margin-top: -20px !important;
}
}

 

I've had this up for the past month or so and it seems to be working fine. The way the text gets appended means that it also disappears if a customer removes all the items in their cart. 

My site URL if you want look at it live: https://theneuter.com/

 

Hey there! Love your site. Can you tell me how did you do to put the product description below the Add to basket button?

I'm trying to do something similar on my site.

Thank you so much in advance!

On 10/21/2021 at 8:41 AM, Eazed said:

how did you do to put the product description below the Add to basket button?

There are several ways it can be done. Here is my more generalized solution.

Let us know how it goes.