10 of the best Squarespace templates for an online store

Maca is a colorful, contemporary ecommerce template with a comprehensive homepage that acts like a highlight reel for your products: You've got a full-bleed featured image at the very top, followed by featured sale items, a grid of bestselling product thumbnails, some brief blurbs, a banner image for a collection, and a preview of a featured blog post. (Links to that entire blog, your full store, an about page, and a contact page sit in the top navigation menu; the lower one is where customers can find stockists, FAQs, shipping/return details, and your socials.) Most users could probably stand to delete portions of it, TBH, but Maca's tasteful use of negative space, color blocking, and tons of calls to action keep things from feeling like a content overload even if you keep it mostly as-is.

Honorable mentions: Crosby (7.1), Hester (7.1), and Loam (7.1).

A perennial favorite among veteran Squarespace users, Brine is an older Squarespace ecommerce template that still feels ultra-modern and relatively flexible — you'd never think it came out way back in 2015. It offers a higher degree of customization than most of its version 7.0 peers, especially when it comes to navigation menus, and supports almost every page type available — that includes event pages, album pages, and stackable index pages in addition to store pages. (Bonus: The product images on those have a neat hover-over effect.) But most importantly, depending on the web designer you talk to, Brine is the rare template with parallax scrolling, a depth-illusion design effect that hasn't carried over to version 7.1 — even Hester, its 7.1 equivalent.

Honorable mentions: Hyde (7.0) and Pedro (7.0).

Not to be confused with Sonny, an events template from Squarespace version 7.0, Soony is a simple, slightly funky one-pager that's ideal for a small online shop. Its layout is slick and very scrollable, from the full-bleed banner image that leads into a grid of your products down to the brief bio with a headshot and a newsletter sign-up block; a fade-in animation effect on the images and headers adds a little spice. (Note that the '70s-esque typeface used in the demo version's headers is probably little too trendy for most brands, but you can change it in just a few clicks.) Subtle social icons can be found in the upper and lower navigation, while links to a contact page and shipping/returns info live just in the latter.

Honorable mention: Mariana (7.1).

Lexington is a newer ecommerce template that stands out for several reasons: One, its demo site comes pre-formatted with videos, including a dedicated video page with an animated header. (All Squarespace templates support video, but they're rarely set up for you in the demo content.) Two, it features fun accents like a moving wave-shaped text banner, circular photo crops and buttons, and a hover-over effect on its store's product images. And three, it can easily be turned into a modern one-page site; a gradient homepage background and all of those accents keep things visually interesting the whole way down. It gets docked a few points for some wonky alignments on mobile, but all in all, it's a fantastic pick if you want to showcase video tutorials and how-tos alongside your products instead of redirecting customers to another platform like YouTube or Vimeo.

Honorable mention: Otroquest (7.1).

Similar to Maca in its strong use of color blocking, negative space, featured posts, and thumbnail galleries to break up a content-heavy page, Idrah is a glossy blogging template with a shop attached. This one's a tad heavier on socials than many of its peers (in a good way), with icons in the top and bottom navigation menus and a built-in feed of Instagram posts. It's also plopped a section for reviews and testimonials at the bottom of the shop, which can really hammer home the "I am a person making stuff, not a faceless, mass-producing corporation" thing. Give it a look if you're a seller who wants space to elaborate on their process, or a creator who wants to earn passive income. (This feels like a good place to re-up Squarespace's new on-demand Custom Merch feature, which is a low-risk, low-commitment way to get into ecommerce.)

Honorable mentions: Stanton (7.1).

If you have the means to do your own custom printing, here's a free pro tip: Scrap the Society6 or RedBubble page in favor of a personalized, self-managed Squarespace website where your work won't get buried under thousands of other postings (and you pocket more than 10 to 20 percent of each sale). Spotted is a show-stopping pick for the purpose that immediately grabs visitors' attention with a full-bleed, full-page image that's overlaid with your artist statement. Potential patrons can scroll down to check out previews of different series and popular prints, click on individual product pages for close-ups, visit the about page for a résumé-style bio, and submit inquiries on the contact page. The demo version also includes info about framing and mounting options, but that's an easy delete if you don't offer those services.

Honorable mentions: Montclaire (7.1), Jones (7.0), and Jotterpress (7.1).

Trying to stand out among the "started making polymer clay earrings during quarantine" crowd? Whip up a sophisticated online shop using Anise, a newer Squarespace template that's pre-built for a jewelry store with a blog. (Getting your store live sooner > starting a site from near-scratch.) The way it balances visuals and negative space is *chef's kiss*, especially in mobile view. The demo version features an elegant mix of serif and sans serif typefaces and a chic neutral color palette, but you can tweak those styles to fit your own branding. We'd recommend playing around with different fonts at the very least, as the body text looks a little too small as-is in desktop mode.

Honorable mentions: Maru (7.1), Ventura (7.1), and Wesley (7.1).

Alameda takes Galapagos, a popular ecommerce template from version 7.0, and cleans up its look with a minimalist, more symmetrical layout that translates even better to mobile. Your product listings make up its grid-style homepage, which gives users the option of sorting everything into different categories; the demo version goes by Tops, Bottoms, and Sale items. It honestly looks a lot like a Depop or Poshmark profile, bringing a familiarity factor for shoppers, only you get the added freedom to adjust specific design elements and add different pages. Links to a contact page, an about page, and a lookbook/gallery page can already be found in the demo version's top menu alongside social icons, which also get a slot in the lower navigation.

Honorable mentions: Galapagos (7.0), Indigo (7.0), Marta (7.0), and Seen (7.1).

For those who offer made-to-order products, Hales is an ecommerce template with a pre-built photo gallery to showcase samples and a contact page with a custom form — peep the little drop-down list of services. The layout of its homepage is much like Maca's where you've got a full-bleed banner at the top, different sections divided by color-blocking and negative space, and a bunch of calls to action, though the aesthetic choices like color and typeface are more Anise-y. (You'll want to up the size of the body text with this one, too, FYI.) Bonus points for the fact that its top navigation stays in place as you scroll, which makes it easy for customers to explore different parts of the site. Overall, this one feels elegant and versatile.

Squarespace's premium Member Areas feature makes it possible to put content behind a paywall (think workshops, video tutorials, recipes, and newsletters), though not all templates come with it already set up. Growwell is one of the rare few that have it pre-formatted in the demo version, so if you need a website capable of selling digital content and/or subscriptions, you don't have to jump through extra hurdles. Its homepage goes hard on full-bleed visuals and calls to action, which are peppered among an about section, an overview of your service(s), a list of membership tiers, and customer reviews; several different animation effects on its headers, buttons, and imagery keep visitors engaged as they scroll. Patreon and Substack whomst?

Honorable mentions: Comet (7.1) and Passero (7.1).