Commerce Tips From Circle Pros
Pavillon Studio
Pavillon Studio is a Vienna-based creative studio focused on branding, digital design, and digital communication. Co-founders and Circle members Cecilia Capri and Mathias Assefi have built a team of 17 designers, illustrators, programmers, filmmakers, and marketers, and still prefer the ease and simplicity of Squarespace’s Commerce platform when building online stores for their clients.
Mathias Assefi: For our clients, a fast and easy way of editing and updating their web shops is very important. Squarespace is a perfect choice because, as a creative studio, we can do a proper design and our clients can handle the final pieces like filling in content and updating their site in the future. Other platforms do not have as many design possibilities like Squarespace has. That’s the reason we started to work with Squarespace.
“The growth rates are quite big. They are definitely in between 30-80% a year over the first 2-3 years.”
Client independence isn’t the only reason to love Squarespace online stores. Mathias and Cecilia say their clients see between 30% and 80% growth in their first 2-3 years using the Commerce platform.
MA: In this context, it’s also worth mentioning that the analytics features of Commerce are really good and easy to use. This is feedback we often get from our clients, especially non-marketers.
Cecilia and Mathias of Pavillon Studio
Above all else, Pavillon Studio loves the design freedom that Squarespace Commerce gives them without the need to spend too much time on technical or coding tasks.
MA: From the beginning, the most important thing for us was that we could actually do our projects from the design point of view. We almost never have to think about technical challenges, administration and all that other stuff. We have ideas, and can immediately start to realise those. The content editor gives us nearly complete freedom to design a webshop without the need for code. That is the biggest power of Commerce in our opinion.
Brooklyn Art Library and The Sketchbook Project
Sketchbooks on the shelves of Brooklyn Art Library
“I’d say our favorite Commerce feature is abandoned cart recovery. This allows us to re-engage with our community”
Steven’s advice to other designers and entrepreneurs working in e-commerce is to start early.
SP: Build something right out of school, if you can, as you have less to lose or miss! And be OK with it living many lives and going through iterations of what it may look like. As long as your key message is the same, your community will stand by you.
Brooklyn Art Library is a creative platform and venue in New York City. It’s also home to interactive projects like The Sketchbook Project, the world’s largest collection of sketchbooks with more than 41,000 sketchbooks on its physical shelves and another 20,000 in its digital library. Founder, director, and Circle member Steven Peterman and his team use Squarespace Commerce to raise awareness, build their audience, and sell merchandise ranging from artist projects and sketchbooks to supply kits and apparel.
Steven Peterman: Since building out our Commerce platform on Squarespace, we've been able to see significant growth in The Sketchbook Project as a product. We've been able to build out our shop to add in different types of Brooklyn Art Library/Sketchbook Project merchandise and integrate the actual sketchbook in creative ways on different pages of our site to promote the expansion of our community.
Squarespace Commerce gives Steven the tools to run a business and frees up his time to focus on the creative side of his work.
SP: Squarespace really does make the process easier. For example, our favorite Commerce feature is abandoned cart recovery. This allows us to re-engage with potential or continuing members of our community and let them know about other merchandise they may be interested in, give them individual discounts, etc.
Special thanks to Pavillon Studio and Brooklyn Art Library for sharing their stories.
Find out more about their work at www.pavillonstudio.com and www.brooklynartlibrary.com.
Check out one of Pavillon’s Commerce designs or get involved with The Sketchbook Project.
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