How to Export Products from Squarespace and Import to Shopify

Squarespace never built its commerce platform to let you leave easily. There's no one-click "export everything" button, no built-in way to move variants and images cleanly, and support won't walk you through the process because the goal was never for you to switch. If you're planning a move to Shopify, you need to know exactly what Squarespace will hand you, what it won't, and how to get a clean product catalog into Shopify without spending a week manually retyping SKUs.

Why Squarespace's Export Doesn't Just Work

Squarespace lets you export products to a CSV file, but that file is built for Squarespace's own re-import, not for any other platform. Product descriptions come through as plain text, stripped of formatting. Variant options like size, color, and material get flattened into a single field instead of Shopify's variant-per-row structure. Image URLs point to Squarespace's CDN, which means if you delete your Squarespace site after migrating, every product photo breaks. None of this is a bug. The export was never designed with Shopify's CSV schema in mind, so someone has to bridge the gap.

Step 1: Export Your Product Catalog from Squarespace

1. Log into your Squarespace dashboard and go to Commerce → Inventory.
2. Click Export in the top right corner.
3. Choose All Products, or filter by category if you're migrating in batches.
4. Download the CSV file. Squarespace will email you a link if the catalog is large.
5. Separately export your customer list and order history if you need historical data. Squarespace does not include this in the product CSV.

If you have more than 500 products, do this in batches of 200 to 300. Large exports are where Squarespace's CSV formatting breaks down most often, and smaller files are far easier to QA before you import them anywhere.

Step 2: Clean the CSV Before Shopify Ever Sees It

This is the step most store owners skip, and it's the reason most DIY migrations end up with broken variants and duplicate listings. Before you touch Shopify's import tool, open the CSV in Excel or Google Sheets and fix these five things:

• Handle/URL slugs: Squarespace and Shopify use different URL structures. Map old slugs to new ones now, or you'll lose every backlink and search ranking those product pages earned.
• Variant structure: Shopify needs one row per variant using Option1/Option2/Option3 columns, not a single comma-separated field. This has to be restructured manually or with a script.
• Image URLs: Download every product image locally rather than relying on Squarespace's hosted URLs. Those links can go dead the moment you cancel your Squarespace plan.
• SKUs: Squarespace doesn't require SKUs, but Shopify's inventory and fulfillment apps depend on them. Add them now if they're missing.
• Pricing and tax fields: Confirm currency formatting matches Shopify's expected format, meaning no currency symbols, decimals only.

Step 3: Import Into Shopify the Right Way

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Products → Import.
2. Upload your cleaned CSV file.
3. Shopify will show a preview of the first few rows. Check that variants, prices, and images mapped correctly before confirming.
4. Click Import products and wait for the confirmation email. Large catalogs can take 15 to 30 minutes to process.
5. Spot-check at least 10% of imported products for missing images, broken variants, or incorrect pricing.

Run this on a handful of test products first if your catalog is over 1,000 SKUs. It's much easier to fix a formatting mistake on 20 products than to untangle it across 2,000 after the fact.

What Squarespace Doesn't Export (And How to Handle It)

The product CSV covers titles, prices, and basic variants. It does not include:

• Customer accounts and saved payment methods — customers will need to create new Shopify accounts.
• Order history — export separately as a CSV and store it for reference. Shopify has no native way to backfill historical orders.
• Product reviews — these live in whatever review app you used on Squarespace and need their own export/import path. Judge.me and Loox both support CSV review imports.
• Discount codes and gift cards — these need to be recreated manually in Shopify's Discounts section.
• SEO metadata — meta titles and descriptions rarely carry over cleanly. Budget time to rewrite these for your top 20 to 30 traffic-driving pages at minimum.

Common Import Errors and How to Fix Them

• "Invalid handle" errors: Usually caused by special characters in the product title. Strip apostrophes, ampersands, and non-standard characters from the Handle column.
• Missing variant images: Shopify needs image filenames to match exactly between the CSV and your uploaded image files. Double-check casing and file extensions.
• Products importing as duplicates: This happens when the same Handle appears on multiple rows without being grouped as variants of one product. Fix the CSV structure, not the Shopify settings.
• Inventory showing as zero: Confirm the "Inventory Qty" column has numeric values, not blank cells. Shopify defaults blanks to zero stock.

Don't Do This Migration Twice

Every store owner who's done a rushed CSV import ends up doing it again three months later, fixing broken variants, chasing missing images, and rewriting SEO metadata that should have moved over the first time. A clean migration takes longer up front but saves you from redoing the entire catalog while you're also trying to run a business.

TheDeki handles Squarespace-to-Shopify migrations for stores with anywhere from 50 to 50,000 products, including CSV cleanup, image re-hosting, redirect mapping to protect your SEO rankings, and post-migration QA. Book a free migration consultation with TheDeki and we'll tell you exactly what your migration will involve before you touch a single CSV file.