If you’re an ambitious small business owner using Squarespace for your online store, you likely jumped at the chance to use Meta Shops (on Facebook and Instagram) to showcase your products. It’s a fantastic idea: customers see a product they love, click ‘Add to Cart,’ and are seemingly seamlessly redirected to your website to complete the purchase.
However, many of you have run into a frustrating technical roadblock: after being redirected, your customers land on an empty shopping cart, causing confusion and costing you sales. This issue isn’t your fault; it’s a technical hiccup in how Squarespace interacts with Meta’s redirect system.
The good news is the solution is simple: you need to adjust your Meta Shop’s settings to replace the ‘Add to Cart’ button with a ‘View on Website’ button. This small change ensures the ordering process starts correctly on your site, guaranteeing a smooth and successful checkout.
The Shifting Sands of Meta's E-commerce Policy:
To understand the problem, we need to look back at the last few years of Meta’s e-commerce policy. It’s been a confusing ride!
The Great E-commerce Exclusions (Since 2023):
Starting around 2023, Meta made significant changes. First, they excluded many international countries from using the native “checkout in app” feature, limiting who could sell directly inside Facebook and Instagram.
The Brief U.S. In-App Checkout Mandate:
Then, for businesses based in the United States, Meta briefly forced everyone to use their in-app checkout. This meant all payments and order fulfillment had to be managed directly within Facebook or Instagram for a time.
The Current Alternative: Redirecting to Your Website
Suddenly, that in-app option was dropped for a new strategy: redirecting shoppers to your website to complete the purchase.
This current approach works like this:
A customer is browsing your shop on Instagram.
They click ‘Add to Cart’ on a few items.
They click to check out, and Meta redirects them to your website’s checkout page.
Crucially, this redirect link contains special parameters—a kind of digital note—telling your website which items to automatically add to the cart.
Squarespace and the Empty Cart Mystery:
This is where the plan falls apart for many small businesses using Squarespace.
Why the 'Digital Note' is Ignored?
Most flexible e-commerce platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce allow you to inject small pieces of code (called scripts or parameters) that can read that ‘digital note’ from Meta and automatically populate the shopping cart.
Squarespace, however, is designed to be very clean and secure, and it does not easily accept these script injections or complex URL parameters that Meta uses to transfer cart information.
The result? The customer clicks the link, lands on your beautiful Squarespace checkout page, but the shopping cart is empty. They get frustrated, assume your store is broken, and leave without buying anything. This is a huge loss of potential sales and a bad customer experience!
'View on Website' is Your New Best Friend:
The best and easiest way to solve this issue is to change how your customers start the buying process on Meta.
Switching the Call-to-Action (CTA):
You need to go into your Meta Shop settings and remove the ‘Add to Cart’ option. Instead, you will replace it with the ‘View on Website’ button. This directs traffic to your product pages, not a pre-populated cart.
How this Solves the Problem?
Synchronization Stays:
Your Meta Shop will still be automatically connected and synchronized with your Squarespace store. Any current or future products will still appear correctly on Facebook and Instagram.
A Clean Start:
When a customer clicks ‘View on Website’, they are simply taken to that product’s page on your Squarespace site.
The Right Process:
The entire ordering process now starts inside your website, where they can naturally click ‘Add to Cart’ and proceed to a successful checkout—no empty carts, no confusion!
Conclusion: Reclaiming Your Social Sales
Dealing with shifting platform policies can be frustrating, but this small adjustment is a powerful fix. By switching your Meta Shop’s call-to-action to ‘View on Website’, you bypass the technical limitations of Squarespace and ensure a seamless, successful journey from social browsing to checkout on your site. Don’t let an empty cart cost you another sale!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
1. Will my products still show up on Instagram and Facebook after making this change?
Yes, absolutely! Your Meta Shop remains fully connected and synchronized with your Squarespace store. This change only affects the button your customers click to begin the purchase process.
2. Where exactly do I make this change in Meta?
You will need to go into your Meta Commerce Manager. Find your Shop, go to Settings, and adjust the Checkout Method to ensure your customers are directed to your website before they build their cart.
3. I'm not using Squarespace, but I'm having the same issue. Does this fix apply to me?
This specific fix is most common for Squarespace users, but if your platform doesn’t accept the complex URL parameters from Meta, this solution is still the recommended best practice.
4. Need Help Setting Up?
If navigating these technical settings or ensuring your Meta Shop is perfectly synchronized with your Squarespace store feels overwhelming, our agency, mbial.com, specializes in this exact kind of e-commerce setup. We can help you implement this fix quickly and ensure you’re getting the most out of your social commerce efforts!
