Setting up your first store

A store holds your business details, default currency, and all configuration for tax, shipping, payments, and email templates. A fresh install comes with one: a sample store called “My Store” in Springfield, Illinois, with a sample tax rate, a shipping table and three sample products, so the shop works from the first minute. Your first job is to make it yours. The sample products are removed from the Products list once your own are in; see The sample products.

The setup wizard

The first time you open Components → Solidshop, the dashboard offers Set up your store in place of the setup checklist. Click Start setup: one page asks the three questions a shop cannot take an order without, and Finish setup saves them all at once.

  1. Tell us about your store — name, email, phone, address, country, currency and time zone. The email starts empty: the sample store’s This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. cannot receive mail, and it is where your order notifications go. The store’s default location, which is where your parcels ship from, moves to the new address with it, unless you have already moved it yourself.
  2. How do you charge tax? — I don’t charge tax, One rate for my country (a rate name such as VAT and a percentage), or I’ll set this up later. Each choice replaces the sample Illinois rate; see Tax. If you have already set up tax on the store’s Tax tab, the wizard shows what is there and leaves it alone.
  3. How do customers pay? — choose one payment method and fill in its settings, the same ones the store’s Payments tab shows. For PayPal, Stripe or Square, test credentials are fine for now; see Payments. This step is shown to users who may manage payment methods.

After Finish setup the dashboard shows the Store setup checklist, which tracks what is left. If you prefer to go straight to the checklist, click Use the checklist instead. That choice is yours alone: another admin still gets the offer. While the store has the sample email address, the checklist’s Add your store details step links back to the wizard.

The store record

Everything the wizard asks, and much more, lives on the store record. Open it any time to change a detail or to fine-tune what the wizard left at its defaults. Solidshop supports multiple stores, but you only need one to get started.

Go to Stores

In the Joomla admin sidebar, click Solidshop → Stores, then click your store’s name to open it. New in the toolbar adds another store.

Fill in your business details

The store form has the following required fields:

  • Store name — your business or brand name
  • Email — the email address shown on invoices and order notifications
  • Address — street address, city, country, state/province, and postal code
  • Currency — the default currency for this store (e.g. USD, EUR, GBP)

Optional fields include a legal business name (if different from the store name), a phone number, a logo image, and a second address line. A phone number, when filled, is published everywhere the store presents itself: the storefront's structured data, the /llms.txt contact section, the catalogue API and the footer of order emails. Leave it empty to publish none. The SEO tab holds a tagline — one line printed on the storefront home page and published as your organisation's slogan in its structured data.

Configure store options

In the Options tab, configure:

  • Timezone — used for order timestamps and scheduling
  • Unit system — Metric (kg, cm) or Imperial (lb, in)
  • Weight unit — Kilograms or Grams
  • Order number prefix/suffix — e.g. prefix ORD- produces order numbers like ORD-1001

The Storefront tab next to it decides what shoppers see, such as whether the product page shows a sold count, a share button and a wishlist button. Everything is shown until you switch it off; see What the product page shows.

Set default order statuses

In the Order tab, choose defaults for:

  • Default order status — the initial status when an order is created (e.g. “Pending”)
  • Default payment status — typically “Pending”
  • Default fulfillment status — typically “Unfulfilled”
  • Countable order statuses — which statuses count towards your sales dashboard numbers
Save

Click Save & Close. You can come back to edit any of these settings at any time.

From here the Store setup panel at the top of the Solidshop dashboard takes over: it reads the store's own data on every visit, ticks each step as it is done (details, first product, tax, shipping, payments, storefront pages, order emails, discoverability, a test order, live payments) and links straight to the screen that completes the next one. Tax and shipping can be marked not needed when your store does not charge tax or hands products over in person; the panel can be hidden and brought back from Quick Actions.

Currencies are managed under Solidshop → Currencies. Solidshop ships with common currencies pre-loaded. Each currency has a code (USD), a symbol ($), an exchange rate, and formatting options (decimal places, thousand separator). Your store’s default currency is set to an exchange rate of 1.0; other currencies convert relative to it. Your store trades in one currency — the one on the store record. Publish others and add the currency switcher module if you want shoppers to be able to read your prices in their own.