Launch ecommerce store — your complete SGEN setup guide

Open Store Management → Store Configuration → General.

Set the following fields, then click Save Changes:

• Store Status: Leave as Closed for now. You will flip this to Open after the test checkout in Step 9.
• Ship-from Country / State: your primary shipping origin. your business: United States / Oregon.
• Weight Unit: match your carrier's unit. your business uses lbs.
• Dimension Unit: match your packaging. your business uses in.
• Customer login for checkout: set to Guest checkout allowed unless your store requires accounts.
• Terms and conditions checkbox: paste the URL to your terms page if you have one, then toggle it on. Leave blank if you have no terms page yet.

The panel saves all five card sections in one click — there is no per-card save button and no draft state. The next shopper to load a public page sees the new values.

Open Store Management → Store Configuration → Payment Gateways. This is the most critical step — nothing can complete a real checkout without a live, enabled gateway.

Enable online payments: toggle Enable Online Payments to on. This master toggle must be active before any individual gateway can process charges.

Configure Stripe:

1. Toggle Enable Stripe to on.
2. Paste your Stripe Publishable Key into the Publishable Key field (starts with pk_test_ in test mode).
3. Paste your Stripe Secret Key into the Secret Key field (starts with sk_test_ in test mode).
4. Leave Stripe Mode set to Test — you will switch to Live in Step 9 after a successful test checkout.

Configure PayPal (optional): toggle Enable PayPal on and paste your Client ID and Secret if you want PayPal alongside Stripe. You can add PayPal after launch — it is not a blocker.

Manual payment method (optional): toggle on and write the bank-transfer or offline payment instructions shoppers will see when they choose that option at checkout.

Click Save Changes.

Open Store Management → Store Configuration → Purchase Flow. The top section controls how prices display across your storefront.

• Currency Position: Left shows $30.00; Right shows 30.00$. your business sets Left. (The Right option saves correctly but does not propagate to the public store in the current version — see the readiness checklist.)
• Items Per Page: how many products appear on the archive per page. your business sets 12.
• Product layout: Card or List. your business sets Card.
• Add to Cart behavior: Drawer (slide-in cart) or Redirect to Cart Page. your business sets Drawer.
• Enable coupons at checkout: toggle on — your business has a welcome code planned for launch.
• Order notes field: toggle on if you want customers to leave a message with their order.

Click Save Changes.

Open Store Management → Store Configuration → Shipping. Enable at least one shipping method here — a checkout with no shipping options will prevent order completion for physical products.

• Flat Rate: a fixed fee per order. your business sets $5.00 for standard delivery.
• Free Shipping: enter the order-total threshold above which shipping is free. your business sets $75.00.
• Local Pickup: toggle on if customers can collect from your roastery or studio.
• Weight-based: charge by the total weight of items in the cart. Enter a rate per lb or kg.

You can enable multiple methods simultaneously — the customer picks at checkout from whichever are active. Click Save Changes.

Open Store Management → Store Configuration → Taxes. Toggle Enable Taxes on, then set:

• Tax label: "Tax" for US stores; "VAT" for UK or EU; "GST" for Australia, Canada, or New Zealand.
• Tax inclusive pricing: leave off for US stores (tax is added at checkout). Toggle on for UK/EU stores that show VAT-inclusive prices on product pages.
• Global tax rate: enter your rate as a percentage. your business (Oregon) sets 0 — Oregon has no sales tax.
• Location-based rates (optional): if you sell across US states with different rates, add per-state overrides in the rate table.

Click Save Changes. Tax rules apply to every new cart immediately; past orders keep the tax values that were calculated when they were placed.

Open Store Management → Products → Add New. Creating one product before launch lets you run a complete test checkout from browse to payment confirmation.

On the General tab:

• Product Name: Canvas Tote Bag
• Type: Simple
• Price: 30 — enter a whole-dollar price. Decimal prices are rounded at save in the current version (see readiness checklist).
• SKU: ACM-TOTE-001
• Description: a full paragraph describing the product for the detail page.
• Short Description: one or two sentences for the product card on the archive.
• Manage Stock: toggle on; set quantity to 50; set Sold Out Handling to Show as Out of Stock.

On the Images tab: upload your product hero image (JPG or WebP, at least 800 × 800 px).

On the SEO tab:

• Meta Title: Canvas Tote Bag — your business
• Meta Description: Heavy-canvas tote, heat-pressed with the your business roastery mark. Ships within 2 business days.

Set Status to Draft — you will publish it after the test checkout in Step 9. Click Create Product.

Open Appearance → Themes.

Color Swatch: the grid shows your available brand palettes. Click a swatch to preview the color pair (primary + accent), then click Save Changes to apply it site-wide. The public site repaints on the next page load — no rebuild step, no cache-clear needed. For your business, the Warm Ember swatch pairs a rich espresso primary with a warm cream accent that complements product photography.

Header and footer: open Appearance → Header Configuration to choose your header layout and upload your logo. Open Appearance → Footer Configuration to set footer columns and links. Both are optional on launch day — the defaults are presentable — but worth 15 minutes if you have a logo ready.

Navigation: open Appearance → Menu Builder. Add your main menu items: Home, Shop (linking to /products), and any top-level category or page links. The product archive is available at /products by default.

Global Styles (optional): if your brand colour differs from every available swatch, open Appearance → Global Styles to enter exact primary and accent hex values. This overrides the swatch and propagates across all SG-Builder sections.

Open Custom Codes. Paste your tracking snippet here so analytics starts collecting from the first visitor on launch day.

Option A — Google Tag Manager (recommended): Create two Custom Code snippets — one for the <head> placement and one for </body> End.

<!-- GTM head snippet — Custom Code placement: <head> -->
<!-- Replace GTM-XXXXXXX with your container ID from tagmanager.google.com -->
<template data-safe="script" data-attrs="">(function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':
new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],
j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src=
'https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);
})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-XXXXXXX');</template>

<!-- GTM noscript fallback — Custom Code placement: </body> End -->
<!-- Replace GTM-XXXXXXX with your container ID -->
<noscript><iframe src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-XXXXXXX"
height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden"></iframe></noscript>

Option B — Direct GA4 tag: If you are not using GTM, create one Custom Code snippet with placement <head>:

<!-- GA4 direct tag — Custom Code placement: <head> -->
<!-- Replace G-XXXXXXXXXX with your Measurement ID from analytics.google.com -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-XXXXXXXXXX"></script>
<template data-safe="script" data-attrs=""> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'G-XXXXXXXXXX');
</template>

Set each snippet's Status to Active and click Save Changes. Both options fire on every public page from the next page load forward.

9a — Create the launch coupon

Open Store Management → Coupons → Add New.

For your business's launch, the code COFFEE10 gives $10 off any cart:

• Coupon Code: COFFEE10
• Discount Type: Fixed cart discount
• Coupon Amount: 10
• Usage limit per coupon: 200 (enough for launch week, then retire)
• Usage limit per user: 1
• Status: Draft — flip to Publish after the test checkout passes.

Click Create a Coupon.

Cart-wide discounts only. SGEN coupons apply to the entire cart subtotal. There is no product-level or category-level restriction. If you need a product-specific discount, set a Sale Price on the product directly instead of using a coupon.

Coupon search limitation. The search bar on the Coupons list page does not function in the current version and navigates to a 404. Use the status filter tabs (All / Published / Draft / Trash) to locate coupons. This does not affect coupon redemption by shoppers at checkout.

9b — Run the end-to-end test checkout

Before going public, run a complete test checkout in a private or incognito window:

1. Visit your product URL directly — the Canvas Tote Bag is still Draft, so type the address: https://yourdomain.com/product/canvas-tote-bag.
2. Add the product to cart.
3. Proceed to checkout. Confirm shipping options appear. If no option appears, return to Step 4 and confirm a shipping method is enabled.
4. Confirm the tax line appears — or is absent for zero-tax locales like Oregon.
5. Enter COFFEE10 in the coupon field — the cart subtotal should drop by $10.
6. Enter Stripe test card 4242 4242 4242 4242, expiry 12/29, CVC 123, any US ZIP.
7. Place the order. You should reach an order confirmation page.
8. In the SGEN admin, open Store Management → Orders — the test order should appear in the list.

When the test checkout completes successfully:

• Payment Gateways → switch Stripe Mode to Live, paste your Live Publishable and Secret keys.
• Store Configuration → General → set Store Status to Open.
• Edit the Canvas Tote Bag → set Status to Publish.
• Edit the COFFEE10 coupon → set Status to Publish.

Your store is now live.