How to run your shop

1. Opening the shop

1. Sign in and give the shop a name. Its web address is made from the name; you can change it.
2. Choose the currency and the VAT rate. Prices you type include VAT; use 0 when you do not charge VAT.
3. Follow the checklist on the Overview: a product, a payment method, shipping, your seller details, then open the shop under Settings.

While the shop is closed, only you can see it: open it from the Overview to check how buyers will see it.

2. Products, options and sales

A product has a name, a short description for lists, a longer description, a category and up to eight photos; the first photo is the main one.

• Options: sizes, colours… each with its own price, code and stock. A simple product has one option without a name.
• Stock is counted when you fill it in: an order takes it, a cancelled order gives it back, and sold-out options cannot be bought.
• Sale price: lower than the price, from a start to an end time (both optional). The shop shows the old price struck through.
• Drafts (not “on sale”) are seen only by you.

3. Payment methods

Money goes straight to your own accounts. Turn on the methods you want under Payments:

• Card (Stripe): paste your secret key and add the webhook address shown on the page in Stripe, with its signing secret. Paid orders are marked paid by themselves.
• PayPal: your app’s client ID and secret; try it first in the sandbox, then switch to live.
• Bank transfer: your IBAN and account holder. The order page shows them with the order’s reference; mark the order paid when the money arrives.
• Cash on delivery: optional extra fee; the courier collects, and the order counts as paid when you mark it delivered.

Secret keys are stored encrypted and never shown again. Card details never reach your server: buyers pay on Stripe’s or PayPal’s own page.

4. Shipping

Make a zone for each group of countries you ship to, with a flat rate per order and, if you like, free shipping from an amount. “Everywhere else” covers all other countries. Buyers from countries in no zone cannot order.

5. Orders

1. You get an email for every new order (card and PayPal orders once they are paid).
2. Open the order: buyer, address, items, payment. Mark it paid (bank, cash), then shipped.
3. Add the courier and the tracking number: the buyer’s page links to the parcel’s tracking page.
4. Mark it delivered. Cancelling puts the products back into stock; refund any money yourself.

Card and PayPal orders not paid within a day are cancelled by themselves, so their stock is free again.

6. What buyers see

• The shop, its categories and products, with prices, campaigns and sales, without signing in; they can compare products side by side and share them or scan their QR code.
• A cart kept in their browser, and checkout with their address, the shipping cost, a voucher code and the payment method.
• Their order’s page, behind a secret link: its state, how to pay, and the parcel’s tracking. When the server can send email, they also get the link in a confirmation email.
• An optional account in your shop: they sign in with a link sent to their email, see all their orders, write to you and manage the newsletter. No password.
• Once the order is on its way, they can rate what they bought from the order’s page.

7. Seller details, terms and search engines

Under Settings, fill in who sells (name or company, address, registration and VAT numbers, contact), your terms of sale and returns. The shop shows them on its “Seller and terms” page, with the EU’s 14-day right of withdrawal; shops in Romania can show the ANPC links.

Open shops and their products can be found by search engines: every page has its own address, description and price data, and the shop lists them in a sitemap.

8. Product types, vendors and many products

Under Products → Types and fields, give each kind of product its own fields: a phone’s memory, a shirt’s composition, a book’s author. Start from a ready-made type (electronics, clothing, shoes, books, food, cosmetics, furniture, jewellery, toys, sports, handmade) in your language and change it as you like. Products of that type fill in the fields; the shop shows them as Details and in the comparison.

• Vendors keep who makes or supplies your products, with their contacts. A vendor shown as brand appears on its products and in search engines.
• The product list has a search and filters by type, vendor and status. Tick several products to put them on sale, make them drafts or delete them at once; Copy makes a draft from a product.

9. Campaigns, vouchers and announcements

• Campaigns take a percentage off everything, a category or chosen products, from a start to an end. The shop shows the old price struck through.
• Vouchers are codes buyers type at checkout: a percentage or an amount off the products, or free shipping; with a minimum order, a number of uses and once per buyer if you like.
• Announcements show a bar on every page or a banner on the front page, with a voucher code to copy or a link to a campaign.

When a sale price and a campaign meet, the lower price wins. A voucher comes on top, on the products only.

10. Newsletters

1. Buyers subscribe in the shop’s footer, in their account or at checkout, and confirm with the link in an email.
2. Under Marketing → Newsletters, write a subject and a text, add a voucher if you like, and pick products on offer or new (or add all on sale or the newest at once).
3. Save to see the email as on a computer and on a phone, send yourself a test, then send it to every subscriber.

Every newsletter has a link to unsubscribe. The shop sends email through the server’s SMTP settings; without them there are no newsletters or sign-in links.

11. Reviews and messages

• Under Reviews, choose whether you approve every review or let verified buyers publish at once. Publish, hide, answer or delete each one.
• Under Messages, read and answer buyers who wrote from their account; they get an email with your answer. You get an email for each new message.

12. Design, search engines and tracking

Under Settings → Design, add your logo and a banner and choose colours, fonts, corners, cards and how many products show per row; the editor warns when text is hard to read.

• Under Search engines, set the shop’s title and description with a preview, and see a score with tips for every product (photos, texts, category, brand, barcode). Each product has its own search engine texts too.
• The owner can add Google Analytics, Google Ads, Tag Manager, the Meta pixel or other code, and the verification codes for Google Search Console and Bing. Buyers are asked first; tags load only after they accept.
• Every product can be shared on social networks or as a QR code to download or print.

13. Your team

• Under Settings → Team, make an invitation link with one or more roles and send it: Manager (everything but payments, tracking and the team), Products (products, stock, types, vendors, search engines), Marketing (promotions, newsletters, reviews, design, statistics), Support (buyers’ messages, reviews, orders), Shipping and delivery (orders to ship, shipping zones) or Maintenance (opening, maintenance mode, seller details, languages, design).
• Each member’s Overview shows the tasks of their roles: orders to ship with a button to mark them shipped, unanswered messages and reviews to publish, sold-out and low-stock products, running campaigns and newsletters, and what the shop still lacks. Change a member’s roles or remove them at any time; members can leave the team from the Overview.

14. Statistics

Under Statistics, see sales, orders, the average order, product views and conversion for 7, 30, 90 or 365 days, compared with the period before; sales, orders and views by day or week; and every product’s numbers, which you can sort.

15. Automatic discounts and free shipping

Under Marketing → Promotions, add rules that apply without a code: free shipping from an amount, or a percentage off all products from a number of items (e.g. 3 items: −5 %, 5 items: −10 %) or from an amount. When several are reached, the highest counts.

• Buyers see the discount in the cart and at checkout before they order, and a hint such as “Add 2 more items for 10 % off everything” or “Add €12 more for free shipping”.
• A voucher comes on top, on what is left; the order keeps both discounts with their names.

16. Maintenance mode and languages

Under Settings, switch on maintenance mode with a message: buyers see it instead of the shop and cannot order, while your team still sees everything. Turn it off from the Overview with one click.

1. Under Settings → Languages, choose the language to translate from and copy the labels buyers see (or download them).
2. Translate them in a translator or an AI, keeping the names before the colons and the words in curly brackets as they are.
3. Paste them back with a code (fr, es, pl…) and the language’s name, and save. The page tells you how many labels were taken, missing or refused. Use de, ro, hu or en to change the wording of a built-in language instead.

Buyers choose the language at the bottom of the shop; you can also make one of your languages the one buyers see first.

17. Accounts for DevQuake members

On a site that is part of DevQuake, members sign in to your shop with Continue with DevQuake on the account page: DevQuake asks them once to allow their email address, and their account in the shop is filled in with their name and that address. Orders they placed with it show up, and the shop recognises them on their next visits until they sign out of it.

• Everyone else still opens an account with any email address, by a link.
• Buyers save their delivery details in their account, and the checkout fills them in; at checkout they can keep new details for next time.
• The site’s administrators decide whether members may open their own shops, and whether visitors see a short introduction to DevQuake above the shop’s footer.
• With approximate prices in other currencies on, buyers choose a currency at the bottom of the shop and see “≈” prices in it; they still pay in your shop’s currency.

18. Interest votes before selling

Not sure a product will sell? When the site’s administrators turn on Interest votes, switch a product to Ask for votes instead of selling on its page. Buyers then see a vote instead of the price: whether they want it, what they would pay and which version (the multiple-choice fields of its type, such as colours and sizes). Nobody can order it meanwhile.

• Enter a cost per piece and a one-time investment on the product’s page.
• Under Statistics → Interest votes you see the demand, what voters would pay, a suggested price, the expected buyers, revenue, profit, return and break-even, and the most wanted versions.
• To start selling, switch the vote off and give the options their real prices.