Launch your first store on SGEN

How to create, configure, and publish your first e-commerce store on SGEN

Setting up your first store in SGEN takes an afternoon when you come prepared. This guide covers every step of that afternoon — from creating a product type to confirming that a test order lands in your admin inbox.

E-commerce in SGEN is built on Custom Objects. Products are records in a structured catalog, not loose posts or pages. That distinction matters: it means your product data is clean, queryable, and reusable — the same product record drives your listing page, your detail page, your shipping calculation, and your order confirmation. You define the product type once and add as many products as you need without repeating the setup work.

The checkout flow, shipping zones, and payment connection sit in the E-commerce area of your dashboard. They configure once and apply across every product you add. This guide walks you through the setup in the order it has to happen: product type first, products second, store configuration third, then publish and verify.

By the end of this guide, your store will be live on your public site. Products will be visible to visitors. A test purchase will have completed successfully. And you will have an order record in your admin to confirm the end-to-end flow is working.

What is this for?

This guide is for any SGEN site owner who has not launched an e-commerce store before and wants to do it correctly the first time. It covers the full sequence — not adding a product, but configuring everything the product depends on so that checkout works when a real customer attempts it.

It is also useful if you have started this process and got stuck. The most common places people stall — product type configuration, payment processor connection, and shipping zone setup — are covered step by step with screenshots and checkpoints.

You will use four areas of your dashboard during this guide: Custom Objects (to define your product catalog structure), E-commerce (to add products and configure store settings), Media (to upload product photos), and Pages (to confirm your product catalog is visible on the public site). The guide explains when you need each area and why.

One expectation to set: this guide covers a single-currency store with a straightforward product catalog. If your store needs multi-currency pricing, advanced inventory management at scale, or marketplace-style seller accounts, those requirements go beyond what this guide covers. See the section below on what not to use this for.

Good use cases

E-commerce in SGEN is the right choice in each of these situations.

• A single-product launch. A studio releasing a

limited course every quarter — one product, one price, one stock level. Their first store was exactly this: a single product page, a buy button, and a Stripe connection. E-commerce in SGEN handles this with no configuration overhead beyond what the single product needs.

• A curated product catalog. Your store carries

eight to twelve products at any time — digital downloads, physical goods, and a monthly subscription. The catalog is structured and filterable. Customers browse by type or by price. Custom Objects make this filterable without writing code.

• A wholesale catalog. Your business sells in bulk to

trade partners. Wholesale products have different pricing, different minimum quantities, and a different checkout path than retail. SGEN handles this by creating a separate product type — "Wholesale" — with its own fields for minimum order quantity and case pricing, kept distinct from the retail catalog.

• A seasonal pop-up store. A holiday gift

collection for six weeks — curated sets, limited editions, custom packaging. These products exist for the season, then get archived. Setting up a seasonal store in SGEN takes the same steps as a permanent one, but you archive the products when the season ends rather than deleting them — the order history stays intact.

• A full multi-category storefront. A long-term

store carrying software, services, merchandise, and subscriptions — four distinct product types with different fields, pricing structures, and fulfillment rules. Each is its own Custom Object type. They share a checkout flow but have separate catalog pages. This is a more complex setup, but it follows the same building blocks as a single-product store.

What NOT to use this for

• Do not use SGEN E-commerce for multi-currency storefronts.

If your checkout needs to present prices in different currencies and calculate conversions at checkout, that is not the current e-commerce feature set. A single- currency store is what this guide covers.

• **Do not use this for advanced inventory management at

scale.** If your operation needs real-time warehouse sync, bulk variant tracking across hundreds of SKUs, or automated purchase order generation from restock triggers, those workflows are beyond the current scope. SGEN tracks stock levels per product record — that is sufficient for most small and mid-size catalogs, but it is not a full inventory management system.

• Do not use this for marketplace-grade features.

Seller accounts, commission splits, vendor onboarding flows, and per-seller fulfillment routing are not part of the e-commerce module. SGEN E-commerce is for a single seller (you) selling to buyers.

• **Do not publish products before your checkout is

configured.** A product visible on the public site with a broken or unconfigured checkout is worse than no store at all. Complete steps 1 through 5 of this guide before making anything public-facing.

• Do not skip the test purchase step. Your admin view

of the checkout looks fine even when the payment connection is misconfigured. The test purchase in step 6 is the only way to confirm the end-to-end flow is working end to end. Do not skip it.

How this connects to other features

E-commerce in SGEN connects to several areas of your dashboard. Understanding these connections before you start prevents confusion when a step references a different area.

• Custom Objects — Your product catalog is a Custom Object

type. When you create your product type in step 1, you are working in the Custom Objects area. The E-commerce area reads from that Custom Object to build your catalog, listing pages, and product detail pages. Your product catalog might be a Custom Object named "Digital Products" with fields for category, format, price, and stock level.

• Pages — Your product catalog page and individual product

detail pages are built on top of SGEN Pages. The E-commerce module auto-generates these pages when you configure your store, but you can customize them in the Page editor. Your catalog lives at whatever URL you assign to the catalog page — for example, /shop or /store.

• Media — Product photos are uploaded in the Media area

and attached to product records. Every product you add in step 2 will prompt you for a product image — have your photos ready before you start. SGEN resizes images for listing thumbnails and detail page display, but it cannot improve image quality. Upload at the highest resolution you have.

• Forms — If your store needs a product inquiry form —

useful for wholesale products where buyers request a quote before placing an order — you create that form in the Forms area and embed it on the relevant product detail page. This is optional and not covered in detail in this guide, but the connection is useful to know.

• Settings — Currency, payment processor connection, tax

rules, and shipping zones are all configured in the E-commerce section of Settings. You will visit Settings in steps 4 and 5 of this guide. These settings apply globally across all products in your store.

Before you start

Before you open the dashboard, have these things ready. Starting without them means stopping mid-setup to collect information — which breaks the configuration flow in ways that can be hard to recover from.

Confirm that the e-commerce module is on your plan. Go to Settings and look for the E-commerce section in the left navigation. If it is not there, the module is not enabled on your current plan. Check your subscription details or contact your SGEN account team. This guide assumes the module is enabled.

Decide on a payment processor. SGEN E-commerce connects to a payment processor to handle checkout transactions. You will need your payment processor API credentials (test keys for the test purchase in step 6, live keys for real transactions) before you reach step 4. Have your processor account open in another tab before you start.

Gather your product visuals. Every product needs at least one image. Visuals should be high-resolution — at least 1200px on the longest side. Use clean, well-lit product photographs or feature screenshots against a neutral background for listing thumbnails, and additional detail visuals for the product detail page. Collect these before you start adding products.

Write your product descriptions. Each product record has a short description field (one to two sentences — appears in listing view) and a long description field (the full detail page body). Write these before you open the product form. For example: "Everything you need to get started — setup guide, template pack, and 30 days of email support. Digital download, instant access." Writing in the form editor under time pressure produces weaker copy than drafting it first.

Know your pricing and shipping structure. Have your prices, any shipping rates you intend to charge, and the regions you ship to decided before you start step 5. Entering placeholder values and correcting them later is a common source of checkout misconfiguration.

Where to go

Go to E-commerce in the left sidebar of your SGEN dashboard. If E-commerce is not in the sidebar, the module is not enabled — see the prerequisite above.

Inside E-commerce, you will work in two sub-sections during this guide: Products (to add your product records) and Settings (to configure checkout, payment, and shipping). The guide will direct you to each section at the right moment.

For step 1 — creating the product type — you will briefly visit Custom Objects in the left sidebar before returning to E-commerce.

Steps — Create, configure, and launch your first store

These steps take you from a blank dashboard to a live, working store with a confirmed test purchase. Do not skip steps or reorder them — each step creates something the next one depends on.

1. Create your product type in Custom Objects

Go to Custom Objects in the left sidebar. Click Add New Type. Name the type after the category of product you are selling — for example, "Online Course" or "Digital Download." This is the structural definition that tells SGEN what fields every product of this type will have.

Add the fields your products need. For an online course, you might use: Product Name (text, required), Category (select), Format (select — Video / PDF / Live), Duration (text), Short Description (text area), Long Description (rich text), Price (currency), Stock Level (number), and Featured Image (media).

Save the type. You will not need to touch it again unless you add a new field later — adding fields to a type applies retroactively to all existing records of that type.

Once the product type is saved, go back to E-commerce in the left sidebar. Your new product type will appear as an option in the Product Type selector when you add your first product in the next step.

2. Add your first product record

In E-commerce, click Add New Product. Select the product type you created from the Product Type dropdown. The form updates to show the fields you defined for that type.

Fill in every field for your first product. Do not skip fields marked as optional — optional fields exist to enrich the listing, and a sparse product record produces a thin listing page that does not sell. Fill every field on every product, including Long Description, even when the information seems obvious.

Set the product Status to Draft for now. You are not ready to make the product public yet — payment and shipping are not configured. Saving as Draft means you can build the catalog without anything appearing on the public site until you are ready.

When you save the product, a product record is created in your Custom Objects catalog and a draft product detail page is generated automatically. You can preview the detail page at any point — the preview link appears in the product record's sidebar.

3. Upload product photos

In the product record you saved, find the Featured Image field (or the media field you created for images). Click to open the Media area. Upload your product photo or select one you have already uploaded.

For your primary listing thumbnail, use a clean, well-lit image that clearly shows the product — no clutter, no distracting backgrounds. Clear and purposeful.

For the product detail page, additional images can be added to the Long Description body using the rich text editor's image embed button. Additional visuals — screenshots, diagrams, example output — are not required for the store to work, but they make the detail page significantly more useful to a buyer who is trying to decide.

After uploading, confirm the image preview appears in the product record's image field, then save the product record.

4. Set pricing and configure payment

Go to E-commerce then Settings in your dashboard. In the Settings panel, find the Payment section. You will need to connect your payment processor here before any checkout can complete.

Click Connect Payment Processor. Select your processor from the list. You will be asked for your API credentials — the publishable key and the secret key. For the test purchase in step 6, enter your test-mode keys here, not your live keys. Running a test purchase with live keys charges a real card.

After connecting the processor, confirm the currency setting. Find the Currency field in Store Settings and set it to the currency you are selling in. This setting cannot be changed after orders exist against it — set it correctly now.

While you are in Store Settings, set your Store Name (appears on receipts and order confirmation emails) and your From Email address (the address order confirmations are sent from). These are easy to overlook and matter the moment a real customer receives a receipt.

5. Configure shipping zones and rates

Still in E-commerce Settings, find the Shipping section. Click Add Shipping Zone.

A shipping zone is a geographic region with a set of shipping rates that apply to orders from that region. For example: Domestic (US), Canada, and United Kingdom as three separate zones.

For each zone, add one or more shipping rates. A rate has a name, a price, and optionally a delivery estimate. Standard domestic rates are typically: Standard (3-5 business days, $6.00) and Express (1-2 business days, $18.00). International rates are often a single flat rate per destination.

If you offer free shipping above a certain order value, enable the Free Shipping Threshold toggle in the zone settings and enter the threshold amount.

Save each shipping zone. These rates will appear as options in checkout for customers whose delivery address falls within the zone. If an order's destination does not match any zone, checkout will stop at the shipping step — which means an unconfigured zone is a visible checkout failure. Cover all the regions you intend to ship to before you publish.

6. Publish products and complete a test purchase

Go back to E-commerce / Products. Open the product record you created in step 2. Change the Status from Draft to Published and save. The product is now visible on your public-facing catalog page.

Open a private browser window and navigate to your site's catalog page — for example, yoursite.com/shop. Confirm your product appears in the listing with the correct image, name, and price. Click the product name to open the detail page. Confirm the full description, images, and price display correctly.

Click Add to Cart on the detail page. Proceed through the checkout flow as a customer would. On the payment step, use a test card number from your payment processor's documentation — Stripe's standard test card is 4242 4242 4242 4242 with any future expiry and any three-digit security code.

Complete the purchase. Confirm that:

• The checkout confirmation page appears with an order number.
• A confirmation email arrives at the test email address

you entered in checkout.

• The order appears in E-commerce / Orders in your

dashboard with the correct product, quantity, and total.

If all three are true, your store is working end to end.

7. Add your remaining products

Repeat step 2 and step 3 for each remaining product in your catalog. If you have multiple product types — for example, Online Courses, Digital Bundles, and Subscriptions — you will need to create each product type in Custom Objects (repeating step 1 for each type) before you can add products of that type.

Work through one product type at a time. Complete all records for that type, publish them, and verify them on the public site before moving to the next type. This prevents configuration gaps from accumulating across a large catalog before you catch them.

For subscription products, note that the subscription billing cycle is configured at the product level, not in global settings. When adding a subscription product, the product form will show billing frequency (weekly / monthly / quarterly / annually) and trial period fields. A monthly resource subscription, for example, would be set to monthly billing with a three-day trial period.

What success looks like

When your store is launched and working correctly, these things are true.

• Your catalog page is live at the URL you assigned

and visible in a private browser window.

• Every published product appears in the catalog listing

with a photo, name, and price.

• Clicking a product opens a detail page at a clean URL

with the full description, photos, and an Add to Cart button.

• Checkout completes without error when using a test card.
• A confirmation email arrives at the test email address

entered at checkout.

• The order appears in E-commerce / Orders in your

dashboard with the correct line items and total.

• Stock levels decrement correctly — if you started with

48 units in stock and placed a test order for 1, the product record now shows 47.

What to do if it does not work

• Products are not appearing on the catalog page.

Confirm each product's Status is set to Published, not Draft. Draft products are invisible on the public site by design. Also confirm that the catalog page itself is published — if the catalog page was never made public, no products will appear regardless of their individual status. Check the Pages area for the catalog page status.

• The payment processor connection is failing at checkout.

Open E-commerce / Settings and look at the Payment section. If the connection indicator shows an error, your API credentials may have been entered incorrectly. Re-enter the credentials carefully — a single transposed character will cause authentication to fail silently. Confirm you are using test keys for a test purchase and live keys for real transactions. Mixing them is the most common cause of checkout failures.

• The shipping rate calculation is wrong or not appearing.

Check your shipping zone configuration. If a buyer's delivery address does not match any zone, checkout will not show a shipping rate and the order cannot complete. Open E-commerce / Settings / Shipping and confirm that every region you ship to is covered by a zone. Check that the zone's country or state list includes the test address you used. Overlapping zones can cause calculation conflicts — each address should match exactly one zone.

• Stock is not decrementing after a test order.

Confirm that the product record has the Stock Level field filled in and that stock tracking is enabled. If the Stock Level field was left blank or set to zero, the system may treat the product as unlimited stock and skip decrement. Open the product record, set a non-zero stock value, and complete another test order.

• Order confirmation email is not arriving.

Check the From Email address in E-commerce / Settings. If it is blank or set to a non-deliverable address, the confirmation email will silently fail. Also check that your domain's email sending configuration is set up — confirmation emails sent from a domain that lacks proper email records often land in spam. Check the test inbox's spam folder first before investigating further.

• **A test order appears in the admin but shows the wrong

total.** If the order total does not match what the checkout screen showed, check whether your tax settings are applying correctly. Tax rules in SGEN are configured per zone and can be set to inclusive (tax included in the displayed price) or exclusive (tax added at checkout). A mismatch between the displayed price and the charged total is almost always a tax inclusion setting. Review E-commerce / Settings / Tax and confirm inclusive vs exclusive is set as intended.

• **Products appear in the catalog but the detail page

returns an error.** The product detail page is auto-generated from the product record, but it still needs to be in Published state. Go to Pages in the left sidebar, search for the product name, and confirm the auto-generated detail page is published. If it was accidentally set to Draft or deleted, re-publishing the product record will regenerate it.

Tips for a strong store launch

A few habits that make the difference between a store that converts and one that stalls.

• Never launch with incomplete product descriptions.

A product page with a blank long description or missing images tells a buyer you did not finish building it. Set a rule: no product goes to Published until every field is complete. Short description, long description, featured image, and at least one additional detail visual.

• Test on mobile before you publish anything.

The majority of first visits to a new store happen on a phone. Open your catalog page in a private browser window on your phone after completing step 6. Confirm the listing layout, the product detail page, and the checkout flow all work without horizontal scrolling, cut-off images, or buttons that are too small to tap.

• **Start with fewer, better products rather than more,

thinner ones.** Launch with four complete products rather than twelve incomplete ones. Four complete product records convert better than twelve sparse ones. Add products over time rather than rushing to fill the catalog on day one.

• **Use the test-mode purchase path on every significant

change.** Any time you update a product price, change a shipping rate, or modify a tax setting, run a test purchase before your next real customer reaches checkout. Changes that look correct in the settings panel can behave unexpectedly in the live checkout flow.

• Archive, do not delete, discontinued products.

When a product is no longer available, set its status to Archived rather than deleting the record. Archived products are invisible on the public site, but the order history records referencing that product remain intact. Deleting a product record can break historical order data.