Running a store, as operations and not only design

Keep categories shallow: a shopper should reach any product in three clicks. Each product in a Cliux store is one listing with one price, one stock count and up to twelve images. There are no size or colour options inside a product, so a T-shirt in three colours is three products in one category, each with a clear name: brand, product type, then the one thing that differs.

Write descriptions that answer the questions a shop assistant would be asked: size, material, care, what is in the box and how long it takes to ship. A photo does not answer any of them. Mark digital products as digital and attach the file; the buyer gets a download link the moment payment clears.

Work out the landed cost of a product (what you paid, plus shipping to you, payment fees and a returns allowance) before you set a price. Use the compare-at price only when the higher price was real and recent; an invented one is the fastest way to lose trust.

Coupons carry the promotion: a code, a percentage or a fixed amount off, a minimum order, a cap on the discount, a total usage limit and a per-customer limit, a start and an expiry. One coupon applies per order. A time-boxed sale is a coupon with an expiry date; a permanent discount teaches shoppers never to pay full price. To bundle, make the bundle a product of its own at its own price.

Every product has a page on your domain at the store's address: its images, the price and any compare-at price, a live stock line (only a few left, or sold out), the description and the add-to-cart button. The button waits until payments are connected.

Above the fold: the name, the price, the button and a short trust row (shipping, returns, secure payment). Below: the benefits as bullets, a size guide if it applies, and the questions buyers ask. There is no reviews block; quote real customers in the description or in a testimonial section on the page. The Store page itself has the same title, description and share image fields as any other page, so fill them.

Checkout is one panel. Every total is calculated on the server, never in the browser, and the stock is held while the customer pays: thirty minutes for a card, seventy-two hours for a bank transfer, then it goes back on the shelf.

Two ways to pay: a card through Stripe, into your own Stripe account with no platform commission, or a bank transfer against instructions you write, which you mark as paid when the money lands. Shipping is priced by region and shown before payment. There is no tax line at checkout: if you must charge tax, price it into the product and account for it in your bookkeeping. The buyer gets an order confirmation by email and a page of their own to follow the order or download the file, and a guest does not need an account.

The orders board is where the store runs. Each order moves through its statuses as you pack and ship it, and a refund from the board puts the stock back. Write processing times on the product page and a returns policy on a page of its own, then link to it from the trust row.

A fast, human answer to "where is my order" prevents most chargebacks. The order page you send the buyer answers the easy version of that question before they ask. Orders are not linked to contacts in the CRM; the buyer's email lives on the order, so the orders board is your customer list for the store.

Cliux sends transactional mail for the store (confirmation, status changes) and nothing else: no follow-ups, no offers, no recovery mail for a cart left behind. Retention therefore happens in the tool you send from. Export the orders board, import the buyers you have permission to write to, and write to them like a shopkeeper who remembers them.

Measure repeat purchase from the orders board, not from analytics, which counts visits and not revenue. If repeat buyers are rare for a product people use up, the fix is usually the product or the packaging insert, not another advert. A membership plan is not a product subscription; it gates pages, posts and a community, so use it for a club, not for a monthly box.