# Online store overview

> Sell physical products with a cart, stock, shipping and delivery tracking — what the ESTAGE store is, how it differs from an order form, and what to set up first.

Source: https://knowledge.estage.com/store/
Part of the ESTAGE knowledge base (https://knowledge.estage.com). Full corpus: https://knowledge.estage.com/llms-full.txt

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The **online store** sells physical goods the way a shop does: a catalog with filters, product
pages with options (size, colour…), one shared **cart**, a checkout with delivery, and an order
page the buyer can come back to while the parcel travels. You run it from **ESTAGE CRM** —
products, stock, orders, shipping — and your Genesis site is the shopfront.

## Store or order form?

ESTAGE has two ways to sell, and each product belongs to one of them:

| | **Digital product** → [order form](/order-forms/) | **Physical product** → online store |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What it is | A course, a membership, a download, a service | Something you ship |
| Checkout | Its own checkout, one product at a time | One cart for many products |
| Recurring billing | Yes — plans and subscriptions | No — store products are one-time purchases |
| Options & stock | — | Variants (size, colour…), stock per variant |
| Delivery | — | Shipping zones and rates, live carrier rates, tracking |

When you create a product in CRM you choose **Digital** or **Physical**, and that choice decides
which editor opens. It cannot be changed later.

## Before you start

| Requirement | Where | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **A payment gateway** | [Settings → Payment Processing](/project-settings/payments/) | The checkout charges through it. Stripe, PayPal, Razorpay, Square, Easy Pay Direct and Paystack all work in the store. |
| **Business Details** | [Settings → Business Details](/project-settings/business-details/) | Most gateways need it, and it is the address parcels ship **from** when a carrier quotes or prints a label. |
| **Physical products** | ESTAGE CRM → **Products** | What the store sells. See [Products & inventory](/store/products/). |
| **Shipping** | ESTAGE CRM → **Settings → Store → Shipping** | Without a rate for the buyer's country the checkout cannot be completed. See [Shipping & tax](/store/shipping/). |
| **Store URL** | ESTAGE CRM → **Settings → Store → Storefront** | Order emails and the cart-recovery link are built from it. |

## How it fits together

1. **Stock the store in CRM** — [products, variants, stock and collections](/store/products/).
2. **Decide delivery and tax** — [zones, rates, carriers and tax](/store/shipping/).
3. **Put the store on your site** — [the storefront elements](/store/storefront/): catalog,
   cart, checkout, order page and the buyer's sign-in.
4. **Fulfil orders** — [ship, track, refund, recover abandoned carts](/store/orders/).

## Good to know

- **One currency per cart.** Price your store products in one currency; a cart refuses an item
  priced in another.
- **Refunds go through your gateway.** Money is returned in the payment gateway's dashboard; for
  Stripe, PayPal, Razorpay and Square the order records it by itself. See
  [Refunds and cancelling](/store/orders/#refunds-and-cancelling).
- **Tax** is either your own manual rates per region or Stripe Tax — see
  [Shipping & tax](/store/shipping/#tax).