Your Rhythm account can have any number of online stores. Each store has its own merchandise, checkout settings, and confirmation emails. This article shows you how to create a store, control what it displays, and edit, clone, or delete it safely. You set up taxes, shipping, and coupons separately.
Moving an existing bookstore or shop into Rhythm takes more than turning on a store. Before you start, review whether your products fit Commerce’s product types, how much setup is involved, whether you need shipping integration support, and what the move means for payment processing.
Where to Find It
Go to Orders & Inventory › Setup › Stores. The list shows each store, its status, and the last time it changed. A banner also shows your Rhythm account’s current default store.
Prerequisites
- You have access to Orders & Inventory setup.
- Your merchandise categories and checkout settings are already set up, including business unit, merchant account, and bank account.
Create a Store
- On Manage Stores, choose Create Store.
- Enter a Name:. Rhythm suggests the ID: from the name, and you cannot change it after the first save.
- Under Merchandise Options, choose which categories the store offers, as described below, and choose its Default Product Sort Order:.
- Optionally upload a Default Merchandise Image for products that do not have their own image.
- Fill in the checkout settings block: business unit, merchant account, bank account, and related payment options.
- Save.
Tip
By default, the Portal’s online store page component links to a store with the identifier MAIN. Unless you plan to update that component’s setting or change your default store, use MAIN as your first store’s ID.
Choose Which Categories a Store Shows
| Choice | Effect |
|---|---|
| All Categories | The store offers every merchandise category |
| Only the following categories: | The store offers only the categories you pick |
| Include all EXCEPT the following categories: | The store offers every category except the ones you pick |
Warning
You can choose Only the following categories: and save without picking any categories. The storefront then shows nothing, and you do not receive a warning. Merchandise that is not assigned to any category also disappears from the storefront with this choice, as the form states: Note: In this configuration, merchandise not assigned to a category will be NOT available in the store.
You cannot delete a category while this store still names it, whether the category is included or excluded.
Default Product Sort Order
Choose the order shoppers see when they first open the store: featured order, price ascending or descending, alphabetical in either direction, or newest items first. If a category has its own default sort, the category setting overrides the store setting for that category. Shoppers can also re-sort products, so the store setting is only the starting order.
Warning
Choosing newest items as the default sort and saving can return a validation error that says the value must be from a fixed list, even though newest items appears as an option. This is a known issue. If you run into it, choose a different default sort for now, or contact Support.
Sell More Than Merchandise
If your Rhythm account has other-application products switched on, four more cards appear: Sell Membership Packages, Sell Certification Courses, Sell Certification Exams, and Sell Event Registration Packages. See Sell Membership, Certification, and Event Products in Your Store for what each one does.
Tip
An online course outside Rhythm’s certification-course feature, or one with no LMS integration, can still be sold through your store as a merchandise item. Use this approach when you need a way to handle registration and payment for the course.
Products and Confirmation Email Overrides
- Restocking Fee Product: chooses the product that a return’s restocking fee posts to. You can choose from products whose business unit matches this store’s checkout settings. If you change the business unit, Rhythm does not clear a fee product that no longer matches the new business unit.
- Override Successful Order Confirmation Email and Override Shipment Confirmation Email let you replace the account-wide wording for orders placed through this store. You can also tick Suppress delivery of this email to send neither the override nor the account-wide version for this store’s orders.
Warning
Ticking Suppress delivery of this email and saving removes any override wording you already wrote for that email on this store. If you later want the override back, you need to rewrite it.
Choose Your Rhythm Account's Default Store
The store list shows a banner naming your Rhythm account’s default store. This is the store the Portal opens when nothing else names a store. Choose (change), or Click here to configure one. if no default is set, then pick a store and save.
Warning
You cannot delete a store while it is your Rhythm account’s default. Choose a different default first if you need to delete it.
Deactivate, Clone, or Delete a Store
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| Status: Inactive | Marks the store inactive. This article’s sources do not confirm whether inactive status hides the store from the Portal, so treat it as a status marker rather than a guaranteed way to take a store offline |
| Clone | Opens the store form pre-filled from an existing store, as a new record with a blank identifier |
| Delete | Permanently removes a store. Deletion is refused if any order or cart still refers to the store, or if it is your Rhythm account’s default store |
Warning
Once a store has taken even one order, you can never delete it. To retire the store, mark it inactive. Deletion only works for a store that has never processed an order.
Change Impact
Any record named in a store’s settings is protected from deletion while the store still names it. This includes categories, the restocking fee product, shipping product overrides, and similar settings. A category is protected whether the store includes or excludes it. Before you can delete the referenced record, delete the store or remove the reference from the store’s settings.
When you save changes to a store, they apply to the next shopper and the next order processed. An order that was already placed keeps the information recorded at the time.
Validation and Errors
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Please enter an appropriate value for Name: | The store has no name | Enter a name |
| A record already exists with this name. | Another store already uses the identifier you entered | Choose a different identifier |
| Unable to save Store | The save was refused. The message names the reason, such as a category, process, or product that does not exist | Correct the named field and save again |
| Unable to delete Store | The delete was refused, often because an order or cart still refers to this store, or because it is your Rhythm account’s default | Remove the reference, or choose a different default store, then try again |
Warning
Rhythm has no way to import purchases and payments from an external store you’re retiring. To bring those sales into your account, create the orders manually, record the payment as an offline credit card payment, and add a memo noting that the transaction happened outside your normal process.
Related
- Sell Membership, Certification, and Event Products in Your Store: add non-merchandise products to a store’s cart.
- Add Orders & Inventory Pages to Your Portal: make a store’s pages reachable by Portal members.
- Configure Shipping Methods and Their Pricing: set up the shipping choices a store’s checkout offers buyers.
- Custom Fields Explained: add your own fields to store, category, and merchandise records.