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less than a minute read • Updated 4 days ago

Store Setup Worksheet

Questions to think through before setting up a new Foxy store, covering products, payments, shipping, taxes, and more.

If you've set up an e-commerce store before, you know it's more involved than it looks. This worksheet walks through what to decide before you start building in Foxy. If you're setting up a store for a client, use it to guide that conversation and surface their specific needs early.

We recommend mapping out a detailed order flow before starting setup, especially if you're providing development or design services to a merchant. Working through every question here should leave you well-prepared, and able to raise questions with us before you're deep into development.

This is meant to be a list of things to think about, not a full how-to guide. Each section links out to where you can go deeper on that topic. You can always contact our support team with specific questions.

How are the store's products managed?

Foxy handles the cart, checkout, and receipt, not product management, so you'll need a plan for where products live. Common options:

  • Static HTML site (hardcoded, static-site generated, etc.)

  • Hosted CMS (Webflow, Wix, Squarespace)

  • Traditional CMS (WordPress, Craft, MODX)

  • Headless CMS (Prismic, Contentful, Strapi)

Whatever you choose, our support team can help you integrate it with Foxy. If the store offers subscriptions, review the subscriptions documentation closely, and confirm the gateway you're planning to use supports recurring payments (see the next section).

More on specific product types:

How will the store accept payments?

Your payment gateway connects your bank, the customer's bank, and Foxy so you can collect payments. Some gateways come from your merchant account provider directly; others (Square, PayPal, and many more) are separate services. See our full list of supported payment methods — filter by country or feature if you're not sure which ones fit, or contact us for a recommendation.

If you need an offline payment method, Allow purchase orders can be turned on inside a payment method set (Settings > Payments, open or create a set).

How will shipping be configured?

Most stores can use Foxy's built-in shipping options. If those don't fit, you can write custom shipping logic for live rates, your own rates, or rates pulled from a third-party service. If custom logic still isn't enough, an external shipping endpoint can bring in rates from elsewhere.

Questions to work through:

  • Live rates (USPS, UPS, FedEx) or a flat fee for all or part of the product line?

  • If using live rates, is there a negotiated-rate account?

  • Does the store need free, reduced, or increased shipping under certain conditions (order threshold, coupon applied, inside/outside a given area)?

  • Do packaging or handling charges need to be factored in?

  • If using flat rates, how is the rate calculated: weight, quantity, address, or specific product combinations?

  • How should shipping combine when a cart has different combinations of products?

Where to set this up:

What limitations are there on shipping?

The most common limitation is where the store ships to. Restrict countries and regions using the native destination settings on each shipping method; anything more specific, like restricting by postcode, needs custom shipping code. If you need different rates by location, that's also possible through custom shipping code. Start simple if your case is straightforward; talk to us if it's more complex.

How should taxes be configured?

Most tax setups fall into one of these:

  • No tax

  • Manual tax setup (for example, a flat rate for one region)

  • Foxy's built-in tax lookup (currently Thomson Reuters)

  • Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE

  • AvaTax or TaxJar

If your country requires tax-inclusive pricing on-site, native settings can only get you partway there; most merchants add cart, checkout, and receipt customizations to display tax the way they need. Reach out to support if you need help with this.

More on taxes: Taxes

Does the store need to track shipping or fulfillment?

Foxy doesn't have a native shipping-tracking integration, but connects to just about any system. Common approaches:

  • Zapier or Make to send order data to your shipping software

  • OrderDesk to integrate orders with your shipping software (it also does more than shipping) [VERIFY: no current help center article found for this integration]

  • A transaction webhook sent directly to your own endpoint for a custom integration

Webhooks are configured under Settings > Integrations in the Foxy admin. Contact us if you'd like ideas specific to your situation.

Does the store need post-order customer processing?

If you need to send customer data to a CRM (for example, adding someone to a mailing list), use one of the same webhook or automation methods described above.

Does the store need to track inventory?

Inventory tracking after an order works the same way as shipping and fulfillment tracking: pick a method for sending order data to your inventory software. You can also use the Pre-Payment Webhook (configured inside a payment method set under Settings > Payments) to check inventory right before an order completes, and show the customer a message at checkout if there's an issue.

If you're on Webflow, see Manage product inventory with Webflow CMS. If you're on WordPress, our FoxyShop plugin includes inventory management.

What will be the URL for the cart, checkout, and receipt?

By default, this is a secure your-store.foxycart.com URL, which is what customers see in the address bar throughout checkout. You can also set up a custom domain so the address bar stays consistent with your main site.

Does the store need a customer dashboard?

Foxy's customer portal lets customers log in to view and manage subscriptions, personal information, and past orders.

To set it up:

Does the cart, checkout, web receipt, or email receipt need extensive customization?

Our default templates work for most stores, but they can be customized as much as you need. More customization means more technical skill required, which is worth keeping in mind if you're a designer or developer working for a client. Our support team can guide you, but very complex customizations fall outside what's covered for Standard-plan users.

Some examples, roughly in order of complexity:

What are the store's reporting needs?

The Foxy admin includes reporting and export tools under Reports and Transactions, including filtering and CSV export. See Custom Reporting (Beta) for the newer reporting tools available on Advanced and Enterprise plans. If you need something beyond what's built in:

Is there any other post-transaction processing or special need?

Note anything else that comes up in your order flow plan that isn't covered here. Most special cases are possible with Foxy, but may require custom development.

Checklist overview

  • How are the store's products managed?

  • How will the store accept payments?

  • How will shipping be configured?

  • What limitations are there on shipping?

  • How should taxes be configured?

  • Does the store need to track shipping/fulfillment?

  • Does the store need post-order customer processing?

  • Does the store need to track inventory?

  • What will be the URL for the cart, checkout, and receipt?

  • Does the store need a customer dashboard?

  • Does the cart, checkout, web receipt, or email receipt need extensive customization?

  • What are the store's reporting needs?

  • Is there any other post-transaction processing or special need?

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