Store Setup

Set up your store in seven steps — identity, languages and money, contact and opening hours, brand, selling rules, assistant and going live — then edit any section on its own.

Overview

Store settings → Store Setup (/en/store/setup) is a seven-step wizard the first time you open it. Once the required fields are filled, setup is complete and the same address opens Store settings: an overview with your assistant readiness score and one card per section that you can edit and save on its own.

Your WhatsApp assistant, web chat and voice assistant answer customers from what you enter here — opening hours, gift wrap, shipping policy, best sellers and FAQs. The assistant readiness percentage shows how many of those questions they can answer with real information.

Store URLs look like:

https://shop.orderinchat.com/store/{slug}

or your verified custom domain. Short links use oic.to/s/{code}. Free trial / unpaid stores get an automatic 10-character code; paid plans can choose a custom code.

Required fields

Setup completes when these are filled (the custom domain is optional):

Field	Step
Store name (min 2 characters)	Store
What you sell (store type)	Store
Store category	Store
Main language and currency	Language & money
Store email	Contact & hours

Steps

1. Store

Field	What it does
Store name	Brand name (min 2 characters). Your store link is created from it.
What do you sell?	Choose one or more: physical products, services & bookings, digital products (items with no shipping that you deliver yourself — OrderInChat does not send download links or licence keys). Shipping questions appear only when physical products are selected.
Category	Store category
Short introduction	2–3 sentences. The assistants use it to answer "who are you, what do you sell?"; it also appears on the About page.
Slogan	Short tagline (placement is set in the Brand step)

2. Language & money

Main language and supported languages (multilingual storefront), plus AI Translate Storefront UI
Default currency — changing it does not convert existing product prices
New store — the main language comes pre-selected from your panel language and the currency from your store country or location; nothing is saved until you save this step
Store time zone — used for opening hours ("are you open now?") and bookings. Pre-selected from your device or store country; pick another from a searchable list grouped by UTC offset (e.g. "UTC+3 · Istanbul, Türkiye") — search by city, country, "+3" or "Europe/Istanbul". Daylight saving time is handled automatically
Weight unit (product stores) — used by shipping rules

3. Contact & hours

Store email, phone and address (shown on the storefront Contact page)
Owner WhatsApp (optional, recommended) — your own number for operator mode and alerts; never shown to customers
Opening hours — per day, with up to four time ranges (e.g. a lunch break). Shortcuts: weekdays 09–18, copy Monday to every day, open 24/7. A range that ends before it starts runs past midnight.
Holidays and special days — days you are closed or open different hours; they override the weekly hours. Add public holidays loads the next 12 months of public holidays for a country as closed days (remove any day you stay open).
Note about your hours — e.g. "orders are taken 24/7; parcels do not ship at weekends"
Reviews — Google review link, automatic product review approval, product ratings feed

Opening hours appear on the storefront Contact us page with a live "Open now / Closed now" label. The voice assistant uses the same hours for answering calls unless you set separate hours on the General tab of Channels & integrations → Voice assistant & phone.

4. Brand (optional)

Logo upload (converted to WebP automatically, max 5 MB)
Where the store name and slogan appear (header, footer or both)
Footer description with optional AI Translate
Store website. Social links, colours and page texts are under Store settings → Pages.

5. Selling rules

Sales & storefront — where customers buy when they ask in the chat (sell on OrderInChat, send them to your website, note the order for your team, or no selling at all), whether your OrderInChat storefront is public or hidden (and what stays open while hidden), how often your website is re-scanned (every scan uses credits) and your product feed URL. Available now: Sell on OrderInChat, Send them to your website (the assistant sends the product page or a ready cart link on your own site), Note the order for my team (the assistant collects the order request and your team completes it) and No selling, questions only. A hidden storefront sends visitors and search engines to your own website instead (checkout and order status stay open if you keep them on); products synced from your shop stay out of the public listings. Automatic re-scans are marked Soon: the setting is saved and starts working with a later update. Taking the payment in the chat and writing the order to your Shopify / WooCommerce store is not offered: when OrderInChat takes the payment, the order is managed in OrderInChat.
Payment status (card, bank transfer, PayPal) with a link to Payment settings
Shipping summary from your default shipping profile and a shipping policy text (cut-off times, delivery days, packaging) — the assistants quote it instead of guessing
Return window in days (also used as {{return_days}} on your returns page) and tax included in prices
Gift wrap and extra services — whether you gift wrap, a description and price, handwritten gift notes, and other services such as same-day delivery or assembly
Legal details for invoices (optional)

Gift wrap and extra services with Add at checkout on appear as checkboxes on the checkout page and are added to the order total — taxed at the same rate as your products, not counted toward free shipping, never reduced by coupons. The assistants can add them to a cart too ("I added gift wrap for $4.99 to your order"). If you offer gift notes, customers write the gift message at checkout. Selected services show on the order page, emails, WhatsApp summary and invoice, and as a 🎁 badge in the order list. Turn Add at checkout off to keep a service information only — customers then ask for it in the order note. A full cancellation or refund includes the service fee; a partial item refund does not.

6. Assistant

Tone of voice — Friendly, Professional, Short and direct, or Cheerful. The assistants always reply in the customer's language. Detailed instructions stay under Assistant → AI Instructions.
Assistant name (optional, up to 16 characters)
Answer "best seller" questions — on or off. When on, choose the source: my picks first, otherwise sales (recommended), sales only (last 90 days, refreshed daily) or my picks only (up to 5 products). When off, the assistant does not name best sellers and helps the customer search instead.
Frequently asked questions — at least 3 recommended; they also appear under Pages → FAQ
The assistant will know — a checklist of what is filled in and what is missing

7. Go live

Main store URL and short link (custom short codes on paid plans)
Custom domain — optional; connect and verify your own domain
Finish setup checks the required fields and opens Store settings

Editing after setup

Open Store Setup again to see Store settings: the readiness ring, a to-do list (red = required field missing, amber = assistant information missing) and one card per section. Edit opens just that section; Save stores it immediately and the changes reach the storefront and the assistants right away. Links with ?section=contact (or the older ?step=basic) open a section directly.

Tips

Fill in opening hours, shipping policy and the gift wrap question first — these are the questions customers ask the assistants most.
Owner WhatsApp in Contact ≠ WhatsApp Business under Integrations.
From the owner WhatsApp (or seated staff phones), messaging the store Business number opens operator mode, not the customer assistant.