Store products

Products are what your church sells to its members: shirts, books, mugs, meal tickets, camp extras. Members buy them in the member portal’s Shop and pay with a card into your church’s own Stripe account.

How to add a product

1. In the staff dashboard, open Store, then the Products tab.
2. Choose New product.
3. Give it a Name and, if you like, a Description.
4. Under Image, choose a picture from your church’s media library. Pictures are listed by their description, the text people who cannot see the picture hear instead.
5. Under How members get it, choose Picked up or shipped (the usual choice: it follows your store’s settings), Picked up only (a meal ticket) or Shipped only (a print that is only mailed).
6. Under Options, fill in one row for each size, color or kind, each with its own Price and Stock. A product with one kind keeps the single row, called “Standard” to start with. Choose Add an option for another row, and the bin beside a row (Remove) to take it away.
7. Leave Stock empty if you do not count it. If you type a number, each sale takes from it.
8. Leave On sale on, and Sold in the member portal’s Shop on, unless the product is only for an event (see below).
9. Choose Save product. It is in the Shop straight away.

To change a product later, choose Edit on its row. To take it away, choose Remove, then Remove again.

What members see in the Shop

• Each product with its picture, description and price, and a list of its options when it has more than one. An option that has run out reads “(sold out)” and cannot be chosen.
• “3 left” when fewer than ten of an option remain, and Sold out when none do. Stock you do not count is never shown.
• “Picked up at church only” or “Shipped only” under a product limited to one way, when your church offers both.
• A cart on the page. Members choose How many, then Add to order, and pay with Pay. Stripe’s checkout takes the card (and the address, for shipping).

Members buy in the member portal, signed in. Your public website lists the same products on its Shop page, and its Buy buttons open the portal’s Shop; the website itself takes no payments. See The Shop on your website.

Pickup and shipping

How members get what they buy is set once for the whole store, in Store → Settings:

• Pickup at church: on unless you switch it off, with a note such as “At the welcome desk after any service”. The note is shown in the Shop and on the member’s order.
• Shipping: off unless you switch it on. You set one flat rate per order, whatever it holds, an amount over which shipping is free (optional), and the countries you ship to as two-letter codes such as US or CA.
• Sales tax: off unless you switch it on. Stripe Tax works it out at checkout and charges your church’s Stripe account a fee for it. Set Stripe Tax up in your own Stripe dashboard first. Whether you must collect sales tax depends on your state and what you sell, so ask your accountant.
• Where members shop: HoW’s store (the default), Our Shopify store with its address (the Shop then sends members there), or No store (the Shop leaves the portal). Event add-ons stay in HoW whichever you choose.

When both pickup and shipping are on, members choose Pick up at church or Ship to me in their cart. Choose Save settings after any change.

Products only for an event

Switch off Sold in the member portal’s Shop for something you offer only with an event, such as a retreat lunch. The product list marks it Event add-on only, and you then choose it on the event. See Event add-ons.

Good to know

• Prices. At least $0.50 for each option. An order must come to at least $0.50.
• Stock is held at once. When a member places an order, its items are set aside for them for a day while they pay. If they do not pay, cancel, or the payment fails, the items go back into stock.
• On sale off hides a product (or a single option) everywhere, the Shop and any event that offers it. The product list marks a hidden product Hidden. Switching it back on brings it back as it was.
• Remove takes a product out of the store for good. Members stop seeing it at once; orders already placed keep their record.
• Changing a price changes it for new orders only. An order keeps the price it was placed at.
• A product chosen as an event’s add-on cannot be made Shipped only, since add-ons are handed over at the event.
• Limits. Up to 20 different items in one order, and up to 20 of each.
• Your plan. The store is included in the Pro and Elite plans, and can be added to Core as an extra.
• Who can do it. Owners, administrators and store managers can add and change products and the store’s settings. A store manager doesn’t see Events, so putting a product on an event as an add-on is for owners and administrators.

If something isn’t right

• The Save product button stays grey. Every option needs a name and a price of at least $0.50, and the product needs a name.
• “Members need a way to get what they buy: turn on pickup, shipping, or both.” In Store → Settings, at least one of pickup or shipping must be on.
• “Use the full address, starting with https://” Your Shopify store’s address must be complete, for example https://merch.yourchurch.org.
• “The media library is not open to you” under Image. Your role cannot see the media library; ask someone who edits the website to add the picture, or ask an administrator to set the image.
• An event’s add-on can’t be set to ship only (the message reads “this product is an event’s add-on, handed over at the event; it cannot be shipped only”). Take it off the event’s add-ons first, or keep it as picked up or either.
• Members read “this church is not set up to take payments yet”. Your church’s Stripe account is not ready. See Connecting Stripe.
• Members read that the church “has not finished setting up Stripe Tax”. Sales tax is switched on in Store → Settings, but Stripe Tax is not set up in your Stripe dashboard. Nothing is charged until it is, or until you switch sales tax off.

What DCX Logic support can do

Inside a support session your church’s owner approves under Support access, support can look at your products and store settings with you, and in a read and write session add or correct products for you. DCX Logic can also add the store to your church if it is not in your plan.

Coming from Planning Center

Planning Center has no separate store. Its help center suggests selling merchandise as an add-on to a Registrations signup, with a price and a quantity available, showing how many are left and “sold out” at the end. HoW works the same way for event add-ons, and adds a store that stands on its own: products are on sale all year in the portal’s Shop, can be shipped as well as picked up, and keep their sizes or colors as options of one product, each with its own price and stock.