Prepare your first product for sale
Use this walkthrough for an ordinary Sale product you sell from stock. Creating the item, making it Active, and preparing checkout are separate tasks. Confirm the selected store and, where available, the Sandbox / Live switch before you start. Products, stock and orders are separate in each mode; enabling Sandbox does not copy the Live catalog. Each mode needs its own product and opening stock. Your storefront must use the same store and mode you are preparing.
Check who can help
Owners and Admins can carry out these setup tasks. Staff need the permission group for each part:
| Task | Staff permission needed |
|---|---|
| Create or edit products, variants and product images | Catalog |
| Enter opening stock or adjust counts | Inventory |
| Change checkout settings | Settings |
| Connect or change the Stripe payment account | An Owner or Admin must do this |
Catalog access does not also grant inventory access. If a control is missing, ask someone with the appropriate access to complete that step. See Team & permissions.
1. Create a Draft Sale product
Open Catalog → Items → New Item. Enter the Name, review the generated Slug, and explicitly choose Type → Sale. New Item currently starts as Rental, so check this choice. Leave Status → Draft while preparing the product.
Enter the intended Base price ($), then choose Create Item. The product editor opens after a successful save. Zero prices are allowed; check that the price is the amount you intend to charge. Follow the form's validation or plan-limit message if creation fails.
See Products & variants for descriptions and other product fields.
2. Set up the variants you will sell
If shoppers choose a size, color or other variation, add it with New variant on the product page. Enter its Name, SKU and Price ($), then choose Save. Review each variant's price: it does not automatically inherit the product's base price, and a blank price can save as zero.
Decide on variants before entering opening stock. With variants, checkout uses a specific live variant and its own stock. Product-level stock is not transferred into newly added variants. If all variants have been archived, restore an intended variant and check its price and stock before offering the product again.
3. Enter opening stock for the correct target
New Sale products and variants start with zero inventory. Open Inventory → Inventory and find the product. Match the variant name and SKU where applicable. For a product without variants, use its product row. For a product with variants, stock each variant you intend to offer.
Use Adjust, enter the stock change in Delta (signed integer), add a
Reason, and choose Apply adjustment. For example, if the row is still
at zero and you have 25 units ready to sell, a delta of 25 adds those units.
If stock is already recorded, enter the change needed, not the desired final
total.
Check the refreshed Total, Available and Reserved. Available is the quantity you can offer from that tracked row; reserved units are already set aside. A missing row is not an out-of-stock setting: use the opening-stock and missing-row instructions before offering the product.
4. Prepare how shoppers find the product
Add useful descriptions and product images. If your storefront lists products through collections, add the product to the intended collection and make that collection Active too.
Images and collections help presentation and discovery. The actual placement, variant selector and cart depend on the storefront your developer has connected; adding a product does not build those pages.
5. Check checkout prerequisites
Have the person responsible for your storefront confirm that it can start a checkout for this product and its selected variant. It can use hosted cartonium checkout or your own checkout connected to cartonium.
- For card payments through cartonium, an Owner or Admin connects the store's Stripe account. Check its Verified status and the remaining checkout requirements.
- Review the saved Tax mode and tax setup/readiness instructions. Verified payment status alone does not establish tax readiness.
- For products that ship, review Shipping, the product's shipping details and the destinations you intend to serve. Check the actual available options and charge in a representative checkout.
Keep payment setup and product setup separate: a product can be saved without a connected payment account, but that does not mean card checkout is ready.
6. Make it Active and check the whole journey
On the product editor, set Status → Active and choose Save Changes. Active makes an unarchived item eligible for the public catalog. It does not guarantee that your storefront lists it or that a purchase will succeed.
Before offering it to customers, have your team check the connected storefront using test orders:
- Find the product through the intended page or collection.
- Check the image, description and each live variant's displayed price.
- Select the intended variant if the product has variants, add a representative quantity to the cart, and check the final price, any promotions, shipping and tax.
- Complete the intended test checkout and confirm the expected order/payment result in Admin for that same store and mode. Check the stock result too.
Testing in Sandbox does not prepare a Live product or its stock. Check the intended Live setup separately before offering it to customers.
Resolve unexpected results before relying on the setup for live sales. If the product is missing, check its status, archive state, collection placement and storefront connection. If it cannot be purchased, check the product or selected live variant, its Available stock and checkout readiness. Ask your storefront developer or cartonium support to help with a mismatch you cannot resolve.