Seller storefronts and the stores directory

On a multi-seller marketplace, regular sellers want a place of their own: a page with their name and logo that they can share, where buyers browse only their items. With storefronts, each seller can turn their profile into a store. The stores directory at /stores then lists every store on your site, so buyers can find sellers as well as items.

Storefronts are part of the Marketplace plan and work with the Nova theme.

Switch storefronts on

Storefronts are off until you switch them on:

1. Go to Settings › General.
2. In Business sellers, switch on Seller storefronts.
3. Click Save changes in the bar at the bottom.

The switch only shows on the Marketplace plan with the Nova theme. If it says Set by Yclas support for your site, ask us through Support to change it.

Three extras sit under it in Business sellers. Each is off until you switch it on, and works only while storefronts are on:

Setting	What it does
Store teams	Store owners invite other users to help run their store. See Store teams.
Follow a store	Buyers follow stores and get a daily email with their new listings. See Following a store.
Vacation mode for stores	Store owners pause orders, bookings, offers and quotes until a date. See Vacation mode.

How a seller sets up their store

1. In the menu of their account pages, the seller clicks My store.
2. They fill in the store details (see below) and click Save.
3. Once the store is saved, they add a Logo (square) and a Banner (wide) under Pictures, and save again.

Field	What it’s for
Store name	Required, up to 120 characters.
Short address	A short link to the store, such as /store/smith-tools, made from the name if left empty. Lower-case letters, numbers and dashes; each store’s must be different.
Tagline	One line under the name, up to 200 characters.
About the store	Who they are and what they sell.
Shipping policy	How and when they ship.
Returns policy	Their returns terms. Buyers also see it when they ask for a return.
Search engines: Title and Description	The store’s own title (up to 70 characters) and description (up to 170) in Google. Left empty, the store name and tagline are used.

Pictures follow your photo settings for file types and size. Remove under a picture takes it off.

What buyers see

A seller’s store replaces their profile page, at the same address (/user/their-name); the short address leads there too. The store shows:

• the banner, logo, store name and tagline;
• the seller’s published listings, with category buttons and a Search this store box of their own;
• About the store, Shipping and Returns, when the seller filled them in.

Sellers who haven’t set up a store keep their normal profile. A store with no published listings is kept out of search engines until it has some.

The store’s rating

With reviews on, a store shows its seller’s rating under the store name: stars, the average out of 5 and the number of reviews, worked out from the reviews of all their listings. Clicking it opens the seller’s reviews. The rating is also given to search engines with the store’s details, so Google can show the stars. A store without reviews shows no rating.

Vacation mode

A seller who goes away for a while can pause their store instead of deactivating every listing. Switch on Vacation mode for stores in Settings › General › Business sellers. Store owners then get a Vacation mode section on their My store page:

1. They tick I’m away: pause orders, bookings, offers and quotes.
2. They choose their Last day away (up to a year ahead) and can add a Message to buyers (optional).
3. They can also tick Also hide my listings from the search while I’m away.
4. They click Save.

While they’re away, the store and their listings say This seller is away until …, with their message, and buyers can’t buy (Buy Now or the cart), book, make an offer or ask for a quote. Buyers can still browse and send messages. Everything starts again by itself the day after their last day away; the seller can also untick the box to come back early.

Following a store

Buyers who like a store can follow it, and hear about its new listings without coming back to check. Switch on Follow a store in Settings › General › Business sellers.

• A Follow button appears on every seller’s store or profile page, with the number of followers. Buyers sign in to follow; clicking again (Following) unfollows.
• Followers get at most one email a day, New listings from stores you follow, with the new listings of all the stores they follow. No new listings means no email.
• Stores I follow in their account menu lists the stores they follow, each with Unfollow.

With email preferences on, members can switch these emails off (Stores you follow and questions).

Store teams

A busy store is rarely run by one person. With store teams, a store owner can invite up to 10 other users of your site to help. Switch on Store teams in Settings › General › Business sellers.

On their My store page, under Team, the store owner enters the helper’s email address, picks a Role and clicks Invite:

Role	What they can do for the store
Editor	Edit and deactivate the store’s listings.
Manager	Edit and deactivate the store’s listings, and mark its sales as shipped.

The invited person gets an email. If they already have an account, they find the invitation under Store team in their account menu and click Accept or Decline. If not, the email’s link lets them join once they’ve signed up or signed in; the link works for 14 days. A store owner can send up to 20 invitations a day.

Team members work from the Store team page in their account: the store’s Listings, with Edit and Deactivate, and for managers the Sales to ship, where they add the Carrier and Tracking number and click Mark as shipped. They can’t post as the owner, delete anything, invite others, or see the owner’s messages, payouts or settings. Everything they change is recorded in your audit log under their own name.

The owner removes someone with Remove next to their name; a member can leave with Leave the team.

The stores directory

With storefronts on, /stores lists every store on your site, 24 to a page. Each card shows the store’s banner, logo, name, tagline and number of listings, and links to the store.

Buyers can:

• search stores by name or tagline (Search stores);
• filter by category, to see the stores that sell in it;
• sort by most listings (the default), newest or name.

Only stores of active sellers with at least one published listing are listed. The directory is in your sitemap; a search or a filter is kept out of search engines so Google sees one directory, not hundreds of copies. Each store page has a Stores link back to the directory in its breadcrumbs.

The directory isn’t added to your menu automatically. Add a link to /stores in your menu so buyers can find it.

If one of your categories already uses stores as its URL name, /stores keeps showing that category and there is no directory. Rename the category’s URL to use the directory.

Good to know

• If you switch storefronts off, profiles go back to normal and the short addresses stop working. Sellers’ store details are kept for when you switch them on again.
• Stores are in your sitemap, so search engines find them.

Related guides

• Member profiles — the profile page a store replaces, and the members directory.
• Business sellers — business accounts, bulk import and stock feeds.
• Sales dashboard for sellers — every seller’s sales and views.
• Menu and footer links — add the stores directory to your menu.
• Reviews and ratings — the reviews a store’s rating comes from.