Running your catalog
Coready is where your catalog, customers, orders and storefront live together. It works best when a few habits are followed from the start — most problems people hit later come from breaking one of them early.
This page is for the people running a store. No technical knowledge is assumed.
The principles
- Enter each thing once. Duplicates are the main cause of wrong numbers.
- A variation is an option, not another product.
- Define once, attach many times.
- Build the store by arranging it, not by coding.
- Content is a draft until you publish. Product data is live the moment you save.
- Every number has one source of truth.
- An order records what was agreed, not what is true today.
- Grow by changing the plan, not by rebuilding.
The rest of this page explains each one.
1. Enter each thing once
Every product, customer, category and brand should exist exactly once. When the same thing exists twice, your stock is wrong, your reports double-count, and a customer's history splits in half.
Coready prevents some of this for you:
- A product's code, SKU and external code must be unique. If you try to reuse one, you get an error rather than a second record.
- At checkout, a customer is matched by email address, ignoring capitals.
Anna@shop.comandanna@shop.comare the same person, and her second order attaches to her existing record.
Before adding anything, search for it. The search box on each page matches names and codes.
Example. You sell the same mug in three colours. That is one product with a colour option — not three products called "Mug (red)", "Mug (blue)", "Mug (green)". Three products means three stock figures to keep in step and three entries in every report.
2. A variation is an option, not another product
This is the single decision that shapes your catalog. Use this test:
| Situation | What to create |
|---|---|
| Same item, different size / colour / material | One product, with an option |
| Same item, price changes with quantity | One product, with quantity breaks |
| Genuinely different item — different name, purpose, photo | A separate product |
| Same item sold as a set or bundle | A separate product |
If a customer would search for it by a different name, it is a different product. If they would pick it from a dropdown on the same page, it is an option.
3. Define once, attach many times
Options, categories and brands are defined once for your whole company and then attached to as many products as you like.
Create the option Size once, with the values you sell. Attach it to every product that has sizes. When you add a new size next year, you add it in one place.
The same applies to categories and manufacturers. Do not create "Size (shirts)" and "Size (shoes)" unless the values genuinely differ.
Choosing an option type
| Type | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Select | A simple dropdown — one choice from a list |
| Radio | A few choices, all worth showing at once |
| Checkbox | Extras the customer can add, any number of them |
| Table | Choices that carry their own prices or quantity breaks |
| Matrix | Two option lists that combine — size × colour, each pair its own price and stock |
Each value can carry its own stock, its own price adjustment, and its own quantity breaks. A price adjustment is a difference from the base price, so changing the base price updates every variant at once.
Example. A T-shirt priced at 20. Sizes S, M, L cost the same, so their adjustment is zero. XXL costs 3 more, so its adjustment is +3. Raise the base price to 22 and XXL becomes 25 automatically.
4. Build the store by arranging it, not by coding
Your storefront is assembled from blocks — a hero banner, a product grid, text, a gallery, a contact form. You add, reorder, hide and configure them in Studio, which opens on your actual site: you click something on the page and edit it there.
You do not need a developer to change how your store looks. Colours, fonts and spacing are set once as design settings and apply everywhere, so the site stays consistent.
Work this way round:
- Set your colours and fonts once.
- Choose which header and footer you want.
- Build each page from blocks.
- Preview, then publish.
If you find yourself wanting something no block provides, that is worth a conversation before it becomes custom work — usually an existing block covers it.
5. Drafts and live data behave differently
This surprises people, so it is worth stating plainly:
| What you change | When it goes live |
|---|---|
| Page content, layout, colours, text | When you press Publish |
| Product name, price, stock, images, options | Immediately when you save |
| Languages the store serves | Immediately |
Page content is a draft you can shape at leisure and release when ready. Product data is your operational truth — a price you correct is wrong on the site until you fix it, so it takes effect at once.
If you need to prepare a page without showing it, build it as a draft and publish when you are ready. If you need to prepare a price change, change it when you want it to apply.
6. Every number has one source of truth
Decide where each piece of information lives, and change it only there.
If your store is connected to an external inventory or ERP system, that system owns product data by default and its regular sync will overwrite what you type. The exception is deliberate: a field you edit yourself becomes locked, and the sync leaves it alone from then on. That is how you keep a better product description while stock keeps arriving automatically.
The practical rule: do not maintain the same number in two places and hope they agree. They will not.
7. An order records what was agreed
When an order is placed, Coready stores the product name, code, price and chosen options as they were at that moment. Changing a price tomorrow does not rewrite yesterday's orders, and deleting a product does not erase the orders that contain it.
Orders move through three states:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| New | Received, not yet accepted |
| Confirmed | Accepted and being fulfilled |
| Cancelled | Not going ahead |
Treat an order as a record of what happened. If a customer wants something different, that is a new order or a cancellation — not an edit that quietly changes history.
8. Grow by changing the plan, not by rebuilding
Your plan sets how many users, products and customers you can have. You can see exactly where you stand at any time: each of those pages shows your usage, turns amber as you approach the limit, and tells you plainly when you have reached it.
Reaching a limit never breaks your store. Your site keeps serving customers, orders keep arriving, and you can still read and edit everything you have. Only adding new records pauses until the plan changes.
Nothing is migrated or rebuilt when you move up a plan — the same data, the same store, different numbers. So start on the plan you need today.
Changing data safely
A few habits that prevent most accidents:
- Search before you add. Almost every duplicate starts with someone not finding the existing record.
- Correct the record; do not add a second one. A misspelled product name should be edited, not replaced by a new product.
- Deleting is for mistakes, not for history. To stop selling something, set it inactive so it disappears from the store but stays on past orders and in your reports.
- Preview before publishing. The preview shows exactly what visitors will see.
- Give people the access they need. Managers work day to day; administrators change settings, invite people and connect integrations.
Where to go next
- Capabilities — what Coready can do, area by area.
- Plans and Limits — what each plan includes and how limits behave.
- Studio — a fuller guide to building pages.