Your Online Store in 10 Minutes: A Step-by-Step Guide After Installing Ekada

You just created your Ekada account. The confirmation email landed. You're logged in. The dashboard is staring back at you.

Now what?

Most platforms leave you here—with a blank screen, a setup wizard that asks 47 questions you don't have answers to, and a vague promise that "you can customize everything!" Translation: you're on your own.

Not here. This guide walks you through every step from empty dashboard to live, selling storefront. Not in an hour. Not after a weekend course. In 10 minutes.

Set a timer. Let's go.

Minute 0–1: Name Your Store

After logging in, you'll land on your dashboard. The first thing you see is your store name field.

Enter your business name. This isn't just a label—it becomes your storefront heading, your page title, and the name customers see when they browse your products.

Example: "Amara Handmade Jewelry" or "Fresh Brew Café" or "The Linen Closet."

Choose your store URL. Ekada gives you a whitelabel subdomain by default (e.g., amara.ekada.app), but you can connect a custom domain later. For now, pick something clean and recognizable.

Tip: If you already own a custom domain (like amarajewelry.com), you can connect it under Settings → Domain after setup. It takes about 5 additional minutes.

One minute used. Your store has a name and a URL.

Minute 1–3: Add Your First Products

Click Products in the left sidebar, then hit the + Add Product button. You'll see a clean product form.

For each product, fill in:

1. Product name — Keep it clear and customer-facing. "Silver Moon Stud Earrings" beats "Product 1."
2. Price — Enter your selling price. Ekada handles tax settings separately, so enter the price you want customers to pay.
3. Photos — Upload 1–5 images. Drag and drop works. The first image becomes your product's cover photo.
4. Description — Two or three sentences that answer: What is it? Why should someone buy it? What makes it special?
5. Inventory count — Enter how many you have in stock. This enables real-time stock tracking—when you sell one, the count drops automatically.

How to move fast:

• Add 5–10 products to start. You can always add more later.
• Use photos straight from your phone. They don't need to be professional on day one.
• Skip the optional fields (variants, weight, SKU) for now. They're there when you need them, but they're not required to go live.

Three minutes used. Your store has products.

Minute 3–4: Set Up Payment

No payment setup = no sales. This is the step most platforms make painful. Ekada keeps it simple.

Go to Settings → Payments. You'll see the available payment methods for your region:

• Online payments — Bank transfers, cards, and digital wallets through connected providers
• Cash on delivery — If you offer local delivery or in-store pickup
• Payment links — Generate shareable payment links for WhatsApp or social media orders

Enable the methods you accept. Each one is a toggle—turn it on, save, done.

Pro move: If you sell on WhatsApp, enable payment links. You can send a product link with a payment link in the same message. Customer taps, pays, done. No screenshots of bank details. No "Did you get my transfer?"

Four minutes used. Your store can accept money.

Minute 4–5: Configure Shipping or Delivery

Go to Settings → Shipping. Here you define how products get to your customers.

Three options:

1. Flat rate — Charge a fixed delivery fee (e.g., $5 for all orders)
2. Free shipping — Absorb the cost or bake it into product prices
3. Local pickup — Customers collect from your store (perfect for cafés, salons, bakeries)

Set one up. If you deliver locally, set a flat rate for your delivery zone. If you're a café or restaurant, enable local pickup and skip shipping entirely.

You can add more zones and rates later. For now, one shipping option is enough to go live.

Five minutes used. Your store can fulfill orders.

Minute 5–6: Customize Your Storefront Appearance

Go to Appearance or Storefront Settings. This is where your store stops looking like a template and starts looking like yours.

You can customize:

• Logo — Upload your business logo. It appears in your store header and on your order confirmations.
• Brand colors — Set your primary and accent colors. These apply to buttons, headings, and links across your storefront.
• Cover image — Upload a hero banner image for your storefront homepage.
• Store description — One or two sentences about your business. This appears on your storefront and in search results.

What you don't need to do:

• You don't need to write CSS, HTML, or any code
• You don't need to hire a designer
• You don't need to choose from 200 templates and then customize each one

Ekada's storefront adapts to your brand settings automatically. Upload your logo, pick your colors, and the entire store follows suit.

Six minutes used. Your store looks like your brand.

Minute 6–7: Add a Welcome Banner or Featured Section

Your storefront homepage has a natural flow: logo and cover image up top, then products below. But you can add a quick welcome message to set the tone.

Go to Storefront → Homepage. Add a short banner or announcement:

• "Free delivery on orders over $50"
• "New spring collection—shop now"
• "Order by 2 PM for same-day pickup"

This is optional, but it's the difference between a store that feels alive and a store that feels abandoned. One sentence. Ten seconds.

Seven minutes used. Your storefront has personality.

Minute 7–8: Preview Your Store

Before you go live, see what your customers will see.

Click Preview Store (or visit your store URL in a new browser tab). Walk through the experience:

1. Browse your products. Does the layout look right?
2. Click a product. Is the description clear? Are the photos showing well?
3. Add a product to cart. Does the cart work?
4. Go to checkout. Are the payment options showing? Is shipping displaying correctly?

If something looks off, go back and fix it—the change saves instantly, and you can refresh the preview to verify.

If everything looks good, you're ready for the last step.

Eight minutes used. You've seen your store through your customers' eyes.

Minute 8–9: Go Live

Find the Publish or Go Live toggle. It's usually in your dashboard header or under Storefront Settings.

Toggle it on.

Your store is now live at your Ekada URL. Anyone with the link can browse your products, add to cart, and place an order.

What just changed:

• Before: your storefront showed a "Coming Soon" page or was invisible to visitors
• After: your storefront is fully operational, accepting orders and payments

You can toggle it off anytime if you want to make changes. Nothing is permanent.

Nine minutes used. Your store is live.

Minute 9–10: Share Your Store

Your store is live. Now it needs visitors. Here's how to get your first traffic in the next 60 seconds:

Share on WhatsApp:

Copy your store link and send it to your existing customers—the people who've been ordering through chat. A simple message:

"Hey! I've set up an online store. You can browse products, check availability, and place orders anytime here: [your-store-url]"

Share on social media:

Post your store link on Instagram, Facebook, or wherever your customers find you. Pin it to your profile.

Add it to your bio:

Update your Instagram, TikTok, and WhatsApp Business bio with your store link. From now on, "How much is this?" gets answered with a link, not a screenshot.

Ten minutes. Your store is live and your customers know about it.

What Happens After You Go Live

The 10-minute setup gets you from zero to selling. But Ekada keeps working after setup:

Your First Order

When someone places an order, you get a notification. The order appears in your Orders dashboard with all the details—what they bought, their shipping info, their payment status. No screenshot, no WhatsApp message to decipher. Just a clean order card ready to fulfill.

Inventory Updates Automatically

Sold 3 units of a product? Stock drops from 20 to 17 instantly. Customer asks if something's available? Your store shows real-time availability. No more "Let me check" messages. The system checks for you.

Invoices Generate Themselves

Every order comes with a professional invoice—automatically. Payment links included. Tax calculated. No manual invoice creation. No chasing payments without records.

Your Dashboard Starts Working

Within hours, your dashboard starts showing real data: page views, orders, revenue, top products. This isn't last month's spreadsheet. This is today's reality. Check it in the morning, and you'll know exactly how your store performed while you slept.

Customers Build Themselves

Every person who browses or buys creates a customer profile—automatically. Over time, you'll see purchase patterns, favorite products, and order frequency without lifting a finger. This is the data that WhatsApp never gave you.

The Quick-Start Checklist

If you prefer a checklist format, here's your 10-minute launch plan:

Every item checked? You're in business.

Common Questions from New Store Owners

"What if I make a mistake?" Everything in Ekada is editable. Wrong price? Change it. Bad photo? Replace it. Wrong shipping rate? Update it. Your store is live, not locked. Tweak anytime.

"Do I need to add all my products before going live?" No. Start with 5–10. You can add more in minutes. A live store with 10 products beats a "coming soon" page with 200 products you'll never finish uploading.

"What if I want to sell on WhatsApp too?" You already can. Every product has a shareable link. Send it in any chat. Customers tap, browse your full catalog, and buy—all without leaving the conversation. WhatsApp handles the relationship. Ekada handles the business.

"Can I customize more later?" Absolutely. After your 10-minute launch, you can add product variants, configure tax rules, set up discount codes, enable customer reviews, connect a custom domain, and dozens more features. But none of those are required to start selling today.

"What about taxes?" Ekada calculates taxes based on your store location and customer location. Set your tax region in Settings → Tax, and the system handles the math automatically.

The Difference Between "Almost Live" and "Actually Selling"

There are two kinds of store owners:

Kind 1: Spends three weeks picking fonts, debating product photo angles, writing and rewriting descriptions, adjusting margins by the pixel, and telling themselves "I'll launch when it's perfect." They launch in month three—if they launch at all.

Kind 2: Follows this guide, launches in 10 minutes with 10 products and a logo, gets their first order on day one, and improves the store based on real customer behavior instead of guesses.

Kind 2 makes more money. Not because their store is better on day one. But because they're learning from real customers on day two, while Kind 1 is still choosing between two shades of beige.

The 10-minute store isn't the finished product. It's the starting point. Every successful store you've ever admired started as a rough draft. The difference is they published it.

Publish yours.

Free to start. No credit card required.

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The best store is the one that's live. Everything else is just preparation.