Online stores and direct-to-consumer brands

Magpie sells your products at your own domain, and adds no fee. Your website and your email can use that domain too.

The brand and the people who run it work in one Magpie team. Buyers pay into your own Stripe account.

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Store reports for Harbor & Pine Candle Co. over the last 30 days: CA$3,684.00 in net sales from 78 orders, an average order of CA$47.67 and 121 units sold, then gross sales, discounts, the refund, net sales and shipping.

This combination of five Magpie areas fits a brand that sells online.

Store
Store sells your products in their sizes and colours, and starts each supplier's order.
DNS
DNS puts your shop, your website and your email at your own domain.
Websites
Websites gives the brand a site, and one section lists your products at current prices.
Newsletter
Newsletter emails news and offers to the buyers who asked for them.
Social Media
Social Media schedules a launch's posts, and tags each link with the platform and campaign.

Buyers choose a size and colour, and pay into your own Stripe account.

Store gives the brand an online shop, with sizes and colours for each product. Each variant has its own price, cost, SKU and stock. You can change the prices, tags and stock of many products at once.

Buyers pay on Stripe's checkout page without signing up first. They can use your discount codes. The money goes to your own Stripe account. Heavy products can have shipping rates of their own.

A paid order in Harbor & Pine Candle Co.’s Store, tagged as a gift and not yet ready for pickup: two Harbor Fog soy candles in the 8 oz amber jar and a brass wick trimmer, with the FALLSCENTS discount, tax, the CA$82.60 total and the Stripe fee.

You put the shop, the website and your email on your own domain.

DNS lets Magpie host your domain's records. You can copy in the domain's current records and check them. The domain's page then shows the two nameservers to set where the domain is registered.

Your shop can be at shop.example.com and your website at example.com. Each will add the records it needs, and so will your email. The domain's page shows which addresses are live, and any problem found.

Harbor & Pine Candle Co.’s domain, harborandpine.test, verified in Mail with 4 mailboxes and 9 addresses and mail to any other address delivered to hello@, and the brand’s website and its Store at shop.harborandpine.test both live.

The brand's website lists your products at current prices, and you edit it yourself.

Websites gives the brand a site built from sections. Every page shares one header, footer and navigation. You can change the text visually, or edit the HTML. Publishing puts every page online at once, and each version is kept.

One section lists your published products with their images and current prices. Each links to its page in your shop. If you already have a website, Magpie can host its files instead.

Harbor & Pine Candle Co.’s website open in the editor in Visual mode: the Home page, with links to Candles, Diffusers, Our story and Visit the studio and a hero reading Soy candles poured by hand in Hamilton, below the Add section buttons, Store products among them.

Buyers who ask for news at checkout join your email list.

Newsletter gives the brand an email list for news and offers. Checkout can show an unticked box asking for them. A buyer who ticks it will join your list once the order is paid.

You can send yourself a test, then send each email now or schedule it. You can import a list from Mailchimp, Substack or a CSV file. The import keeps a record of how each person agreed.

A draft Newsletter email from Harbor & Pine Candle Co., The fall scents are back on Friday, started by Marcus Webb, with its preview text and the email as subscribers will see it: three fall scents returning on Friday and their prices.

You schedule a launch's posts together, and see which platform brought each sale.

Social Media groups a launch's posts into one campaign, and schedules the finished drafts. Posts to Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn will be published at their time. For X and Instagram, Magpie will email you a reminder to post by hand.

Each link is tagged with the platform and the campaign's name. Your shop keeps the tags of the link a buyer followed. Its reports list sales by source, and each order shows where it came from.

Harbor & Pine Candle Co. in Social Media: the fall scents launch carousel ready to post to Instagram, which Tobias Grant has started, and the next scheduled posts with the Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Instagram and X accounts each one goes to.

Five more areas cover email at your domain, the books, forms, photos and contacts.

Mail
Mail gives the brand mailboxes and aliases at its own domain. An alias such as support@ can deliver to everyone who answers it. The whole team can open a team mailbox.
Accounting
Accounting adds paid orders, refunds, Stripe's fees and payouts to the books. A received purchase order can be entered as the supplier's bill.
Forms
Forms gives a survey or an enquiry Form its own address. Your newsletter can link to it. You can download every answer in one CSV file.
Image Converter
Image Converter gives a folder of product photos one size and format. It saves them to Your images, for your products and posts.
Contacts
Contacts adds a customer's name, email and phone from their page in your shop. A supplier can be linked to a contact too.

Each reorder goes from a low-stock email to the supplier's bill in your books.

  1. A variant reaches its reorder point

    When its available stock falls to the point you set, you will get an email. The Low stock filter will list it too.

  2. The order lists what is low

    Magpie can add every low variant to a new purchase order. It skips any already covered by stock on order. Each line uses the quantity to order you set.

  3. The supplier gets it

    You email it to the supplier with your message, or download it as a PDF.

  4. The delivery is received

    You enter what arrived and the supplier's invoice number. Stock will go up, and the average cost will move toward the order's cost.

  5. The bill reaches the books

    When your books use the shop's currency, the received order can become the supplier's bill. It covers what arrived, on the Inventory account.

  6. Each sale moves its cost

    Each unit's cost will move from the Inventory account to Cost of goods sold. Your shop's reports show each product's margin.

Moving your shop to Magpie takes six steps.

  1. Set up the Store

    You give the shop the brand's name and a contact email. Help: Set up and publish a Store.

  2. Connect Stripe

    You connect the brand's Stripe account. Help: Connect Stripe to receive money.

  3. Import the catalog

    You import the catalog as a CSV file and add the images. Then you make the products live. Help: Import and export products as CSV.

  4. Add shipping

    You add shipping zones and their methods. Products that ship differently get a profile of their own. Help: Collections and shipping.

  5. Connect the domain

    Magpie lists the records to add, or adds them when it hosts the domain's DNS. Help: Show your Store at your own domain.

  6. Publish

    Publishing will put the shop online at your domain and at its Magpie address.

Plans

A brand run by a team fits the Team plan, one price for the whole team. It has up to 25 members, mailboxes at your domain and 20 websites. Your newsletters get higher limits too.

A free team has up to 3 members and 1 website, without Mail. API keys for your shop need Pro on the account that creates them.

Magpie adds no fee to your shop's sales. Stripe's processing fee is taken from each payment.

Other businesses similar to an online store have pages of their own.

Etsy and handmade sellers

A handmade seller sells personalised pieces and patterns to download, beside an Etsy shop. They take custom order requests too.

Makers selling to shops

A maker selling to shops and stockists uses wholesale price lists and minimum quantities. Those buyers pay by invoice.

Vintage sellers and resellers

A vintage seller sells one-of-a-kind second-hand pieces in their own shop. They also sell on Poshmark, Depop, eBay or Vinted.

Questions online store owners ask

Can my shop be at my own domain?

Yes. Your shop always has a Magpie address, and can also be at a domain you own. That can be shop.example.com, or example.com with www too. Magpie lists the records to add, or adds them when it hosts the domain's DNS. It will then get a security certificate, and email at the domain will keep working.

Can the website and the shop share a domain?

Yes. The website can be at example.com and the shop at shop.example.com. Each is connected to the domain separately. When Magpie hosts the domain's DNS, each will add its own records. A section of the website can list your published products, each linking to the shop.

Does Magpie take a percentage of my sales?

Magpie adds no fee to your sales. Stripe's processing fee is taken from each payment. Each order shows its fee and the net amount. Your Stripe account is the seller, and its business name is on the checkout page. It is responsible for refunds, disputes, tax and customer support.

How do I move my products from my current store?

You import a CSV file of up to 5,000 rows. The import reads its own column names, such as Handle, Title, SKU, Price and Stock. Rows with the same Handle become one product's options. The import lists every product and change before anything is made. Products arrive as drafts, so you add their images and then make them live together.

How do I charge sales tax or VAT?

You can have Stripe Tax calculate each checkout's tax, in your own Stripe account. It covers the places where that account has a tax registration. Prices can include tax or have it added, and buyers can enter a VAT number. Each order's tax is recorded in your books under Sales tax payable. Registering, filing and paying the tax stay with you.

Can I run discount codes and free shipping offers?

You can offer a percentage or an amount off, free shipping, or buy X get Y. It can apply to the whole order, chosen products or chosen collections. Buyers type it as a code, or it applies automatically. It can have start and end times, a minimum and limits on uses. It can be limited to a customer segment, such as buyers who spent over an amount.

What happens when someone leaves at checkout?

The products their checkout held go back into stock when it expires. If the buyer ticked the box for emails, Magpie can send them one reminder. It will go out 1, 3 or 6 hours or a day later, as you choose. It lists the products, with a link that puts them back in their cart. It can also show a discount code you pick.

Can I collect product reviews?

Magpie can email each order's buyer to ask for a review. It goes 3, 7, 14 or 30 days after the whole order shipped, as you choose. Only buyers can review, and each review shows a star rating and a verified buyer mark. You publish or hide each one, and can reply in public. The average rating is shown beside the product's name and given to search engines.

Can customers ask to hear when something is back in stock?

Yes, for a variant whose stock is counted. When it sells out, its product page will ask for an email address. One email will be sent when it can be bought again. You see how many people are waiting for each sold-out variant. Their addresses are not shown, and are used for that one email only.

How do returns work?

Customers ask for a return from their order page, with a reason and a note. The window is 14, 30, 60 or 90 days after the last shipment, as you choose. You approve or decline each request with a message. Then you record what arrived and how much goes back into stock. You refund the customer, send a replacement as a new order, or close the return.

How do I ship heavy or oversized products?

You put them in a shipping profile with methods of their own, such as freight. A cart with products from several profiles gets combined methods, such as Standard + Freight. Each costs the sum of their prices. Each method can show a delivery estimate from your handling time and its transit time. Buyers see it at checkout, and as dates on the order and its emails.

Can I see which posts and emails bring in sales?

Your shop records the UTM campaign tags on the first page a buyer opens. Without tags, it records the website that linked to it. The tags are copied to the order, and reports group sales by source and medium. Social Media campaigns add the tags to their links for you. You add them to the links in your newsletters yourself.

Can my products appear on Google and in Instagram shopping?

Your shop has a feed address for Google Merchant Center, and one for a Meta catalog. Facebook and Instagram shopping use the Meta catalog. Each time a feed is fetched, it reads prices, stock and links from your shop. It lists each variant for sale on a published product with an image. Your shop also has a sitemap for search engines.

Can I keep stock in a warehouse and at the studio?

You can add stock locations, and each product shows what each one holds. A paid order takes its products from the default location. A shipment can name the location it leaves from. A transfer moves stock between locations, and it cannot be sold while in transit. Buyers can buy a product while any location has it.

Can my warehouse or fulfilment system connect to my shop?

A program with an API key can read orders, add shipments with tracking and record refunds. It can also set stock and change prices. Signed webhooks notify an address you choose when an order is paid, shipped or refunded. They also notify it when a variant reaches its reorder point. Each is retried when the answer is not a success.

Can our team answer customer email at our domain?

Yes. You can add mailboxes and aliases at your domain. An alias such as support@ can deliver to everyone who answers it. Each of them can send from it too. A team mailbox opens for every member, with the same folders, stars and read status.

Can customers buy without signing up first?

Yes. Customers will get a private link to their order by email. A customer who is signed in to Magpie sees their orders in one list. They can reuse saved addresses. Their wishlist has a read-only link to share.

Can I see each customer's orders and spending?

Yes. Your shop lists everyone who has paid for an order. Each shows their orders, spending after refunds and whether they agreed to marketing email. You can filter them by spending, orders, a product bought or days since the last order. You can save a filter as a segment, and export the list as CSV.

Will I get a summary of how the shop is doing?

Yes. If you turn it on, you will get an email each Monday after 07:00. It compares the past week's net sales, orders, refunds, views and conversion with the week before. It also lists the best-selling products. Your reports cover any dates you choose, and each table downloads as a CSV file.

What if a customer asks for their data or asks to be erased?

You can download their details, saved addresses, orders and gift cards from their page. Erasing their data will replace their name, email, phone, tax IDs and addresses on their orders. It will also delete their saved addresses, notes and tags. Amounts will be kept, so orders and the books still add up. Their records in your Stripe account will not change.

Can I export my products, orders and customers?

Yes. Products export as a CSV file, with a row for each variant. It uses the columns the import reads, and includes drafts and archived products. Orders, customers, every report table and your newsletter subscribers export as CSV files too. Your domain's records download as a standard zone file.

Open your brand's online shop.

Create a Magpie account and give your shop your brand's name.

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