Merchant Onboarding

This guide walks through onboarding a new merchant from registration to a live storefront with custom domain and payment processing.

Overview

Estimated time: 30–60 minutes (excluding DNS propagation).

Step 1 — Register

1. Navigate to the dashboard: https://dashboard.prood.com/register (or your NEXT_PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_URL in dev)
2. Enter email, password, and store name
3. Better Auth creates:
   • A user record
   • An organization record (the store — e.g. slug acme-store)
   • A member record (user as owner)

The organization ID (e.g. org_abc123) becomes the tenant key for all commerce data.

Step 2 — Configure store settings

1. Go to Settings (/settings)
2. Set store name, default currency, and contact information
3. These values appear on the storefront via GET /v1/store

Step 3 — Add products

1. Go to Products → New product (/products/new)
2. Fill in:
   • Name and description (localized if multi-language)
   • Slug (URL path)
   • At least one variant with SKU, price, and inventory
   • Product images (uploaded via storage provider)
   • Categories
3. Set status to Published
4. Repeat for additional products

Verify products appear in the API:

curl -H "Host: acme-store.prood.app" \
  https://api.prood.com/v1/products

Step 4 — Configure payments

1. Go to Integrations (/integrations)
2. Select your payment provider (Stripe recommended for global, Easypay/Ifthenpay for Portugal)
3. Enter provider credentials:

Stripe

Easypay

4. Save — credentials are encrypted and stored per organization

Step 5 — Set up webhooks

Configure the payment provider to send webhooks to:

https://checkout.prood.com/api/webhooks/{provider}/{orgId}

See Webhook setup for provider-specific instructions.

Step 6 — Add domain

Subdomain (automatic)

The store is immediately available on the platform subdomain — no dashboard action required:

Custom domain

1. Go to Domains (/domains)
2. Enter custom domain: shop.acme.com
3. Add DNS records at your registrar:

4. Wait for DNS propagation (up to 48 hours, usually minutes)
5. Dashboard shows verification status
6. Once verified, storefront serves at https://shop.acme.com

Requires Vercel domain provisioning env vars (VERCEL_TOKEN, STOREFRONT_VERCEL_PROJECT_ID).

Step 7 — Invite team members

1. Go to Team (/team)
2. Invite colleagues by email with appropriate role:
   • Admin — full store management
   • Member — read-only (future fine-grained permissions)

Step 8 — Test the full flow

1. Visit the storefront (subdomain or custom domain)
2. Browse products — verify catalog loads
3. Add item to cart
4. Proceed to checkout
5. Complete payment with test credentials
6. Verify order appears in dashboard Orders
7. Test refund flow (optional)

Test checklist

• Storefront loads with correct store name and products
• Cart add/update/remove works
• Checkout form collects address and contact info
• Payment completes (Stripe test card or Easypay sandbox)
• Order appears in dashboard with correct status
• Webhook updates order from pending to confirmed
• Custom domain resolves (if configured)
• Team member can sign in and access dashboard

Step 9 — Go live

1. Switch payment provider from test/sandbox to production keys
2. Update webhook URLs to production endpoints
3. Remove DEFAULT_TENANT_ORG_ID if set (ensures strict host resolution)
4. Verify SSL certificates are active on all domains
5. Monitor first real orders in dashboard

Data isolation verification

After onboarding, verify the new merchant's data is isolated:

-- Connect to Neon Postgres
SELECT set_config('app.current_org_id', 'org_new_merchant', false);
SELECT count(*) FROM products;  -- only their products

SELECT set_config('app.current_org_id', 'org_demo', false);
SELECT count(*) FROM products;  -- only demo products

Related pages