An Odoo eCommerce store is an online shop, and what makes it distinctive is that it is built into the business system. This piece is about setting one up.
What an Odoo eCommerce store is
An Odoo eCommerce store is an online shop, a website where customers browse products and buy them. What makes it distinctive is that it is part of Odoo. The store is not a separate web shop that has to be connected to the business system; it is part of the business system. The products in the store are the business's products in Odoo, an order placed in the store is an order in Odoo. Setting up an Odoo eCommerce store is setting up an online shop that is, from the start, part of the connected system.
The foundations: products and the website
Setting up an eCommerce store rests on foundations. It rests on the products: an eCommerce store sells products, so the products it will sell have to be set up in Odoo, since the store's catalogue is drawn from the business's products. And it rests on the website: an Odoo eCommerce store is built on the Odoo website, so it is built and arranged using the website builder, the visual tool for building web pages. So setting up the store involves having the products set up and building the store as part of the website.
Setting up the store
Setting up the eCommerce store means configuring it so it works as an online shop: the products presented for customers to browse, the shopping flow, browsing, the cart, checkout, configured, the payment and delivery handled, which are configured in their own right. The store is set up so a customer can come, browse the catalogue, choose products, and buy them, with the order flowing into Odoo. Setting up the store is configuring all of that, building on the products and the website.
The connected store
The central thing in setting up an Odoo eCommerce store, and its real value, is that the store is connected. Setting up the store well means setting it up as the connected thing it is: the store's products and stock are the business's genuine products and stock, an online order becomes a genuine sales order in Odoo, flowing into the same fulfilment and accounting as any order. The store is the front of the connected operation. Setting up the store, a business should set it up to genuinely use that connection, so the store is part of the one connected business rather than treated as an isolated thing.
Who an Odoo eCommerce store suits
An honest note. An Odoo eCommerce store is most worth setting up for a business that runs, or will run, the rest of its operation on Odoo, because then the store being part of the connected system is the whole point and the value is real. A business setting up an Odoo eCommerce store should be setting it up as part of running its business on Odoo, so the store is genuinely connected to the business's products, stock, orders, and accounting. That connection is what an Odoo eCommerce store is for.
The takeaway
Setting up an Odoo eCommerce store is setting up an online shop that is part of the connected business system, where the store's products and orders are the business's genuine products and orders. It rests on the foundations of the products being set up and the store being built on the Odoo website, and it involves configuring the shopping flow, payment, and delivery. The central value is the connection, so set the store up as the connected thing it is, the front of the one connected operation. For how we approach Odoo, see our ERP practice.