If you sell clothes, cosmetics or home goods, you probably started on Instagram or WhatsApp: a photo, a comment asking the price, your reply, then an address and a phone number. That works at first. Then the orders grow and the chat gets hard to follow: who ordered what, in which size, and whether it has gone out yet.
An online store puts that in order. Customers see your whole range with prices, choose and order on their own, and every order reaches you in one tidy place. Plenty of people in Egypt would still rather pay when the parcel arrives, so the store we build at site4u is made around cash on delivery.
Every size and colour, without typing products in one by one
Before ordering, a customer wants to know what the product looks like and whether it comes in their size or shade. So every product in your store has:
- Its photos, price and description.
- Its sizes, colours or shades if you sell that way: T-shirt sizes, lipstick shades, storage boxes in different sizes, each with its own stock.
- A sale price you switch on and off whenever you like, with the old price shown crossed out beside it.
- A category and a brand, so people find what they came for quickly.
If your range is large, you don't have to add it product by product. Download an Excel file from your dashboard with your current products already in it, edit it or add to it, and upload it again. Before anything is saved you see how many products will be added and how many changed, and any mistake is shown with its row number. Nothing is saved while the file still has a mistake in it, so you never end up with half your range changed and half not. It's also the quickest way to change a lot of product prices at once. The file holds the products themselves; sizes and colours are added on each product's own page.
From the basket to the customer's door
- The customer adds items to the basket and enters their name, phone number, governorate and address. No account to create, no card needed.
- The delivery fee for their governorate shows before they place the order. You set a fee for each governorate you deliver to, the store adds it, and an order can't be placed from a governorate you don't deliver to.
- The order lands on your orders page with its own number, you get an email about it too, and the customer sees their order number on screen as soon as they order.
- You move it along: new, confirmed, preparing, with the courier, then delivered or returned. If the customer cancels before it goes out, you mark it cancelled.
One habit worth keeping with cash on delivery: call the customer to confirm before you prepare the parcel. From the order page you can ring their number in one tap, or open WhatsApp with a message that quotes their order number and send it from your own phone. Some orders arrive with a wrong number, or from someone who changed their mind an hour later, and a short call saves a wasted trip. On each order you can note the delivery company or courier and a tracking number, and print an order slip to put in the parcel.
Stock that keeps count, and reports that make sense
Stock isn't a number you edit by hand and forget about. The moment you confirm an order, the quantity comes off by itself. Confirmation is the trigger on purpose: an order nobody has spoken to yet holds no stock, so orders that were never serious can't make your products look sold out. If an order comes back, or you cancel it after confirming, the quantity goes back. The stock page shows what's running low before it runs out.
The reports page shows you:
- This month's revenue against last month's, counting delivered orders only.
- Your best sellers.
- Your return rate over the last 90 days, the number to watch most closely when you sell cash on delivery.
- Which governorates order from you most.
If you have a team, each person gets their own account with permissions that fit their job. Whoever adds products and updates stock doesn't see your orders or reports, and a manager can run the orders without seeing your revenue.
Honestly: what the store doesn't do yet
- There's no online card payment yet. Cash on delivery only.
- Delivery is inside Egypt only, and product prices show in Egyptian pounds.
- The delivery itself is yours to arrange: you, or the delivery company you work with, take the parcel to the door. The store organises the order and works out the delivery fee. There's no automatic link to delivery companies, so you type in the company and tracking number yourself.
- WhatsApp messages to customers are sent by you, in one tap. Nothing goes out automatically.
If your business needs online payment from day one, it's better to know that now than to find out later.
Start your store
The store comes with the System plan and above. We design it, launch it and look after it every month; you add your products and follow your orders from your phone. See the plans, or tell us what you sell and we'll get back to you.