For boutiques on within
Running your store on within.
The whole manual: getting on, going live, your first order, how the money moves, and the day-to-day. Ten minutes here and you'll rarely need to ask us anything, though we're one email away when you do.
Getting on
One connection, a few minutes, and your shelf is in the feed. It's a Shopify app install:
You'll approve read-only permissions: products, inventory, locations, orders. That's the whole setup.
What happens on its own
Your full catalogue syncs within minutes, live stock counts follow, and from then on webhooks keep everything in step: sell something, restock, change a price, and within already knows. Nothing to re-key, nothing to babysit. The app's home screen shows the sync filling in.
within only ever mirrors your POS. Your store stays the single source of truth. We never hold a second inventory you'd have to maintain.
Going live: the checklist
Four steps, in order. The app's home screen tracks the same list and tells you what's missing.
- Let the first sync finish.
The app's home screen shows the progress and lands on “Synced” with your product count. It usually takes a few minutes.
within lists what it has seen. Until the sync completes, there is nothing to show.
- Turn on at least one pickup location.
Settings → your locations → enable pickup where shoppers can collect.
Shoppers can only buy what sits on a shelf they can collect from. Stock at a location without pickup doesn't count. With none enabled, your store shows nothing at all.
- Set your phone, hours, and neighbourhood.
All three live in Settings, next to your prep time.
Hours decide when orders can reach you. The neighbourhood is the place word on your store card, and your address pins the map: shoppers see real distances and arrival times measured from where they stand — that's how nearby shoppers find you. The phone is how we reach the counter if an order ever needs a human.
- Hit Go live.
Top right of the app's home screen. Then open the within app yourself, type your shop's address into the place sheet, and admire the shelf.
Products sync either way, but shoppers only see them once you go live. The app won't let you go live without a pickup location. That's it protecting you from an invisible store.
Your first order, minute by minute
From your side of the counter, a within order is a phone hold that placed itself.
Pickup buyers are often already walking over. Bag the order when it lands, the way you would for a regular on the phone.
Money, plainly
Two kinds of orders, two clean paths. They never mix, and neither one changes how your own store gets paid.
Paid on your checkout
The buyer pays on your own checkout, so the money lands in your account like any other sale: same processor, same payout, same reports.
Our flat 5% shows up later on your regular Shopify bill, and only on orders within brought you. Nothing about how your store gets paid changes.
No monthly fee, no listing fee, no hardware. Uninstall any time and everything stops that instant. The only thing still owed is commission on orders already brought.
Choosing what's listed
In the app, under Settings → What's listed on within. Four ways to run it:
- Everything
- The default. All active products are listed, and new arrivals go live the moment they hit your POS.
- Only what you tag
- Add a tag to the products you want on within, and only those are listed. Curation at the speed of tagging.
- Hold back new arrivals
- New products wait, hidden, until you publish them. Steam first, photograph, then list.
- Hide any product
- Any single product can be hidden from within at any time. It stays untouched in your own store.
Whatever you choose, gift cards and $0 items are never listed. There's nothing on a shelf to hand over.
Your shelf, your call. within shows what you choose to show.
Day to day
Hours
Orders only flow while you're open, so keep your hours current, holiday Mondays included. Shoppers browsing after close see your pieces; orders wait for your counter.
Prep time
The “ready in ~15 min” promise shoppers see comes from your prep-time setting. Set it to what the counter can honestly do. A kept promise beats a fast one.
Pausing
Vacation, stocktake, a renovation week: pause from the app's home screen. Products stay synced, nothing shows, and coming back is one tap on Go live. Nothing to rebuild.
The counter console
A single link that shows every within order live, with a Ready button: the whole fulfilment workflow on one page. Bookmark it on the register iPad; it works for any staff member without a Shopify login. It's in Settings, and because anyone with the link can see orders, treat it like a password.
Auto-pause
If several orders in a row cancel because the item wasn't on the shelf, within pauses your listing on its own. That's protection, not punishment. It stops refunds piling up while your counts are off. Fix the counts, then go live again from the app's home screen.
Every cancelled order refunds a buyer who was excited about your store. The pause spends a quiet day to protect the relationship.
“I can't see my products in the app”
The app's home screen answers this first: it says either “You're live” or exactly what's missing, product by product. The five honest reasons, in the order they usually turn out to be:
- You're not live yet.
- Products sync either way, but shoppers see nothing until you go live: the button at the top right of the app's home screen.
- No pickup-enabled location.
- Inventory only counts at locations with pickup turned on. If none is enabled, the whole store shows nothing. Fix it in Settings → locations.
- Out of stock where it counts.
- A product whose stock sits only at a non-pickup location, or nowhere, doesn't list. Check the count at the pickup location itself.
- Hidden from within.
- A product hidden from within in your listing settings stays out of the feed, whether by tag, by policy, or one by one. The Products page in the app shows the reason next to every item.
- Gift cards and $0 products.
- Never listed, by design. There's nothing physical on a shelf to hand over.
Still nothing after those five? A sync may have gone stale. The home screen will say so, and “Sync now” refreshes everything. After that, email us; it's on us to look.
Questions, answered
- What does within cost?
- Nothing up front and nothing monthly. A flat 5% on orders within brings you, on your regular Shopify bill, alongside the sale it came from. If we don't bring the sale, we don't take anything.
- What if my inventory counts are off?
- We plan for it. Nothing goes out until your staff has the item in hand, and a shaky last unit is held back rather than promised. If something truly isn't on the shelf, cancel it from the order. The buyer is refunded in full immediately and you owe nothing on it.
- How much staff time does this take?
- About what a phone hold takes: bag the order, set it at the register, tap Ready. No tablet to babysit, no new system to learn. Orders appear in the admin you already use.
- How do returns work?
- Your normal store policy applies, and the buyer sees it before paying. We never invent a mail-back policy on your behalf.
- Will this touch my prices or my brand?
- Prices come straight from your POS and always list at full price. Every product appears under your store's name, and you choose what's listed.
- What happens to my data?
- Your catalogue and inventory data are used to run the marketplace and for nothing else. Never sold, never shared with other stores. Buyers who pay on your checkout are your customers, on your list.
- How do I leave?
- Uninstall the app. Listings come down immediately, syncing stops, and the only thing still owed is commission on orders already brought. No notice period, no exit call.
Stuck on something this page doesn't cover?
Email support@shopwithin.co. A human reads it, usually the same day. If you're not on within yet, the for-stores page has the pitch and the numbers.