# Set up your first store

After signing up, you land on the store-creation form. This page walks through every field and what you can change later.

## What you'll choose

### 1. Store name

Pick a name that reflects your business. This is what shows in the storefront header, in customer emails, and on the order receipt. Examples:

* *"متجر الأناقة"*
* *"TechShop DZ"*
* *"Boutique Sara"*

You can rename your store later from **Dashboard → Settings**.

### 2. Store URL (slug)

This becomes your free DZBuild subdomain. Your storefront will be reachable at:

> `https://{your-slug}.dzbuild.app`

For example, if you pick the slug `boutique-sara`, your storefront lives at `https://boutique-sara.dzbuild.app`.

| Rule                                          | Why                                                                      |
| --------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Lowercase letters, numbers, and `-` only      | URL-safe and search-engine friendly                                      |
| 3 to 30 characters                            | Short and memorable — a 31-character slug is rejected                    |
| Must start **and** end with a letter or digit | A leading or trailing `-` is removed for you, so `-shop-` becomes `shop` |
| No spaces, underscores, or non-ASCII letters  | URLs only support ASCII                                                  |

These names are reserved and cannot be used as a slug: `www`, `admin`, `api`, `app`, `mail`, `smtp`, `ftp`, `cdn`, `static`, `assets`, `dashboard`, `login`, `register`, `auth`, `account`, `help`, `support`, `blog`, `news`, `docs`, `developer`.

warning

Your slug **cannot be changed** after the store is created. Pick something you'll be happy with for the long term. If you later want to use your own domain like `mybrand.com`, see [Custom domain](https://dzbuild.com/docs/customizing/custom-domain.md) — that's a completely separate setup from your slug.

### 3. Store type — physical or digital

This is the most consequential choice on the form, and it is the one merchants overlook.

* **Physical products** — the normal Algerian COD store. Your store is created on the **Showcase** theme (it appears in the picker as *"Started V2"*), and the dashboard shows the full shipping stack: **Shipping rates** and **Link couriers**.
* **Digital products** — downloads, licences, services. Your store is created on the **Digital** theme.

The sidebar follows the theme: a store on the Digital theme **loses** the shipping and link-couriers menus and **gains** the digital group — `/dashboard/digital/orders`, `/dashboard/digital/payment`, `/dashboard/digital/storage` and `/dashboard/digital/checkout-fields`. Because that swap keys off the theme, switching a digital store away from the Digital theme later also removes those menu items.

### 4. Default language

Pick the language your storefront renders in: **Arabic** or **French**. These are the only two options; DZBuild has no English storefront or dashboard locale. You can change it later from **Dashboard → Customize**.

By default this is not a preference your customers can override: there is no language switcher on the storefront. A customer-facing selector — with browser-language detection and a cookie-persisted choice — requires activating the [Multi-Language Store add-on](https://dzbuild.com/docs/addons/multi-language.md), which needs the **Unlimited** plan or higher.

That is the whole form: name, slug, store type, language. There is no description field and no currency field on it. The store description is edited afterwards from **Dashboard → Settings**, and DZD is the platform-wide currency, not a setting.

## What you get out of the box

Your store is **live immediately** at `{your-slug}.dzbuild.app` with:

* Your starting theme applied — **Showcase** ("Started V2") for a physical store, **Digital** for a digital one. Six other themes are available from **Dashboard → Themes**, most of them plan-gated: Starter, Brico and Digital are free, Showcase needs Pro, Prestige and Bloom need Unlimited, Promobi needs Enterprise. Digital is reserved for digital-product stores — the dashboard warns that it does not support physical products with delivery, and switching to it turns your store into a digital store.
* A **3-day Pro trial**: every feature of the Pro plan, no card required. A first store opened after signing up through a DZBuild Free-plan offer link starts on the Free plan instead.
* All [supported couriers](https://dzbuild.com/docs/couriers/overview.md) ready to be configured.
* Cash on Delivery (COD) enabled by default.
* A sample category and a sample T-shirt product with color and size options, so the storefront is not empty. Edit or delete them when you add your own products.
* Starting home and stop-desk delivery prices for all 58 wilayas. On a physical store, review them in **Dashboard → Shipping rates** before you sell.

## Store settings

After the store exists, you edit its details on one page: **Settings → Store settings** in the dashboard sidebar (`/dashboard/settings`). The top of the page shows your store link, the address buyers use to reach your store.

| Section                              | Fields                                                   | What to know                                                                                                                                                                                                       |
| ------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Store information**                | **Store name**, **Store description**                    | The name is required: the page refuses to save without it.                                                                                                                                                         |
| **Location**                         | **Wilaya**, **Commune**, **Address**                     | Couriers of the Yalidine family need the wilaya: their rate sync refuses to run without it, and it is sent as the departure wilaya of your parcels. See [Yalidine](https://dzbuild.com/docs/couriers/yalidine.md). |
| **Contact details**                  | **Phone number**, **WhatsApp**, **Store email**          | Shown to buyers on your storefront, see below.                                                                                                                                                                     |
| **Search engine optimization (SEO)** | **Google verification code**, **Bing verification code** | For Google Search Console (paste only the `content` value of its HTML tag) and Bing Webmaster Tools. See [SEO](https://dzbuild.com/docs/marketing/seo.md).                                                         |

Click **Save changes** at the bottom of the form.

### Where buyers see your contact details

A contact line appears only when its field is filled in:

* **Storefront footer**: the Contact us column lists the phone number (tap to call), the store email (opens the buyer's mail app) and the WhatsApp number (opens a chat). On the Brico theme, the home page lists the phone number and store email in its own Contact us section instead; the other pages of the store show this footer.
* **Mobile drawer**: a WhatsApp link and the phone number (tap to call).
* **Order-confirmation page**: your WhatsApp number, as the contact for questions about the order. Leave **WhatsApp** empty and this page shows no contact at all.

Type the phone and WhatsApp numbers the way you dial them, for example `05XXXXXXXX`. The WhatsApp links on your storefront add Algeria's `213` code for you.

### Store status card

The **Store status** card on the same page shows your **Current plan** and the store's **Creation date**. On any plan other than Free it also shows the **Subscription expiry date** with the days left, or an **Expired** badge once that date has passed.

## Where to go next

1. [Tour the dashboard](https://dzbuild.com/docs/getting-started/dashboard-tour.md)
2. [Add your first product](https://dzbuild.com/docs/getting-started/first-product.md)
3. [Customize your storefront](https://dzbuild.com/docs/customizing/themes.md)
4. [Pick and connect a courier](https://dzbuild.com/docs/couriers/overview.md)
5. [Connect a custom domain](https://dzbuild.com/docs/customizing/custom-domain.md) — when you're ready to use your own brand domain

## Multiple stores

DZBuild supports multi-store under one account. All stores share the same login and the same dashboard — switch between them from the **store picker** in the dashboard sidebar. Each store has its own products, customers, orders, theme, addons, plan and custom domain.

The rules for creating another store:

* The hard cap is **50 stores per account**, and it is almost never what stops you.
* The real gate: you can only create a new store once **every** store you already own is on an active, unexpired paid plan (Pro, Unlimited or Enterprise). One expired store, one store left on Free, or one store still on its 3-day trial (a store counts as paid only after a plan payment for it goes through) blocks creation with *"to create an additional store, all your current stores must be on a paid plan"*.
* There is a **5-minute cooldown** between creations, and repeated attempts in quick succession are throttled.
* After you create a store, you are switched to it automatically and the choice is remembered across devices and sessions — so the very next thing you edit belongs to the new store, not the old one.
* The store picker is hidden entirely for single-store merchants who are not currently eligible to create another.

## Frequently asked

**Q: I picked the wrong slug. Can you change it?** A: Slugs aren't editable. Either work with what you have or create a second store with the right slug (subject to the multi-store rules above). The simpler long-term answer is to attach a [custom domain](https://dzbuild.com/docs/customizing/custom-domain.md) — your customers will never see the slug.

**Q: What happens after the 3-day Pro trial?** A: Nothing is downgraded and nothing is deleted: your store stays on Pro. What changes is that the **storefront goes completely offline**: every visitor to your subdomain or custom domain sees a "store currently unavailable" page, with no browsing and no buying. Inside the dashboard you can still reach `/dashboard`, `/dashboard/subscribe` (and its payment history), `/dashboard/settings`, `/dashboard/account`, `/dashboard/notifications`, `/dashboard/affiliate`, `/dashboard/ai-credits`, `/dashboard/domains`, invoice downloads and logout; every other page redirects you to the subscribe page. Subscribe to [Pro](https://dzbuild.com/docs/plans/pro.md), [Unlimited](https://dzbuild.com/docs/plans/unlimited.md) or [Enterprise](https://dzbuild.com/docs/plans/enterprise.md) and everything comes straight back, with all your data untouched.

**Q: Can I delete a store?** A: Not yourself — there is no delete button in store settings. Deletion is a support action, and it is a **hard delete**: the store, its products, its orders and order items, and every uploaded file are removed permanently. Order history is *not* retained. If you simply want to stop, export your data and stop renewing — an expired store goes offline but keeps all of its data intact.