Before you send patients to your online store, run through this checklist to confirm every piece is in place: payment provider connected, products and inventory loaded, shipping configured, storefront published, domain assigned, and the follow-up automations turned on. Your store lives under Payments in Aesthetix CRM, with the storefront itself built in Marketing > Websites.
This guide is a launch-day walkthrough, not the full setup manual for each area. For the detailed how-to on products, taxes, and coupons, see the Payments collection. For connecting Shopify or WooCommerce instead of the native store, see Integrations.
Your store cannot take an order until a payment provider is connected and verified.
Go to Payments > Integrations.
Confirm a provider shows as connected: Stripe, PayPal, Square, Authorize.net, or an NMI gateway. Stripe is the most common choice and connects in a few clicks with Connect with Stripe.
Click Manage next to the connected provider to confirm the account is active. If you need to disconnect or swap providers, you can do it from the same screen.
If you want to accept Apple Pay at checkout, register your domain for Apple Pay inside your Stripe dashboard before you go live.
Tip: Aesthetix CRM also offers AX Pay, our own built-in payment processor with better rates than Stripe. If you have not connected a provider yet, check the AX Pay setup guide before defaulting to a third-party processor.
Full setup steps for taxes, receipts, and shipping rates live under Payments > Settings, covered in the Payments collection guides. Before launch, double-check that:
Taxes are toggled on, with a rate configured and applied to the correct product categories.
Automatic sales tax is enabled if you sell across multiple states.
Receipts are set the way you want them (Aesthetix CRM sends them via workflow automations rather than a default receipt, so confirm your order confirmation workflow is active).
Go to Payments > Products and confirm every item you plan to sell has been created, with a name, description, price, and at least one image.
Check that each product has the correct tax category assigned so tax calculates correctly at checkout.
Confirm inventory tracking is turned on for physical products, with accurate starting quantities. Decide whether each product should continue selling once it hits zero stock, or stop.
Group related products into Collections (for example, "Skincare" or "Injectables Merchandise") under Payments > Products > Collections so patients can browse by category on your storefront.
Add a unique SEO title, description, and URL handle to each product and collection. This is what search engines and social previews will show.
Detailed steps for building products, variants, and collections live in the Payments collection.
If you sell physical items (retail skincare, merchandise, take-home kits), confirm shipping is configured before launch:
A shipping zone exists for the regions you ship to (at minimum, a US zone).
Rates are set using a flat rate, a shipping app, or a live carrier calculation, and pricing is tied to either order price or item weight.
Your shipping origin address and contact information are filled in correctly, since this is what appears on packing slips and tracking.
Digital-only products (guides, memberships, downloadable content) can skip this step entirely.
Go to Marketing > Websites and choose one of the provided store templates, or start from an existing site.
Customize each section: replace placeholder images from your media library, edit headline and body text, and point buttons like "Shop Now" to your product list.
Confirm your product pages are pulling in correctly. Product lists auto-populate from what you created in Step 2, and you can enable sorting or filtering (by date, price, etc.).
Turn on star ratings and reviews on product pages if you want social proof visible to patients before they buy.
Add testimonials and FAQs relevant to your practice and the products you're selling.
If you're running a discount pop-up (for example, a first-purchase coupon), confirm the automation behind it is connected and tested.
Enable the chat widget on your store if you want patients to be able to ask questions before checkout. It connects directly into your CRM inbox.
Go to Settings > Domain and confirm your store is mapped to the domain you want patients to visit.
Preview the live URL to make sure it loads correctly before announcing the launch.
Aesthetix CRM ships with pre-built automations for e-commerce orders. Go to Marketing > Workflows and open the E-commerce Store folder to confirm these are active:
Order Submission: Tags the contact "Product Order" and sends an order confirmation email with an auto-populated receipt. Avoid editing the receipt template unless you know what you're changing, since it auto-populates from the order.
Order Fulfillment: Fires when you mark an order fulfilled. Removes the "Product Order" tag, adds "Product Shipped" and "E-commerce," then removes "Product Shipped" after 10 days.
Abandoned Cart: A multi-day SMS and email nurture sequence for patients who added products to a cart but didn't check out.
Pop-Up Discount Form: Sends the discount code by email, then confirms it by text a minute later, when a patient submits your storefront's coupon pop-up.
Before launch, check Settings > Custom Values and confirm your first-purchase coupon code and store link are filled in, since the workflows above depend on them. Send a test order through your store to confirm the confirmation email, tags, and any SMS steps fire correctly.
If you're running a launch promotion:
Go to Payments > Coupons and click Create Coupon.
Choose a percentage or fixed-amount discount, set a start date (and expiration date, if limited-time), and decide on usage limits (total redemptions, one per customer, or restricted to specific products).
Distribute the code through your launch email or SMS campaign, or trigger it automatically through a workflow.
Walk through the storefront as a patient would:
Browse a product, add it to the cart, and complete a real test purchase if your payment provider supports test mode.
Confirm the order shows up under Payments > Orders, with correct totals, tax, and customer info.
Fulfill the test order: add a tracking number, shipping carrier, and tracker URL, then confirm the customer notification and packing slip generate correctly.
Check that order statuses (Unfulfilled, Fulfilled, Completed, Canceled) and payment statuses (Paid, Payment Pending) are showing accurately, and that orders are filterable by source (funnel, payment link, etc.).
Once all of the above checks out, publish your website and you're live.
Once real orders start coming in, patient reviews will appear under Payments > Products > Reviews. Each review shows the rating, written feedback, date, and which store it came from. You can Approve a review to publish it on the matching product page, Unapprove to hide it without deleting it, or Trash it to remove it permanently. Approved reviews populate automatically on the product page, no manual placement required.
Do I need to connect a payment provider before I can add products? No, you can build out products, collections, and your storefront first. But no order can be completed until a payment provider is connected and verified under Payments > Integrations.
Can I launch with digital products only and skip shipping? Yes. Shipping zones and rates only matter for physical products. Digital or service-based products can go live without any shipping configuration.
What happens if I don't set up the order workflows before launch? Orders will still process, but patients won't automatically receive confirmation emails, and your fulfillment tags won't update. Always test the E-commerce Store workflows before sending real traffic to your store.
Should I use Stripe or AX Pay? Either works, but AX Pay is Aesthetix CRM's own processor and typically offers better rates than Stripe. If you haven't connected a provider yet, it's worth reviewing the AX Pay setup guide before defaulting to a third party.
Can I sell through Shopify or WooCommerce instead of the native store? Yes. Connecting those platforms is handled separately in the Integrations collection. This checklist covers the native Aesthetix CRM store.
How do I know if my taxes are set up correctly before launch? Run a test purchase and confirm tax appears as a separate line item at checkout, calculated using the category and rate you configured under Payments > Settings.
What's the difference between Unapproved and Trashed reviews? Unapproved reviews are hidden from your storefront but stay stored and can be re-approved later. Trashed reviews are deleted permanently and cannot be recovered.
Can I run a launch discount without building a full coupon campaign? Yes. A simple percentage or fixed-amount coupon created under Payments > Coupons can be shared directly through email, SMS, or your storefront's pop-up form.
Do I need a custom domain to launch, or can I use a default link? You can technically launch on a default link, but assigning your own domain under Settings > Domain gives patients a cleaner, more trustworthy URL and is strongly recommended before any real launch.
What should I test last, right before announcing the launch? Place one real (or test-mode) order end to end: checkout, payment, confirmation email, order appearing under Payments > Orders, and fulfillment with tracking. That confirms every piece is actually wired together correctly.
