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How to start an online store in Australia

From an empty account to a store that can take orders, in the order you will actually do it.

Vendora Genie is opening to Australian businesses in stages. Join the waitlist on the home page, or sign in at app.vendoragenie.com if you already have an account.

Before you start

• Your ABN. Your store settings have a place for your ABN and whether you are registered for GST. Whether you need to register for GST depends on your business; the ATO's GST registration guidance or your accountant can tell you.
• A Stripe account, or the details to create one. Payments go through Stripe, and you set it up from inside your store.
• Product photos and descriptions. You can add products one at a time or import a spreadsheet.

1. Create your store

1. Sign in and choose Create store. You give the store a name, pick a theme, then review and confirm.
2. Vendora Genie then sets the store up for you: an address of the form your-store.vendoragenie.com with an HTTPS certificate, the theme installed, starter pages, navigation and footer, and the theme's sample products.
3. The store is usually live within seconds. Sample products are tagged demo so you can remove them all at once when your own products are in.

2. Add your products

• Each product has a title, description, price, stock level, SKU, photos and optional variants such as size and colour, each with its own price, SKU and stock.
• Group products into collections, either picked by hand or filled automatically by tag.
• Bring an existing catalogue in with the product import (CSV).
• Each product has its own search title and description with a search-result preview. Left blank, they are written from the product's own details.
• On plans that include it, AI product descriptions can draft the copy for you to edit.

3. Connect payments (Stripe)

Open Settings → Payments in your store and complete Stripe's onboarding. Vendora Genie uses Stripe Connect: the payment is made to your own Stripe account and Stripe pays out to your bank. Your storefront does not take orders until Stripe reports that your account can accept charges, so shoppers never reach a checkout that cannot be paid.

4. Set up shipping

Shipping is priced by zone. New stores start with Australian zones — metro, regional and remote, matched by postcode — plus an international zone, with editable rates. Each rate can be a flat price, free above an order value you choose, or charged by weight, and carries the delivery estimate shoppers see at checkout. See payments, GST and shipping for the details.

5. Check your prices and GST

Prices on a Vendora Genie store are entered and shown GST-inclusive. Checkout does not add tax on top; the order and the shopper's receipt record the GST contained in the total.

6. Review your policies

Every new store gets editable shipping, returns, privacy and terms pages. They are generic starting points — read and adjust them for your business. You can also set the number of days shoppers have to request a return.

7. Connect your own domain

Add your domain in the store's domain settings and make the single DNS change shown. Once it is verified and its certificate is issued, your domain becomes the store's main address: the vendoragenie.com address forwards to it, and search engines are pointed at your domain. More in connecting a custom domain.

8. Get found and shared

Every store gets its own sitemap, robots file, search titles and descriptions, link previews for social media and messaging apps, and structured data for products, collections and articles — built from your store's own details. You can adjust the store-wide title, description and share image under SEO & Sharing. Search engines decide what they show and when; this gives them accurate, complete information to work with.

What it costs

Join the waitlistSee all features

Last reviewed 11 October 2026.