While “General Settings” might not sound as exciting as say (gasp) “Presentation Settings”, trust us when we say they are incredibly important when it comes to operating your store.

Base Country/Region: Where is your business located? Yes, we realize it’s technically located “online”, but where are you, yourself actually located? This will affect your tax settings below.

Tax Settings: The tax setting dictate how much sales tax customers are charged upon checkout. Click here to read more about sales tax with regards to e-commerce. If your country has a single tax rate, enter it in the blank. If you have different rates for different regions, click on “Regions” and fill in the appropriate blanks.

Tax Included in Price: Does your country require tax inclusive pricing? If so, select “yes”.

Target Markets: Which countries do you expect will actually purchase your products? Furthermore, which countries do you plan on shipping to? Selecting “All” when it comes to target markets is rarely a good idea. While we realize it would be ideal if the entire world wanted your products, the fact is (no offense), they probably don’t. After all, unless you are selling sweaters to penguins, the chances of you shipping to Antarctica are quite slim (and if you are selling sweaters to penguins, we salute you).

Keep in mind, the countries you select for your target markets will display in a drop down menu on the checkout page. If you are only shipping within (for example) the United States and Canada, you don’t want your customers to have to dig through 100 countries just to find “USA” or “Canada”. On the other hand, you should also keep in mind that if a country is NOT selected in the target markets, potential customers from that country will not be able to complete the checkout process.

Currency Settings

Currency Type: How are people going to pay you? If you live in the USA, I wouldn’t recommend choosing Shekels.

Currency Sign Location: Each country has their own way of displaying currency. Choose your countries method here. Or not. Maybe you’re a rebel.