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Store Setup

The day-1 path for building a store. Everything below lives under Components → Alfa Commerce — each is a list view with a New/Edit form.

Setup wizard coming

A guided store-setup wizard is planned for a future version. Until then, configure each area below manually.

1. Categories​

Components → Alfa Commerce → Categories → New. Categories group your products and are hierarchical — each can have a parent, so you build a tree (e.g. Electronics → Phones). Key fields: Name + alias, parent category, image, publish state, and meta. Create categories first; every product is then assigned a Default Category (required) plus any additional categories.

2. Products (Items)​

Components → Alfa Commerce → Items → New. An item is one product. Key fields: Name + Default Category (required), SKU / GTIN / MPN, stock + dimensions, the Stock action (no action / notify / hide when out of stock), categories, manufacturers, images, and meta.

Pricing is a list, not a single field. The Prices subform holds one or more rows; each row sets a price for a combination of currency · country/place · user group · user · quantity tier (each defaults to All). Add one row per combination; an All … row is the catch-all. Price rows feed the price index, rebuilt on save.

3. Payment & shipment methods — the key concept​

There are two layers, and new users must understand the split:

  1. The plugin does the work (the bundled standard plugin, or a gateway). It lives in the alfa-payments / alfa-shipments plugin group — enable it under System → Plugins.
  2. The method record is what the customer picks at checkout (Components → Alfa Commerce → Payments or Shipments → New). Its Type field lists every enabled plugin in that group; the value you pick is the plugin that runs the method (default standard). The chosen plugin's own settings then appear inline on the form.

So: enable the plugin first, then create a method record whose Type points at it. Both forms scope the method by category / manufacturer / place / user-group / user (each defaults to All), with a "show on product" toggle.

4. Currencies, taxes & discounts​

  • Currencies (→ Currencies): ISO code, symbol, ISO number (e.g. 978 = EUR), decimals, and a format pattern. The default currency is a component Option, not a flag on a record — set it at Options → Currencies → Default currency (by ISO number).
  • Taxes (→ Taxes): value + a Behavior (only this / combined / one-after-another).
  • Discounts (→ Discounts): amount-or-percentage, add/subtract, apply before/after tax, behavior, optional tag, dates.

Taxes and discounts are scoped the same way as methods — multi-select category / manufacturer / place / user-group / user; leaving All makes the rule global.

5. Coupons​

Components → Alfa Commerce → Coupons → New. Set coupon_code, number of uses, value type (% or amount), min/max, optional user association, and validity dates. A coupon a customer applies is carried on the cart as applied_coupons and written to the order's cart-rule rows at checkout (an after-tax discount — it isn't folded into item prices).

6. Order statuses & emails​

Components → Alfa Commerce → Order Statuses → New. Each status has:

  • an internal Name + the customer-facing name_customer, colors, and a Stock operation toggle (remove from stock vs keep in stock) applied when an order enters the status;
  • roles — is_initial / is_cancelled / is_completed (mutually exclusive, one status each);
  • Customer email — a Notify customer toggle + an email layout picker and per-language content positions;
  • Admin email — recipients (a multi-select of Joomla users, stored in #__alfa_orderstatus_recipients) who are notified when an order transitions into the status.

Emails are sent on transition into a status; per-language subject/body live in the #__alfa_orders_statuses_<langtag> tables (see Multilingual & Translations).