How can we help?

Every new shop starts with a 14 day free trial. No card is needed to start, and you get the full platform, not a cut-down version.

Your dashboard shows how many days remain, and we email you a reminder 7 days, 3 days and 1 day before the trial ends. If you have not subscribed by then, your shop goes into a short break (shoppers see a friendly holding page, nothing is deleted). Add your card any time to bring it straight back.

Every plan includes a real one-on-one setup call with a human, on Zoom. It is the first thing we offer you after signup, and we recommend taking it: most owners get their shop ready in that single call.

Book it from your dashboard welcome screen. Starter includes 1 setup call and 1 follow-up call; Pro includes 1 setup call and 4 follow-up calls. Extra calls are $45 each, and you can book those whenever you like.

Three things:

• Connect payments. Dashboard → Payments walks you through connecting your own Stripe account (Stripe is the payment company that moves card payments into your bank account). Money from your sales goes directly to you, never through us.
• Set your shipping. Dashboard → Business details lets you set a flat postage rate, an optional free-shipping threshold, and local pickup.
• List at least one product with a photo and a price.

Once those are done, your shop is genuinely open: cards, Apple Pay and Afterpay style pay-in-4 all work from day one.

Your shop lives at your-shop-name.shopobg.com from the moment you sign up. You choose the name during onboarding and can change it later in Dashboard → Business details (old links stop working when you do, so change it early if you are going to).

On the Pro plan you can also connect a domain you own, like www.yourshop.com.au. Email us at info@onlinebusinessgenerator.com and we will help you set it up.

Dashboard → Products → Add product. A product needs a title and a price; everything else is optional but the more you fill in, the better your shop looks and the better AI descriptions become.

Products have four statuses: Draft (only you see it), Listed (live on your shop), Sold, and Archived (hidden but kept for your records).

Adding lots at once? See 'How do I add many products at once from a spreadsheet?' below.

Yes — it's a lovely bit of social proof: shoppers see that pieces are selling and learn not to sleep on the one they love.

Turn it on in Dashboard → Brand & look → 'Keep sold items on display'. Recently sold pieces (from the last 30 days) then stay in your shop grid, gently dimmed with a red SOLD sticker. Shoppers can still open them (handy for 'sold, but message me for similar'), but they can't be bought, and older sold items retire from the grid automatically so your shop never looks like a museum.

Turn the option off any time and sold items disappear from the grid immediately.

Yes. When adding a product, tick 'This is a service'. Services behave differently from goods in three helpful ways:

• They stay bookable after every sale (a two-hour clean doesn't sell out). If your service has limited spots, like a 7-week program with 20 places, turn on 'Track quantity' and it counts down per booking and closes when full.
• Buyers are never asked for a delivery address, and no postage is charged.
• You can set questions the buyer answers at checkout. A cleaner might ask: Name, Address, Mobile, Preferred days. A sports program might ask: Name of athlete, Age, Division, Parent mobile. Mark each question required or optional.

The answers arrive with the order — you'll see them highlighted on Dashboard → Orders, so everything you need to deliver the job is in one place. Services work everywhere products do: your online shop, discount codes, gift cards, even Sell in person.

Running classes or sessions at set times? See 'How do customers book into my classes and sessions?' below.

Perfect for yoga classes, workshops, training sessions and program intakes. Make the class a service (tick 'This is a service' on the product), then go to Dashboard → 📅 Bookings and add session times: pick the first date and time, how many places each session has, and optionally repeat it weekly, e.g. every Tuesday at 6pm for 10 weeks.

On your shop, customers see the upcoming times with live availability ('12 places left'), pick one, and pay as normal. Places count down automatically and a full session shows as Full. Their confirmation email includes the booked time plus a calendar file they can add in one tap, and we email them a reminder the day before.

On the Bookings page you see every upcoming session with its attendee list (including their answers to your booking questions), so your class roll is always ready. 'Export roll (CSV)' on any session downloads the list, answers and all, ready to open in Excel or print. You can also add attendees by hand for phone bookings or walk-ins (no payment is taken), remove someone to free their place, or cancel a whole session — everyone booked is emailed automatically, and you refund any online payments from the Orders page.

Two tips: for a class, leave 'Track quantity' off and let the per-session places do the limiting. And to sell places in person through the till, add the attendee by hand on Bookings after taking payment in Sell in person.

Yes. A pass holds a number of sessions instead of dollars: the customer buys it once, then uses the code booking by booking until it runs out.

To sell passes on your shop: add a product, tick 'This is a service', then tick 'This is a multi-session pass'. Choose how many sessions it holds and whether it works for one particular service or any service in your shop, and set the product's price to what the whole pass costs. When someone buys it, the pass code is emailed to them automatically.

To use a pass, the customer books as normal and types the code into the discount box in their cart. One session comes off per place booked, and the remaining balance shows each time. You can also create a pass by hand (for counter sales or prizes) on Discounts & gift cards → Class passes, where every pass's remaining balance is listed.

Good to know: passes cover the session places themselves, cheapest first in a mixed cart, and like gift cards a 50 cent minimum stays payable by card at checkout.

Memberships charge your members automatically every week, fortnight or month, so you never chase fees again. Think weekly squad fees, monthly studio memberships, term programs.

Set up: Dashboard → 🤝 Memberships → create a plan (name, price, how often it bills, what's included). Your shop gains a Memberships page where people join and pay through the same secure checkout as everything else; the money lands in your own Stripe account and renews automatically.

Your Members list shows who's active, whose payment is overdue (failed payments retry automatically), and your approximate recurring income per month. Cancel a membership any time; it ends at the close of their current billing period so nobody loses time they've paid for.

A plan's price can't change once someone has joined (their agreement is locked in). To change pricing, retire the plan and create a new one; existing members stay on their original price until cancelled.

Dashboard → Products → Import spreadsheet. If your list lives in Excel, first save it as a CSV file: in Excel, File → Save As → choose 'CSV (Comma delimited)'. Then:

• Upload the CSV. You'll see a preview of exactly what will be created before anything happens.
• Check the preview, fix anything odd in your spreadsheet, and re-upload if needed.
• Click Import. Products arrive as Drafts so you can look them over before making them live (or tick the box to publish immediately).

Columns we understand: title and price are required; description, colour, size, quantity, weight_g (grams, for Australia Post quotes), photo_url, brand, condition, fabric and category are all optional. Column names are flexible — 'name', 'qty', 'stock', 'image' and similar all work. Download the template on the import page to see a working example.

Up to 500 rows per import, and you can run it as many times as you need.

Yes — give the rows the same title. Ten rows called 'Sunset Tee' with different colours and sizes become one item on your shop with colour and size options, each combination keeping its own stock count.

Each row can carry its own photo links too, so the blue shirt shows the blue photos. Quantities in the spreadsheet switch on stock tracking automatically: sell one and the count ticks down, sell out and that size greys out on your shop.

Add a photo_url column with a web link to each image (up to 4 per row, separated by commas). We fetch each photo and store it with your product — after that, the original link can disappear and your shop is unaffected.

Most supplier catalogues include image links. If yours doesn't, import without photos and add them afterwards on each product's page — drag-and-drop, straight from your phone or computer. A photo link that doesn't work never blocks the import; the product just arrives without it.

Up to 8 photos per product. The first photo is your main photo, and you can reorder with the arrow buttons. JPG, PNG, WebP and iPhone HEIC photos all work (we convert HEIC automatically).

A tip from experience: portrait photos look best. Product pages display the main photo in portrait shape, the same shape our AI model photos come in.

Fashion module shops on the Pro plan can put a garment photo on a realistic AI-generated model. Upload a flat-lay or hanger shot, describe the model and scene you want, and you get 3 options for $1. Keep any or all of them, and each re-roll is another $1.

The $1 goes onto your monthly bill, and AI images are automatically labelled as AI-generated on your shop, which Australian law requires. There is a $10 a day spending guardrail; when you hit it you can unlock another $10 for the day or raise your daily limit to $20 or $50.

It drafts a product description from the details you have entered, in your shop's own voice (it reads your About text), using Australian spelling. It only uses facts you have provided, so it will not invent materials or measurements. You can edit whatever it writes. Included on every plan at no extra cost.

Condition, size, brand, colour, fit notes, fabric details, and garment measurements: bust, waist, hips, length, plus inner seam and rise for pants and jeans. All optional, so a skirt can simply leave inner seam blank.

Measurements power Find My Fit: shoppers enter their own measurements and your shop quietly shows them what will actually fit. It is one of the best answers to the 'will this fit me?' email.

Yes. Turn on stock tracking per product and set a count. Your shop shows 'Only 1 left' style badges automatically, carts cannot over-order, and the item flips to sold out at zero. One-of-a-kind preloved pieces can simply be marked Sold when they go.

Payments go straight into your own Stripe account and from there to your bank account, usually within a couple of business days. We never hold your money.

Fees per sale: Stripe charges its standard processing fee (1.75% + 30c for Australian cards) and we take a 2.2% platform fee. Your Orders screen shows exactly what you receive from every order, after all fees.

You get a sale notification email, and the shopper automatically gets a branded confirmation email with a receipt.

On Dashboard → Orders, print the packing slip (it has the delivery address, the items and your branding), pack the order, post it, then press 'Mark shipped'. Add the tracking number if you have one and the shopper is emailed that it is on the way.

From Dashboard → Orders you can refund an order in full or in part. The money goes back to the shopper's original payment method through Stripe. If you ever issue a refund inside Stripe itself, the order here updates automatically too.

Yes. Dashboard → Sell in person is your till: tap the items, see the total, and take payment three ways:

• Cash: tap 'Paid cash' and the sale is recorded.
• Card, no hardware: tap 'Show QR code' and the customer scans it with their phone and pays with Apple Pay, Google Pay or their card — through your own Stripe, like any online order.
• Card reader: if you've registered a Stripe reader, send the payment to it and the customer taps their card.

Every in-person sale lands in the same Orders list as your online sales and ticks down the same stock — one set of stock across your shop, your stall and your online store. Add the customer's email before charging and they get an emailed receipt.

The reader is Stripe's WisePOS E — a proper counter-top tap-and-insert machine (around $350 AUD, one-off, no monthly fees). You buy it through your own Stripe account: log in to dashboard.stripe.com, go to Terminal → Shop, and order it to your address.

When it arrives: turn it on, connect it to your WiFi, then on the reader go to Settings → Generate pairing code. In OBG, open Sell in person → 'Have a card reader? Register it', type the code, name the reader, done. A '📟 Card reader' button appears on your till.

You don't need a reader to take cards in person — the QR code option works with no hardware at all, which is perfect for market stalls.

When you tap 'Paid cash' at the till, we show the amount to collect, some quick buttons for the notes people usually hand over, and the change to give back — no mental arithmetic with a queue in front of you.

Australian 5 cent rounding is handled for you: because 1c and 2c coins no longer exist, a cash total of $34.97 is collected as $34.95 (and $34.98 as $35.00). Card payments stay exact to the cent. The rounding is noted on the order so your books balance.

Refunding a cash sale: use the Refund button on Dashboard → Orders as normal. We record the refund and note that the money goes back from your till — nothing is sent through the card system, because nothing came through it.

Cash sales: no fees at all — nothing moves through the payment system, we just record the sale and update your stock.

Card sales (QR or reader): the same as online — Stripe's processing fee plus our standard 2.2% platform fee. One simple rule everywhere.

Create one in Dashboard → Discounts & gift cards: choose the amount and you get a code like GIFT-ABCD-2345 to give (or sell) to your customer. They type it into the cart box at checkout, just like a discount code.

The balance works like money: spend part of it and the rest stays on the card for next time, ticking down with each order until it is used up. Your Discounts & gift cards page shows every card's remaining balance and each time it was used.

Two details worth knowing:

• A tiny 50 cent minimum always stays payable by card at checkout, so an order can never be fully free — the payment system needs a real payment to process. Your customer effectively gets 50c less than the card face value across its life.
• Gift cards cover products, not postage.

You can pause a card at any time (for example if a customer reports it lost) and reactivate it later. Expiry is optional — if you set one, remember Australian consumer law requires gift cards to last at least 3 years.

Three, all set in Dashboard → Business details:

• A flat postage rate per order (you choose the amount).
• Free shipping over a threshold you set, like 'free over $100'. The shop advertises it automatically.
• Local pickup, with a note telling shoppers how pickup works.

Most shops should stop there. Printable postage labels are on our roadmap and will work with the flat rate too.

Everything lives in Dashboard → Business details → Shipping:

• Your flat postage rate per order — change the dollar amount and Save. It applies to new checkouts immediately.
• Free shipping over a threshold, like 'free over $100'.
• Local pickup on or off, with your pickup instructions.
• Live Australia Post quotes (optional, under Advanced — see the next article).

If you use live Australia Post quotes, the other place that matters is each product's weight: open the product in Dashboard → Products and adjust the weight field. Heavier weight = higher quote, so keep weights honest — they should include your packaging.

An optional extra, free, and switched off by default, under Settings → Shipping → Advanced. When it is on, shoppers pay exactly what Australia Post charges to their postcode instead of your flat rate.

The honest trade-off: you must weigh the products you want quoted (a weight box appears on your product form), and measuring the parcel size makes quotes more accurate again. That is real ongoing work, which is why we keep it tucked away.

How mixed orders are charged: if a cart contains both weighed and unweighed items, the shopper pays whichever is greater — the Australia Post quote for the weighed items, or your flat rate. So a heavy order never sneaks through on a cheap flat rate, and an order of unweighed items simply pays your flat rate as normal.

The safety net: if a quote can't be calculated for any reason, checkout quietly falls back to your flat rate. It never breaks, and you can switch the whole option off again at any time.

Order confirmation with receipt, shipped notification with tracking, and abandoned-cart reminders (if someone starts checkout and stops, they get a gentle nudge with a link back to their cart). All of them carry your shop's branding, not ours.

Yes, and there is nothing for you to set up. Every shop can be added to a customer's phone home screen: they get your logo as the app icon, your shop's name under it, and tapping it opens your shop full screen like an app. No app store involved.

Want to choose the icon image without changing your shop? Brand & look has an 'App icon' upload: it feeds only the phone icon and never appears on your shop itself. Leave it empty and your logo is used instead.

On iPhone: open the shop in Safari, tap the Share button, then 'Add to Home Screen'. On Android: the browser offers an 'Add to Home screen' or 'Install' option in its menu, and regular visitors see a one-tap Install button on your shop.

Returning customers on their phone also see a small, dismissible hint on your shop showing them how. It only appears from their second visit, and never again once dismissed.

Tip for your marketing: tell your regulars! 'Add us to your home screen' in an email campaign or at the counter turns a casual browser into a one-tap visitor.

Dashboard → Brand & look controls all of it: your logo, colours (primary, accent, background), fonts, tagline, hero image and About section.

There are 5 themes: Modern, Boutique, Editorial, Artisan and Romantic. Each has its own typography and layout personality. You can preview any theme on your live shop before saving by adding ?theme=modern (or boutique, editorial, artisan, romantic) to your shop's web address.

Yes, two ways: pick from the built-in font list (including a 'Match my theme' option that follows whatever theme you choose), or bring a custom font: paste a Google Fonts name or upload a font file you have a licence for.

Yes. Shoppers can create an account on your shop (theirs is per-shop, so your customer list is yours alone). Accounts give them order history, saved details, wishlists with the ♡ Save for later button, and the ability to leave reviews. Reviews from people who genuinely bought the item carry a ✓ Verified buyer badge.

Yes. Every shop gets a sitemap and sensible search-engine settings automatically, and every product has its own SEO title and description fields if you want to fine-tune how it appears in search results. Give Google a few weeks to discover a new shop; sharing your link on socials speeds that up.

Two ways: the signup bar on your shop (you can attach a welcome discount, like 10% off a first order, and the code genuinely works at checkout), and a tick-box at checkout where buyers can opt in.

Both are proper opt-ins. The checkout box is deliberately unticked by default, because Australian spam law requires people to actively say yes to marketing.

Dashboard → Email marketing lets you write and send a branded email to your whole active list: new arrivals, a sale, whatever you like. Unsubscribe links are added automatically and anyone who opts out is excluded from future sends without you doing anything.

Create codes in your dashboard (percentage or dollar amount). Shoppers enter them in the cart, and the discount is re-checked at payment time so expired or made-up codes cannot slip through. Your welcome-discount code for new subscribers uses the same system.

If you only email people through the platform, yes. The three legal requirements are consent (we only add people who actively opted in), identification (campaign emails carry your shop details), and unsubscribe (every marketing email has a working unsubscribe link, honoured automatically).

You can import your own customer list from a spreadsheet on Dashboard → Email marketing → Import your customer list (CSV with an email column; names come across too). Two rules keep it legal: only import people who are genuinely your own customers or subscribed to your business directly (never bought or borrowed lists), and anyone who previously unsubscribed is skipped automatically and stays off.

Starter, $49 a month: your branded shop on a free subdomain, one module (like Fashion), 2 team members, 1 setup call and 1 follow-up call.

Pro, $99 a month: everything in Starter plus a custom domain, all modules, unlimited team members, AI model photos, and 4 follow-up calls.

Both plans have unlimited products and unlimited orders. We do not take a bigger cut as you grow, ever.

If you have subscribed, nothing changes. If not, your shop takes a short break: shoppers see a friendly 'back soon' page and your products and settings are kept safe. Subscribe from Dashboard → Billing and your shop is back within a minute.

Your plan ($49 or $99), plus any pay-as-you-go extras: AI model photos at $1 per generation, and any extra support calls at $45. Everything is itemised on the invoice, and Dashboard → Billing shows your running AI photo count for the month.

Dashboard → Billing → Manage billing opens your billing portal, where you can cancel in a couple of clicks, no phone call and no hard sell. Your shop stays up until the end of the period you have paid for. If you come back later, everything is exactly where you left it.

Book a call from your dashboard (included calls first, then $45 a call), or email info@onlinebusinessgenerator.com and a real person, in Australia, will get back to you. There is no chatbot maze here.