Store admin guide

The storefront is the website your shoppers see. Almost everything about how it looks and behaves is managed from WordPress, through the Companion plugin (Retail Store Companion) and WooCommerce. This guide is the operating manual for that work: each page is a task, written click by click.

Who this guide is for

• Store owners who want to change the look, content and offers of their store without a developer.
• The client’s staff who look after wp-admin day to day: settings, content, payments and sign-in.

You don’t need to write code. A few one-time steps (adding secrets to wp-config.php, scheduling a real cron job) need someone with access to the server; those steps say so.

Who can open these screens

Every StoreFront screen needs the WordPress capability manage_options, which normally means the Administrator role. Shop managers and editors don’t see the StoreFront menu.

Where everything lives

The Companion plugin adds a top-level StoreFront menu to wp-admin, just below WooCommerce. It has four entries:

Menu entry	What it is
Settings	One screen with a rail of tabs down the left. Nearly every storefront setting is here.
Subscribers	Newsletter sign-ups from the storefront.
Stock Notifications	Back-in-stock (“notify me”) sign-ups.
Contact Entries	Messages sent from the storefront’s contact page. A count bubble shows unread messages.

Open the settings with StoreFront›Settings. Three things make the screen quicker to use:

• Search. The Search settings… box above the rail finds any setting by name or keyword and jumps straight to it. Press / anywhere on the screen to focus it.
• Groups. Authentication, Home page and Pages are collapsible groups in the rail; they open by themselves while one of their tabs is active.
• Deep links. The open tab is part of the address, so you can bookmark or share it. For example, admin.php?page=retail-store-companion#turnstile opens the Turnstile tab.

Every tab and where it’s explained

Tabs are listed in the order they appear in the rail.

Tab	What it controls	Guide
General	The storefront’s address. Email links, previews and payment set-up all depend on it.	Connect the storefront
Header	The header builder: logo, search, menus, cart and more, for desktop and mobile.	Header builder
Authentication › Social Login	Google and Facebook sign-in, plus the status of the sign-in secret.	Sign-in and security
Authentication › Turnstile	Cloudflare Turnstile bot protection for public forms.	Sign-in and security
Authentication › Sessions	A read-only list of who is signed in, and on which devices.	Sign-in and security
Authentication › API Access	Which WooCommerce APIs need a signed-in shopper. Most stores keep the defaults.	Sign-in and security
Home page › Slider, CTA banner, Promo cards, Sale Banner, Today’s Deals, Testimonials	The home page’s editable sections.	Home page
Shop page	The image banner above the product grid on the shop page.	Shop and product pages
Product page	Gallery layout, review photos and moderation, trust badges, the Payment & Security card and the product sections.	Shop and product pages
Pages › Contact, FAQ, Static Pages	The contact page, the FAQ and the policy pages.	Pages and content
SEO	Store-wide titles, descriptions and the sync with Yoast SEO or Rank Math.	SEO
Colors	The colour scheme for light and dark mode, corner radius and shadows.	Colors and dark mode
Wishlist, Compare, Stock alerts	Shopper tools: saved products, product comparison and back-in-stock emails.	Customers and engagement
Footer	The footer builder: columns, prefooter line and copyright row.	Footer and mobile bar
Social Links	Your social profile addresses.	Footer and mobile bar
Promo popup	The first-order offer popup.	Scripts and promo popup
Mobile tab bar	The app-style bar at the bottom of the screen on phones and tablets.	Footer and mobile bar
Newsletter	Where newsletter sign-ups are sent (Brevo).	Customers and engagement
Header/Footer Scripts	Tracking and third-party code, such as Google Tag Manager or a consent tool.	Scripts and promo popup

Some settings live outside the StoreFront menu, in the usual WordPress and WooCommerce screens:

Where	What	Guide
WooCommerce › Settings	Locations, currency, shipping, reviews, guest checkout	WooCommerce settings
WooCommerce › Settings › Payments	Stripe, PayPal, Express Checkout and offline methods	Payments
Products	Product videos, trust badges per product, colour swatches, brands	Products
Products › Reviews	Review photos, videos and reports	Reviews
WooCommerce › Settings › Emails	The plugin’s six account and stock-alert emails	Emails and background jobs

How saving works

Most tabs share a single Save Changes button. You’ll find it in the sticky bar at the top of the screen and again at the foot of each tab.

• One Save covers every tab. You can change the slider, the colours and the footer, then press Save Changes once. The button shows Saving…, then Saved, then a Settings saved window: “Your changes are live. Shoppers may take up to 5 minutes to see them on the storefront.”
• One problem blocks the whole save. Because every tab is saved together, a value the plugin can’t accept on any tab stops the save, and nothing is written. The error message names the problem and usually ends with “Nothing was saved.” Fix it and save again.
• Two tabs work differently. The Header tab has its own Save header button and saves only the header you’re editing. The Sessions tab is read-only and has no Save button.
• Switched-off cards keep their content. When you turn a section off, its fields fold away, but what you typed is kept and comes back when you switch it on again.

Unsaved changes

Your edits stay in the browser until you press Save Changes. Closing the tab or leaving the page before saving loses them.

When changes reach shoppers

There is no “publish” step and nothing for a developer to redeploy. The storefront reads your settings from WordPress, and they reach shoppers within about 5 minutes:

• The plugin tells browsers and caches they may keep each answer for up to 5 minutes, and the storefront re-reads settings on the same schedule. WordPress doesn’t notify the storefront when you save, so the change appears when that window runs out.
• Promo cards and testimonials are also cached inside WordPress for an hour, but saving their tab clears that cache straight away.

If a change still hasn’t appeared after 5 minutes, reload the page in your browser while bypassing its cache (a “hard reload”). See Troubleshooting if it still doesn’t show.

Note

A storefront running in Demo Mode shows built-in sample content and ignores these settings. Your settings appear once the storefront is connected to your WooCommerce store.

Settings locked by wp-config.php

Some values can be pinned in the site’s wp-config.php file instead of being typed into the screen. A pinned field is greyed out and carries a Defined in wp-config.php chip, and the value in the file always wins. To change it, edit wp-config.php (or ask whoever manages the server).

Field	Tab	Constant
Storefront URL	General	RSC_FRONTEND_URL
Google Client ID	Social Login	RSC_GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID
Facebook App ID / App Secret	Social Login	RSC_FACEBOOK_APP_ID, RSC_FACEBOOK_APP_SECRET
Turnstile on/off, Site Key, Secret Key	Turnstile	RSC_TURNSTILE_ENABLED, RSC_TURNSTILE_SITE_KEY, RSC_TURNSTILE_SECRET_KEY

Two secrets can only be set in wp-config.php: the sign-in secret RSC_JWT_SECRET and the checkout protection secret RSC_STOREFRONT_SHARED_SECRET. See Connect the storefront for a copy-paste block, and the wp-config constants reference for the full list.

Saved secrets are never shown again. Once you save a secret (such as the Facebook App Secret or the Turnstile Secret Key), its field stays blank with a Saved — hidden for security chip. Leave it blank to keep the stored value, or type a new one to replace it.

Tip

Payment keys, social sign-in credentials and Turnstile keys all live in WordPress. They are never set in the storefront’s own configuration, so you can change them here without involving the team that hosts the storefront.

Recommended setup order

Setting up a new store in this order avoids most surprises. Each step links to its guide.

1. Install the Companion plugin and activate it. Install the Companion plugin

2. Connect the storefront: set the Storefront URL and add the two secrets to wp-config.php. Connect the storefront

3. Check the WooCommerce and WordPress settings the storefront relies on: permalinks, time zone, selling and shipping locations, menus and a real cron job. WooCommerce settings

4. Set up payments in test mode, run through the checklist, then go live. Payments

5. Set up sign-in and bot protection: Google, Facebook and Cloudflare Turnstile. Sign-in and security

6. Make it look like your brand: colours, then the header and footer. Colors and dark mode · Header builder · Footer and mobile bar

7. Fill the pages: home page sections, shop and product pages, policies, contact page and FAQ. Home page · Shop and product pages · Pages and content

8. Switch on marketing and engagement tools: SEO, newsletter, stock alerts, wishlist, compare, tracking scripts and the promo popup. SEO · Customers and engagement · Scripts and promo popup

Next steps

Install the Companion pluginUpload, activate and check the requirements.

Connect the storefrontStorefront URL, wp-config secrets and a verification checklist.

Launch pathThe whole road from first install to a live store.

Admin troubleshootingWhat to check when something doesn't appear.