Storefront Onboarding

Step 1: Complete the Canal onboarding flow

When you first log in to your Canal account, you will need to fill in a few details before you can start using the product. Please complete this flow as thoroughly as you can. One step will be to add in Webhooks; however, this is optional and can be completed at a later time in the Developer tab in Settings. Learn more about Webhooks.

Step 2: Choose a Supplier through Discover or invite a Supplier to Canal

Note: Steps 2-3 are not necessary to complete the implementation of Canal's API. We recommend that you first use the Development environment to test your implementation. This environment already contains test products for your usage. If you use the Development environment, head directly to Step 4. Learn about the Development environment

In the Canal app, Suppliers are listed in the Discover tab. You can browse Suppliers by category and brand values to find the right partners for your Store.

If you don’t find the Suppliers you need in the Canal app, or are looking to work with your existing Suppliers, you can invite a new Supplier to Canal.

Step 3: Establish partnership terms with proposals

You can send a proposal to a Supplier from the Discover tab, or to your invited supplier once they’ve downloaded Canal.

Proposals are lightweight contracts between a Storefront and a Supplier. In a proposal, you can select the products you’d like to sell, propose commission terms, and determine shipping settings. You can go back and forth with your supplier during the proposal stage until you’ve agreed to terms that suit your needs.

Step 4: Add approved products to your Storefront

You can easily add Supplier products to your Store via the Canal API. Canal will send all the necessary data for you to create your own Product Detail Pages for these products. Please see the API Reference for details on how to do so.

To ensure your Storefront always has all the new products you have added on the Canal app, you should create a webhook for the product/create topic so that the products are automatically sent to your Storefront when you are approved to sell the products and have added them to your Store on the Canal app.

You will also want to create a webhook for the product/update topic so that any product updates made by the Suppliers can be sent to your Storefront and be updated automatically.

Step 5: Integrate order creation into your Store

When a customer purchases a Canal-powered Supplier product, you must create a new order containing that product. To do so, please use the Orders endpoints in the Canal API.

Note: To know how much you should charge the customer for shipping, please use the Shipping Rates endpoints in the Canal API.

To receive updates regarding orders placed through your Storefront, please create a webhook for the order/update topic, which will send you the updates automatically.

Additonally, to receive fulfillment details for the order once the Supplier creates a new fulfillment job, please create webhooks for the fulfillment/create and fulfillment/update topics.

Step 6: Integrate refunds into your Store

When a customer requests for a refund for a Canal-powered Supplier product, you will need to generate a refund through Canal. Please use the Refunds endpoints in the Canal API to create a new Refund request.

Step 7: Start selling!

You are now ready to sell Canal-powered Supplier products. When customers pay you, Canal will charge you via ACH to pay the Suppliers for their products, leaving you with your earned commission. You can learn more about payments in the Help Center.