Getting Started with Trinity · Chapter 2 of 15
Your first two weeks
Do these in order. Most take an hour or less. The ones that take days (search engines) are the reason to start on day one.
| Day | Do this | Why | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Enter every distributor login you have: Lipsey's, RSR Group, Sports South, Davidson's, Bill Hicks, Zanders, Chattanooga Shooting Supplies, Crow Shooting Supply, Camfour, Kinsey's, MGE Wholesale, Orion Wholesale, Kroll International, AmChar, Iron Valley Supply, Hicks Inc., MSR Distribution, Gunarama, 2nd Amendment Wholesale, Bangers, Gun Accessory Supply, Tactical Gear Distributors. | Products and stock come only from the distributors you connect. More distributors means more items in stock and a better chance of the lowest cost on each one. | Distributors. See Connect your distributors: what each one needs. |
| 1 | Set your markups, then compare a few of your prices with the same items on gun.deals. | Shoppers sort by price. See the Pricing chapter. | Pricing. See Set your markups and price tiers: the Pricing page. |
| 1 | Set shipping sized to the item: a gun rate, an accessory rate, an ammunition rate. | Shipping that is 40 percent of the item is the top reason carts are abandoned. | Shipping. |
| 1 | Add Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics, submit your sitemap. | Indexing takes weeks. Google becomes your biggest source of visitors. | See the Search engines chapter. |
| 2 | Turn on the gun.deals and WikiArms feeds and apply to both sites. Turn on AmmoSeek if you sell ammunition. | They send 40 to 70 percent of website orders. Both are paid services; ask them for current pricing. | Data Feeds. See Get your products listed on gun.deals and List your products on AmmoSeek. |
| 2 | Connect GunBroker (username and password only) and finish GunBroker's seller verification. | GunBroker brings our own store more orders than the website. | GunBroker. See Connect GunBroker. |
| 3 | Decide on fraud screening: NoFraud or your own checks. | One chargeback costs more than a year of screening. | See the Fraud chapter. |
| 3 | Set up Google Merchant Center with the Google product feed. | Free listings for the accessories Google allows. | Google Feed. See Google product feed and analytics. |
| 4 | Walk through a purchase on your own site on a phone. Buy a $1 test item with a real card, then refund it. | Most visitors are on a phone. You will find what they find. | Your storefront. |
| 7 | Check Search Console for indexing, check your feeds were pulled, read your first price comparison results. | Feeds that were never pulled, and pages that were never indexed, look exactly like a store with no customers. | Search Console, Data Feeds. |
| 14 | Compare your conversion and your prices again. Adjust. | Pricing is a dial, not a decision. | Analytics, Pricing. |
Before any of it
Outgoing email. Your store cannot sell until it can send mail: confirmations, FFL requests and price quotes all go out through your own mailbox. Open Email Sending Settings, connect the mailbox your customers should see, send yourself a test, and add the two DNS records the page shows. See Connect your outgoing email and Verify your store email domain (two DNS records).
Your card processor and sales tax. The processor is the one thing we cannot set up for you. Trinity takes Authorize.Net; ask your processor for the API Login ID and Transaction Key and enter them under Settings. Processors want a refund policy page before they approve you; edit yours under Pages. Set up Sales Tax before the first order. See Connect your payment gateway and Set up sales tax.
Your own FFL and SOT. Upload your license and, if you have one, your SOT in your admin. Distributors will not ship a gun to a store they do not have on file, so send each one your license before the first order. See Your license and SOT on file and Do I need to email FFLs to my distributors?.
Logins. Give every person their own login with the Admin, Manager or Staff role. Never share a login and never email a password. See Logins and passwords.
Your domain and your old links. Your store is built on a demo address first. On launch day the domain moves: we give you the DNS records, you or your registrar enter them, and the old site's links are pointed at the new pages so Google keeps your rankings. Your About, Shipping, Returns and Privacy pages are yours to edit under Pages, and you can turn on an age check if your state or processor wants it. See Point old website links to your new pages, Custom pages and menu links and Add an age check to your website.