How to Set Up Your Online Store with Manva (Live in 15 Minutes, From ₹999)

Sign up at manva.ai and pick the Store pack at ₹999 one-time. Manva's Build Agent then asks a short questionnaire — about 7 questions — to understand your brand. The answers feed directly into the AI generation, so spend 90 seconds being specific:

• Business name — exactly as you want it on the storefront. "Aarohi Boutique" not "aarohi"; capitalisation matters.
• Category — fashion, jewellery, food, decor, beauty, gifting, home, kids. Pick the closest.
• Audience — "women 25-45 in tier-2/3 cities looking for daily-wear cotton suits" beats "everyone." The AI uses this for tone, copy, and even font/colour choices.
• Style preference — minimal, vibrant, classic, modern. Or skip and let the AI pick based on category.
• Primary language — English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Odia. The storefront and product templates generate in this language.
• Whether you want a blog — yes, always. Even if you don't write today, leave it on. SEO compounds for years.
• Logo — upload yours, or let the AI generate three options.

Click Generate. The Build Agent produces a multi-page storefront — homepage, products grid, individual product templates, about, contact, blog — in roughly 5 minutes. You can close the tab; Manva emails when it's ready.

Once the store is generated, head to Products → Add. For each product, you'll need:

• Photo — upload from phone, drag-drop from desktop, or use AI image generation if you don't have one yet.
• Title — short, descriptive, keyword-led. "Hand-block-printed cotton kurta — Hyderabad summer collection" beats "Kurta 1."
• Description — 80-150 words. Manva can auto-generate this in 11 Indian languages — pick a tone (friendly, expert, witty) and the AI writes it in 5 seconds.
• Price + MRP — actual price + crossed-out MRP if you want to show savings. Indian buyers respond strongly to visible discounts.
• Inventory — quantity in stock. Goes to "out of stock" automatically when it hits zero.
• SKU — your internal code. Optional but recommended for inventory management.
• Variants — sizes, colours, etc. Each variant can have its own price and stock.

For a first launch, you don't need 50 products. Start with 6-12 products — your hero items, the ones you know sell. Add more as the store stabilises. Stores that launch with 300+ products tend to look unfinished because no single product gets the photo and description quality it deserves.

Without payments, a store is a brochure. Razorpay is India's leading payment gateway and is the default Manva integration. Settings → Payments → Connect Razorpay. The connection takes 90 seconds if you already have a Razorpay account; about 15 minutes if you're signing up.

What gets enabled when Razorpay is connected:

• UPI — PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm, BHIM, any UPI app. This will be 60-75% of your orders.
• Credit + debit cards — Visa, Mastercard, Rupay. International cards too if you sell to NRIs.
• Net banking — all major Indian banks.
• Wallets — Paytm, PhonePe, Amazon Pay, Mobikwik.
• EMI — for orders above ₹3,000, automatically.
• Pay Later — Lazypay, Simpl. Optional toggle.

Razorpay's transaction fee is around 2% (varies slightly by method). Money lands in your bank account in T+2 business days by default. You can switch to T+1 settlement for a small additional fee if cash flow is critical.

Shipping is the second piece every Indian online store needs. Manva's Shiprocket integration handles this in one click. Settings → Shipping → Connect Shiprocket, log in with your Shiprocket credentials (or create an account — free).

What you get from Shiprocket through Manva:

• 17+ courier partners compared automatically — Bluedart, DTDC, Delhivery, Ekart, Xpressbees, ShadowFax, etc. The cheapest one for each pin code is picked by default.
• One-click label printing — print A4 or thermal labels from the Manva orders dashboard.
• COD enabled by default — cash collected on delivery, remitted to your bank in 7-10 days.
• Live tracking — buyers get an email and SMS with the tracking link automatically.
• Return labels — generate reverse pickup labels in one click for return requests.
• Pickup scheduling — schedule courier pickup from your address; you don't have to drop off.

Shipping rates start around ₹35 per shipment for prepaid, slightly more for COD. The exact rate depends on weight, destination zone, and chosen courier. For a typical fashion/jewellery/home-decor product, expect ₹45-70 per order in shipping costs.

Your store is live at yourbrand.manva.ai the moment payments and shipping are connected. That's free and works fine. But for serious branding, you want your own yourbrand.com domain — buyers trust it more, you can use professional email addresses, and it's portable if you ever move platforms.

Setup steps:

1. Buy the domain — GoDaddy, Namecheap, BigRock, or Google Domains. Cost is typically ₹400-1,200/year for a .com or .in domain.
2. In Manva, go to Settings → Domain → Connect Custom Domain → enter your domain.
3. Manva shows you two DNS records to add at your registrar — usually a CNAME pointing to cname.manva.ai and a TXT record for verification.
4. Add the records at GoDaddy/Namecheap — takes 2 minutes. The exact path varies by registrar; the custom domain guide has step-by-step screenshots.
5. Wait 1-24 hours for DNS propagation. Manva auto-issues a free SSL certificate the moment your domain resolves correctly.

Once live, your store works at both yourbrand.com and yourbrand.manva.ai simultaneously. The Manva subdomain becomes a permanent backup.

SEO setup before launch saves months of "why isn't my store on Google" later. Manva pre-fills most of it; spend 5 minutes finalising the rest:

• Homepage meta title (under 60 chars) — "Aarohi Boutique — Hand-block Cotton Kurtas, Free Shipping ₹999+"
• Homepage meta description (140-160 chars with a number) — "Hand-block-printed cotton kurtas from Hyderabad. UPI + COD all India. Free shipping above ₹999. New monsoon collection live."
• Each top product — same treatment: descriptive meta title, 140-char description, alt text on every image.
• Connect Google Search Console — Settings → SEO → Search Console. Verification is auto-handled via DNS.
• Submit your sitemap — Manva auto-generates /sitemap.xml. Submit it once in Google Search Console; Manva pings Google on every product/page update afterwards.
• Connect Google Analytics if you want detailed visitor data — paste your GA4 measurement ID into Settings → Integrations.

Click Publish. Your store is live. Place your first test order yourself (use your phone, real UPI) to verify the entire flow — payment, order confirmation email, label print, courier pickup. If anything breaks, you'd rather find out before a real customer does.