Pick Online store in Create with Zeus and Zeus designs a shop instead of a service site. He plans it around the products that are really in the Store (their names, pictures, prices and categories), in the look you choose, and builds it as a draft in Mount Olympus. Nothing is published.
For the steps before the plan (the site type, where the products come from, the shop layout, the extra pages), see How to create a site with Zeus.
What Zeus builds
- Home: a hero, the products the shop leads with, the categories, and the look's own sections (the story, reviews when there are real ones, a statement, a gallery, FAQ, a closing call to action). Each section has its own heading, and a product shows once on the page: the product the page features is left out of the other product rows, and a category row shows its own category's products. A sold-out product is never the hero's product or the featured one, and in the rows Zeus picks, sold-out products come after the ones that can be bought (the Shop page still shows them all). When you ask Zeus to redo one product section later, he follows the same rules against the rest of the page: no product the other sections already show, and a heading the page doesn't already have.
- Shop: every product. With One Shop page with filters it has the category and price filters. With A page for each category it links to each category's page. A shop with fewer than 6 products gets a plain grid with no filter panel. A shop with one product shows it once on Home.
- Product page: ONE design that shows every product at its own address (
/product/your-product). The gallery, the options, the price, the buy button and the details are the store's own live widgets, so a product you add later gets its page by itself. Its breadcrumb reads Home › Shop › the product. - Category page (only with A page for each category): ONE design that shows every category at its own address under /shop, such as /shop/dog-toys. The Shop page keeps /shop, and the menu's Shop link opens /shop. (The category design itself is the page called Category in the Pages panel; its Page URL shows where the categories live.) A category page's breadcrumb reads Home › Shop › the category. The categories sit in a dropdown under Shop in the menu. A category you add later gets its page and its menu entry by itself.
- The pages you ticked: About, FAQ, Contact, Reviews.
- Shipping & returns (when ticked): Zeus drafts the shipping policy and the returns policy from the store's own settings and saves them to the store settings too (Business Hub → Settings → Store → Policies). A policy you already wrote is used as it is and never rewritten. The shipping draft only says what checkout really does: the countries you ship to, each shipping option and its price (a free-over option reads "Orders of $50.00 or more ship free"), the ZIP codes a local delivery covers and where pickup is. It talks to shoppers, never about "store settings". Anything Zeus can't know is marked for you to fill in, naming what's missing, like "[add detail: pickup address]". A section that already gives its facts from your settings doesn't end with an extra blank. Until you do, the review list and Ready to launch → Pages Zeus flagged show Shipping policy: details to fill in (or Returns policy: details to fill in). The Shipping & returns page shows the policies as they are saved in the store settings, so filling them in there fills the page too. If you change that text on the page itself, the page keeps your words from then on and no longer follows the settings; if those words still have an "[add detail…]" blank, Ready to launch → Pages Zeus flagged lists the page. (A Shipping & returns page built before this change keeps its own copy: fix any "[add detail]" on the page itself; Ready to launch lists it too.) If a draft fails, Zeus tries once more. If it still fails, the build notes say so, and the review list and Ready to launch show Shipping policy still needed (or Returns policy still needed) until you write it. None of these stop you publishing. The page is linked in the footer.
- The header: Home, Shop, About, Contact and the rest, plus the cart and Log In / Account. The main button opens the Shop. On a phone the header stays one row; a long shop name takes two lines.
- A client that sells both: a Services page too, one services section on the Home page (after the products), and a page for each service when there are 3 or more. No area pages.
Zeus doesn't build the cart, the checkout or the order pages. They are already part of the store, and they cost nothing.
There are no service pages, area pages, "how it works" steps or service + city headlines on a shop. The writing is about the products, the making and the people, only from what's on file. Product names, prices and stock are never typed into the page copy: the store widgets show them live, so they are always right.
No two shops alike
The three looks in our examples (an editorial candle shop, a bold apparel shop, a playful pet shop) are examples, not templates. For every shop Zeus picks:
- the home hero (the look's own heroes, plus product-led ones that open with the shop's real product photos),
- the order of the home page's sections (each look has several),
- the product section (a grid, a slider, rows or one big feature with a few beside it),
- the category section (picture tiles, plain tiles, wide bands or chips),
- the product page layout (gallery left with the buy box staying in view, gallery right with a buy card, a stacked editorial page, or a wide gallery),
- the category page layout, the header and the footer.
He chooses from the brief, the business info and the products themselves. When the plan and the pages talk about what the shop sells, they name only the products and categories in the Store, never a guess from the business type. A store with no products yet is described as "the shop's products" until the real or sample products are in. A handful of products reads best as rows or one big feature, a large range as a grid or a slider. Products with many photos get the galleries that show them. Products with color swatches keep the buy box beside the photos. Then he checks the other shops your agency has built in the same look and steers away from what they already wear, so two candle shops in the same look still differ on the hero, the product section and the product page.
The product cards, the category tiles, the gallery and the buy box all follow the look: thick outlines and hard shadows on a bold look, soft rounded cards on a playful one, flat cards with thin rules on an editorial one.
The plan screen
The plan lists every page with its credits. For a shop you'll also see:
- Shop: "every product, with links to the categories" (or "with filters").
- Category page: "one design for all 4 categories: Candles, Diffusers, Wax melts, Gift sets · new categories get a page automatically".
- Product page: "one design for all 24 products".
- Shipping & returns: "the policy is saved to the store settings too".
- 24 products: "already in the Store · bringing products in is free", 0 credits.
- 8 sample products: "written by Zeus, marked “Sample” · 1 credit each" (only with Start with placeholder products).
Customize sections and look opens the plan editor. You can change any page's sections, pick another product section or hero, or remove a page. The Shop page stays: its type reads Shop and its Remove page button is off. Your changes are kept exactly as you make them.
Credits
- 10 credits per page Zeus designs and writes: Home, Shop, each extra page and Shipping & returns.
- The product page counts as ONE page, however many products there are. The category page counts as ONE page, however many categories there are.
- 1 credit per sample product Zeus writes. Products from the Store, Printful or a spreadsheet are free.
- 1 credit per Zeus image. The products' own pictures are free.
- The cart, the checkout and the order pages cost nothing.
- Drafting the shipping and returns policies is part of the Shipping & returns page. It isn't charged again.
Example: Home, Shop, Category page, Product page, About, FAQ, Contact and Shipping & returns with 3 Zeus images: 8 × 10 + 3 × 1 = 83 credits. See What costs credits.
When the build is done
The site opens in Mount Olympus with Zeus's chat. For a shop, his list of things to check before you publish includes:
- "8 products are drafts: publish them to sell." Draft products show in the editor but not on the published site. Open Products takes you there.
- Sample products to swap. Samples are marked "Sample". Edit each one into a real product, or add the real ones and archive the samples.
- "5 products have no description. Have Zeus write them?" Write them starts it right there; Write with Zeus opens the same window as Store → Products. See Have Zeus write your product descriptions.
- Store setup still needed to sell: payments, shipping or tax. Open store setup takes you to the guide. See Set up your store with the guide.
Building the store is free. The Online Store add-on starts when you publish the site with its store on. See Set up your store.
Search engines
- A shop that only sells online (the client's Hide street address is on, or there's no address) is described to search engines as an online store, not a local business: no street address, map pin or opening hours.
- A shop people visit is described as a store, with its address and hours.
- Product, category, Shop and policy pages are never treated as service or service-area pages.
- You can change the business type in the site's SEO → AEO settings. Zeus only sets it when it hasn't been chosen.
Limits
- One product page design and one category page design per site. Edit them in the editor like any page: the change shows on every product or category.
- Zeus designs around the products in the Store when he plans. Products added later show up in the Shop, the category pages and the product page by themselves, but the home page's featured products are the ones the store marks as featured.
- A client needs a Business Hub for a store. It's switched on when you click Next (Growth or Agency plan). On Starter, picking Online store shows a card with See plans, because the store lives in the Business Hub, which comes with Growth and Agency. The phone app and MCP say the same.
- Nothing is published, and no product's status is changed. Drafts stay drafts.
Troubleshooting
- The Shop page is empty in the editor: the Store has no products on this site. Open the editor's Store item and check Sites with the store, or add products in Store → Products.
- "Store: the product page couldn't be made…" in the build notes: open the editor's Store panel and click Product page design. It makes the same page.
- The Shipping & returns page says a policy is missing: write it in Business Hub → Settings → Store → Policies, or ask Zeus in the Business Hub to draft it.
- Two shops look too alike: on the plan screen click Plan again, or open Customize sections and look and pick another hero or product section.