Solutions / E-commerce & D2C
A store that's actually yours
Catalog, checkout, orders, tax, and support — built into your own app, not rented from a storefront platform that owns your customer relationship.
The case for building it
Why build this instead of renting a storefront?
Storefront platforms charge rent for a store that looks like everyone else's and behaves the way the platform decides. Anything off-template means an app store: another plugin, another monthly fee, another vendor between you and your customer. Kliv gives you the storefront machinery — catalog, checkout, orders, tax, refunds — as parts of your own app, so the store can be exactly as unusual as your brand is.
Your operation has habits no template anticipates: roast-to-order batches, preorder windows, subscribe-and-save on your cadence, a refund policy with an approval step. Those aren't customizations to fight for — they're the description you build from. The store models your operation, and your operation stops bending to fit a checkout flow you can't touch.
Anatomy of the system
What the storefront actually knows
A store is a set of facts that have to agree: what's for sale, who bought it, where it's going, what the tax authority expects. When the facts live in one system, the store runs calm. Here is the shape Kliv would build.
Products & variants
The catalog with its real structure — roast, size, grind — not a flat list with names doing the work.
Orders
Each with its state — placed, fulfilled, shipped — and its receipt, refund status, and history.
Subscriptions
Subscribe-and-save relationships with their cadence, pause state, and next renewal.
Customers
Every buyer with their orders, addresses, and subscription — the relationship, not just the transactions.
Tax
Registrations where you owe, calculation at checkout, reports ready when it's time to file.
Support knowledge
Your shipping, sizing, and returns policies — what the support agent answers from, next to the customer's own order.
Who sees what
Rules the database enforces
- A customer sees their own orders — the wall is the database's, not the URL's.
- Subscription changes — pause, resume, switch — take effect by themselves; no email to you, no manual edit.
- A failed renewal gets retries and recovery emails before it becomes a cancellation.
- Tax calculates at checkout from your registrations — the report at filing time matches what was charged.
This is the machinery storefront platforms rent you — as parts of your own app. The difference shows the first time your operation needs something the template didn't anticipate.
What Kliv assembles
A shopping list of platform pieces — each one built in, each one composing with the rest.
The whole storefront
Catalog, embedded checkout, orders, fulfillment, and refunds with approvals — one pipeline you control end to end.
Subscribe & save
Recurring orders with pause, resume, and fair proration — and dunning that quietly recovers failed cards.
Support that knows your policies
An agent answers sizing, shipping, and returns questions from your knowledge base — and looks up the customer's own order.
Know what each channel is worth
Conversion and revenue dashboards built in — see which channel actually sells.
Ways to charge
Three ways a brand can charge
A products business still has shapes to choose: the one-time order, the subscription that smooths revenue, the gift that recruits.
One-time order
$24
The customer trying the roast
The order, the receipt, shipping confirmation when it moves.
- Unlocks
- An order history and a customer record — the relationship starts at the first bag.
- Billing
- One charge at checkout, tax calculated where you're registered.
- Refunds
- Through your approval step — a refund is a decision, not an accident.
Subscribe & save
$21/month
The customer who never wants to run out
The regular order at the loyal price, on the cadence they choose.
- Unlocks
- Subscribers manage everything themselves — pause for the summer, resume in fall, switch the roast.
- Billing
- Renews on schedule with fair proration on changes; failed cards get retried and chased by email.
- Refunds
- The same approval-gated flow.
Gift subscription
$63 for three months
The customer solving a birthday
Three months of coffee to someone else's door, with a note.
- Unlocks
- The recipient gets the deliveries and the updates; the giver gets the receipt.
- Billing
- Prepaid in one charge; it ends cleanly at three months instead of surprising anyone's card.
- Refunds
- By decision, through approval.
Before launch
The first week, before you launch
Four days to build the store, then a rehearsal of its busiest quarter.
Shape the store
Describe the operation: the products and variants, the subscription cadences, where you owe tax, your refund policy. Kliv builds the first preview with checkout working.
Make it yours
Your brand is the moat — make the store look like the label, not like a theme with your logo in the corner.
Load the real thing
The real catalog, the real prices, the shipping policies the support agent will answer from. Place a test order and watch it move through fulfillment.
Try to break it
Fail a renewal card. Pause and resume a subscription. Request a refund and watch it wait for your approval. Ask the support agent where your order is — it should know.
Then rehearse a year
In the Sandbox, with simulated money and simulated time, run the subscriber year: renewals on their cadences, the summer pause that resumes on schedule, dunning quietly recovering a card, December's gift subscriptions ending cleanly in March. Launch with the busy quarter already survived.
Bespoke, without the bespoke risk
Custom software used to mean a budget, a contractor, and a maintenance contract. This is a different deal.
Enterprise-grade parts
Sign-in, permissions enforced at the database, billing, audit, email — the components under your bespoke system are the same hardened pieces every Kliv app runs on. You compose proven infrastructure; you don't commission code from scratch.
Changes ship in order
When your process changes, say so — the change is built in conversation, you review it in a live preview, and nothing reaches your users until you publish. Commerce changes can even be rehearsed in the Sandbox with simulated money and time.
Nobody can sunset it
Off-the-shelf tools get re-priced, redesigned, and retired on a vendor's schedule — and your workflow goes with them. Your Kliv app changes only when you change it. It's your product, not a seat in someone else's.
Say it in one sentence
“Build a store for my coffee brand with a product catalog, embedded checkout, a subscribe-and-save plan, sales tax handled, and a support assistant that knows our shipping policy.”
This is genuinely how it starts — describe it, then refine in conversation.
Build or buy
Why not just keep renting the storefront?
| Off the shelf | With Kliv | |
|---|---|---|
| The checkout | Their flow, their rules, on their terms. | Embedded in your app on your own domain — orders and customers land in your store. |
| Off-template behavior | An app store: another plugin, another fee, another vendor. | A sentence in conversation — preorder windows, batch releases, your refund policy. |
| Cost structure | Rent plus plugins plus transaction terms. | You own the system; payments land on your own Stripe account. |
| The customer relationship | Theirs to broker — you see what the platform shows you. | Customers, orders, and history are rows in your own database. |
| Changing later | Migration — the word that keeps stores on old platforms for years. | Your app evolves in place; nothing to migrate away from. |
The checkout
Off the shelf: Their flow, their rules, on their terms.
With Kliv: Embedded in your app on your own domain — orders and customers land in your store.
Off-template behavior
Off the shelf: An app store: another plugin, another fee, another vendor.
With Kliv: A sentence in conversation — preorder windows, batch releases, your refund policy.
Cost structure
Off the shelf: Rent plus plugins plus transaction terms.
With Kliv: You own the system; payments land on your own Stripe account.
The customer relationship
Off the shelf: Theirs to broker — you see what the platform shows you.
With Kliv: Customers, orders, and history are rows in your own database.
Changing later
Off the shelf: Migration — the word that keeps stores on old platforms for years.
With Kliv: Your app evolves in place; nothing to migrate away from.
Common questions
Does it handle sales tax and VAT?
Yes — register the jurisdictions where you owe, tax calculates at checkout, and you pull file-ready reports when it's time to file.
Can customers manage subscriptions themselves?
Yes. Subscribers pause, resume, switch, and update cards on a billing page inside your store — and failed payments are retried and chased by email automatically.
Is checkout really on my own site?
Yes — embedded checkout in your app on your own domain, or a hosted page if you prefer. Either way the orders, customers, and history live in your store, not a third party's.
What does fulfillment actually look like?
An order queue with states — placed, packed, shipped — that your fulfillment person works through without seeing revenue dashboards. Shipping confirmation goes to the customer when the state changes.
What happens when a subscriber's card fails?
Dunning: the charge is retried on a schedule and the customer gets recovery emails with a link to fix the card. Most failures are expired plastic, not lost customers — the system treats them that way.
Can we do preorders and small-batch drops?
Yes — those are catalog rules: a preorder window with a stated ship date, a batch that closes when it's sold out. The store enforces the terms you announced, and the support agent can explain them.
