Build More Online Stores in Less Time With Chipply Templates

Chipply's most successful stores have something in common: they're not static. They're stocked with a solid product selection — 35 or more products is the benchmark — and the dealers running them are leaning on time-saving features to keep things current without burning hours doing it manually.

Templates are one of those features. And based on feedback from our recent Chipply Summit, a lot of dealers aren't using them as much as they could be.

We just covered this in depth in our June webinar — you can watch the recording here — but here's the breakdown if you want the highlights first.

Why Your Stores Need Fresh Content (Regularly)

A store you built 18 months ago reflects 18-month-old information. Pricing changes. Products go in and out of stock. Vendors release new styles. Art placement gets refined.

If you're not periodically pulling in updated content, your stores are quietly getting stale. And stale stores sell less.

Here's what tends to drift if you're not actively refreshing:

• Pricing — vendor costs change, and your stores should reflect that so you maintain your profit margin
• Product availability — items get discontinued or go on backorder
• New and seasonal products — your customers want what's current
• Art placement — Chipply continuously improves placement as we work closely with vendors; older products may not reflect the best options

None of this requires rebuilding from scratch. That's exactly what Chipply Templates are for.

What Chipply Templates Actually Do

Templates give you a curated, ready-to-use starting point for any store. Instead of manually hunting for products, placing art, and setting up each item one by one, you pull in a template and get a solid foundation instantly.

We maintain these templates through close relationships with our vendors, so when SanMar drops a new style or S&S updates availability, we're updating our templates to reflect it. You benefit from that work every time you use one.

A few things worth knowing about how they work now:

Templates are organized by category. This is new. Instead of scrolling through one big list, templates are now grouped so it's faster to find what you need for a specific store type or product category.

You can build your own supplemental templates. Chipply's templates are the foundation. Your templates get you the rest of the way. Think specialty brands you always source, specific promo products or hard goods, or products unique to certain clients. Build it once, reuse it everywhere.

Copy Store + Templates is a powerful combo. If a customer ran a store last year and wants to do it again, use Copy Store to carry over their settings, then pull in fresh template products to update the assortment. You get continuity without the stale catalog.

The Best Times to Pull In Templates

You don't need to refresh every store on a schedule. But there are natural moments where it makes sense:

• Recurring customer stores — when a client is ready to reopen a store from a previous season, refresh the product mix before you do
• Holiday stores — seasonal products and updated pricing matter here more than anywhere
• New sales reps onboarding — templates help new team members start with your best practices already built in, keeping things consistent across your business
• Any store that's been dormant — if it's been sitting for a while, a quick template refresh is faster than auditing every product manually, and adding new and trending products can motivate repeat shoppers

The Faster Way to Build Online Stores

Bulk updates, inventory thresholds, automated purchasing — these features exist because doing things product by product doesn't scale. Templates are the same idea applied to store setup.

Inventory thresholds mean you can pull in a large product assortment without worrying about customers ordering items that are out of stock. The platform handles that for you. So there's no reason to keep your stores lean out of fear. More products, done right, means more sales.

The key takeaway from our June webinar was simple: Templates are an easy starting point. Use them to keep things fresh, use Copy Store to carry over what's working, and let the platform handle the rest.

Watch the full webinar recording on our webinars page for a live walkthrough of Templates and other time-saving features.