Distribu

Setting up your storefront

There is very little storefront "setup" in Distribu — the whole thing is auto-wired the moment you create your company. But two things are worth getting right before you send the URL to a customer:

  1. Your company name (what they'll see in the header).
  2. Your slug (what's in the URL).

Both live in Settings → Company.

Company name

Pulled from the name field on your Company. Shown:

  • In the storefront header, next to a small colored box with the first letter of your name.
  • On the login, register, and set-password pages, centered with the same initial tile above it.
  • On every invoice PDF you generate.
  • In the subject and body of customer receipt emails.

Update it in Settings → Company — the field validates 2–100 characters. Any change takes effect immediately for customers (the storefront reads it server-side per request, with a short cache that clears automatically on name changes).

Staff won't see the new name until they sign back in

There's a Company name updated. Sign out and back in to see it in the header. notice that appears after saving. That's only about your dashboard header — the storefront picks up the new name right away.

The slug

Your URL slug is auto-generated from your company name. The rule is:

  • Lowercased.
  • Any run of non-alphanumeric characters becomes a single -.
  • Leading/trailing dashes trimmed.
  • If another company already has that slug, Distribu appends -2, -3, and so on until it's unique.

So "Acme Distributors, Inc." becomes acme-distributors-inc. "Widgets & Things" becomes widgets-things.

You can't edit the slug directly. The Settings form shows it as a read-only, grayed-out field labeled "URL slug — Auto-generated from your company name." If you need a different slug, rename the company.

Renaming changes the slug

If your old slug was acme-distributors and you rename to "Acme Wholesale," the new slug becomes acme-wholesale and the old URL stops working. Any bookmarks your customers have for the old URL will 404.

Two pieces of advice:

  • Pick a name you're happy with early. Storefront URLs are the part of your setup that customers actually paste into bookmarks and share with colleagues.
  • If you do rename, email your active customers the new link. Distribu doesn't forward the old slug to the new one — once a slug is released, another company on the platform could register it.

Finding your current slug

Open Settings → Company. The URL slug field underneath the company name is your slug. Your storefront URL is:

https://{your-distribu-domain}/store/{that slug}

If you're on the hosted Distribu product, that's distribu.app/store/{slug}. If you're self-hosted, it's whatever domain you've deployed to.

What customers see at the root

When someone opens /store/{slug} directly (without a path), the server checks their session:

  • Logged in and the cookie matches this slug — they bounce to /store/{slug}/catalog.
  • Not logged in (or logged into a different slug) — they bounce to /store/{slug}/login.

Either way, a valid storefront URL never leaves them on a dead page. An invalid slug (a company that doesn't exist) returns a 404.

There is no "storefront toggle"

You cannot turn the storefront off. As long as your company exists, the storefront at /store/{slug} responds. What you can control:

  • Who can sign up. If you want a closed storefront, block new self-registration by leaving it on but managing expectations externally — or email us at support@distribu.app about adding a per-company "registration disabled" toggle (on the roadmap but not shipped).
  • Who can log in. Customers you've set to BLOCKED can't sign in — they get Your account has been suspended. Please contact the store. from the login screen. See Storefront access.
  • What they see. Products with isActive = false or stock = 0 are hidden from the catalog. This is the practical way to "close" the store: deactivate the entire catalog.

There's no separate public landing page

The storefront has no marketing homepage, no "about us" section, no contact form. It's a straight-to-business customer portal — log in, browse, order. If you need a marketing site, host it separately and link to your storefront URL from it.

Custom domains

Not supported today. Your storefront is always served from the same domain as your dashboard, under /store/{slug}. CNAME support is on the roadmap; email us if it's a blocker.

Custom branding

Today:

  • Company name in the header.
  • One-letter initial tile in a fixed blue.

That's the full extent of branding. No logo upload, no custom colors, no custom fonts. A richer branding panel (logo, accent color) is planned — email support@distribu.app if it's keeping you from rolling out.

Next: How customers log in.