Guide 08 · Developer docs

A Core dna store is a set of records and an API that moves a purchase from cart to order: products described in every language and priced in every currency the store sells in, a cart, a checkout that becomes an order, invoices, payments, tax and shipping. The site builds the storefront on top: the cart and checkout pages, their scripts, and the customer emails.

L2–L3

Unit 01 of 08 4 pages

Products, prices and catalogue pages

Updated 23/10/2026 01:45

The catalogue side of a store: the product, its descriptions and its variants, prices and currencies, the category, listing and product pages, and the wishlist and back-in-stock features. For the content modeller setting up a catalogue and the theme developer rendering it.

Start with Product, description and variant: which record a field belongs on is the first decision on any store, and the costliest to change once the catalogue is full. Prices and currencies follows, because every template that prints a price depends on it.

The template work is on Catalogue pages: the routes and their variables, a product page that offers its variants, galleries, and the rules that keep a listing fast. Wishlists and back-in-stock requests is the last page because both features sit on top of a working product page. Group prices and quotes are in Selling to businesses.

In this unit

Read in order

01 Product, description and variant A product holds what is sold, its descriptions hold what is said about it, and a variant is a version that is bought on its own. Which record each field belongs on, why copy belongs on the description, and where custom fields stop being the right tool. 02 Prices and currencies Every product and variant has one price row per currency, and the price a shopper pays is the lower of its base and special price. What the rows hold, how the cart picks a currency, and how to print a price correctly in either engine. 03 Catalogue pages: categories, listings and products The routes, templates and variables of the product listing, the category page and the product page; a product page with variant selection and a gallery; and how to keep listings, the slowest pages on most stores, from running a handful of queries per product. 04 Wishlists and back-in-stock requests A wishlist is a signed-in member's saved products; a product interest is a request to hear when something is back in stock, open to guests if the site allows it. What each records, the requests and screens behind them, and the job that turns stock coming back into an email.