The retailer business model assumes that you store products in your own warehouse and fulfill customer orders directly. You manage your own inventory, shipping, and product data. If needed, you can also set up dropshipping for select items as a backup solution to cover stock shortages and ensure uninterrupted order fulfillment when certain products are temporarily unavailable in your own warehouse.

After reflecting on the key questions about what your X-Cart–based business should look like (outlined in the article What to consider before launching your X-Cart Automotive store), you can move on to setting up your X-Cart store.

The Getting started with X-Cart guide walks you through the essential steps to prepare your store for selling. While most configuration tasks can be completed independently, our onboarding team is available to assist with the initial setup if needed.

If you are going to need any auto integrations (for example, SEMA Data as a supplier of product information), the respective add-ons will also need to be installed and configured. Follow the steps in the Connect an auto Integration guide.

Online auto parts shoppers often don’t know the exact name or part number of what they need — they just know their vehicle details. Your X-Cart-based automotive store can be configured to let them quickly filter and find parts specifically compatible with their vehicle. This not only saves your customers time but also reduces the risk of incorrect parts being ordered — a common concern in the industry — and helps minimize returns.

The ability to shop by vehicle for your customers is powered by the Make/Model/Year add-on. This add-on is used by all automotive stores on X-Cart. To ensure the filtering and search functionality for auto parts works correctly for your customers, you must verify that the MMY configuration settings defined in this add-on meet the requirements of your auto integration(s). See the Set up how vehicles are organized guide for detailed information.

After setting up your store's MMY configuration, the next step is to import vehicles. Follow the instructions in the Import your vehicles guide.

You will need to configure each auto integration you plan to use. In addition to fields for entering connection credentials, the integration settings page includes sections for adjusting your preferences related to Import Options and Currency & Price Conversion. Some integrations may also include additional settings, such as switching between Test and Live modes, and configurations affecting payment and shipping workflows, among others.

The Import Options section for your connected integrations will likely require special attention, especially if you’re using a combination of integrations (e.g., a catalog provider plus a warehouse distributor — which may be the case if you are going to dropship certain products via a warehouse distributor). After the initial import of product data into your store’s catalog, you'll need to ensure this data remains up to date. This means scheduling regular updates to refresh previously imported records. The settings in the Import Options section control how these updates are handled.

It is critical that your initial product import is performed via the integration that you intend to use as the primary catalog source. Catalog provider integrations typically supply highly detailed product data (such as images, complete descriptions, and well-structured taxonomy for product categorization), making them ideal for the first import. X-Cart does not limit the number of data sources you can use, so you are free to import from multiple catalog providers if needed. However, if you do so, it’s important to evaluate which provider offers product data that most closely matches the structure and quality you want in your store — minimizing the need for manual adjustments.

During the initial import from a catalog provider, each product added to your X-Cart store will be assigned a SKU and a category:

SKU and category are key identifiers for each product. Once assigned during the initial import, they will not be overwritten by subsequent imports from other integrations. For example, if you initially populate your store catalog using SEMA Data, SKUs will be generated based on the brand-specific data import settings of brands imported from SEMA Data, and product categories will reflect SEMA’s taxonomy and your chosen category mapping configuration.

When updating previously imported products with data from another integration (such as stock or pricing data from a warehouse distributor), the system will enrich or supplement the original product records. The match between integrations is made using a shared identifier (either SKU or MPN), which you can specify in the Import Options.

To keep your product catalog current, you’ll need to regularly update data from your primary integration (catalog provider). Review the Import Options and specify which types of product data should be updated — such as Product Name, Descriptions, Attributes, Images, Fitments, and so on. Note that these update options only apply to repeat imports. During the initial import, all available product data will be pulled in regardless of the update settings. However, the fields selected in the Update section within Import Options will determine which data types can be overwritten in future imports.

For the integration used as the warehouse distributor for dropshipping, you will also need to configure the Import Options to enable updates for stock levels and prices.

After onboarding, your store will include a preconfigured category tree structure where your products will be organized. This taxonomy is used by default. Review the structure to determine whether it meets your business needs. If not, you're free to customize it by editing category names and restructuring branches, or to remove the default taxonomy entirely and replace it with your own.

Categories can be created or modified manually or imported via CSV. For details, see: Adding Categories.

If you are using a catalog data provider (e.g., SEMA Data) that already offers a well-structured and detailed taxonomy for the products you plan to showcase, you may opt to use the relevant auto integration to import product information into your store—and adopt the provider’s taxonomy accordingly. In this scenario, you will import category data from the catalog provider (e.g., SEMA Data) and configure category mapping. During the mapping process, you can choose either to adopt the provider’s taxonomy as-is or define rules for how products from the provider’s categories should be placed into your store’s category structure. For details, see the following guides:

Products can be added to your X-Cart store manually if needed, but when working with a large number of items, importing is the more efficient approach. There are two options:

If using the CSV import option, note that X-Cart requires a specific data format. Even if your product data is already in CSV format, you’ll need to convert it to match X-Cart’s format before importing. For information on X-Cart CSV import, see the guides in the Data Transfer section.

If using import from a catalog provider, you'll need to import brands, configure data import rules at the level of specific brands, and import products. For instructions, see the following guides:

If certain types of catalog data were missing during earlier stages of store setup—following the steps in the Getting started with X-Cart guide—and this prevented you from configuring your shipping, tax, or payment settings, you should now have all the necessary data in place to complete these configurations.

If you plan to supplement your in-house inventory with dropshipped products, follow the Using X-Cart as a Dropshiper guide to integrate catalog and fulfillment data from external suppliers.