01 — Getting Started

Everything you need to get your store up and running for the first time.

#What you need before you start

WooCommerce is required. Raftaar Commerce is built specifically for WooCommerce stores — it won't work as a normal blog/business theme with WooCommerce turned off.

Most hosting providers already meet these requirements. If you're not sure what PHP version your host uses, ask your host's support team, or check under Tools → Site Health in your WordPress admin — it will warn you if anything's out of date.

#Step 1 — Install the theme

1. In your WordPress admin, go to Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme.
2. Choose the raftaar-commerce.zip file you downloaded and click Install Now.
3. Click Activate.
4. If WooCommerce isn't already installed, the theme will prompt you to install and activate it automatically — just click through the prompt.

A note about the "child theme": your download also includes a second, smaller theme called Raftaar Commerce Child. You don't need to do anything with it unless you (or a developer working with you) want to add custom code or styling later. The advantage of putting custom changes into the child theme is that they'll survive future updates to the main theme — anything changed directly in the main theme could be overwritten the next time you update. If you're not doing any custom coding, you can safely ignore this and just use the main theme as installed.

#Step 2 — Activate your license

Before most features will work, you need to activate your license:

1. In your WordPress admin sidebar, go to Raftaar Commerce → License.
2. You have two ways to activate:
   • Email Code — enter the email address you used when you purchased, click Send Code, and you'll receive a 6-digit code by email. Enter it to activate.
   • Portal Code — if your site can't send/receive that email for some reason, log into your license portal directly, generate an activation code there, and paste it in under the "Portal Code" tab instead.
3. Once activated, the page will show Active, along with your license type and current domain.

Why this matters: until your license is active, every Raftaar Commerce settings page (and the Customizer) will immediately redirect you back to this License page, and your live site will show a small "This theme is not licensed" notice bar. Core shopping — browsing, cart, checkout, wishlist — keeps working right away, but the longer the site stays unlicensed, the more a specific set of features (search, quick view, "Buy Now," shop filters, product comparison, related-product upsells, and blog previews) start behaving inconsistently or stop working, ramping up over about 48 hours. Activate promptly rather than leaving a live store unlicensed for long.

If you ever need to move your license to a different website, use the Transfer License section on the same page — no need to contact support for a routine domain change.

#Step 3 — Run the Setup Wizard

Go to Raftaar Commerce → Setup Wizard. It walks you through five steps in order, shown as a progress bar at the top:

1. License — activate your license (see Step 2 above, if you haven't already).
2. Install Plugins — makes sure WooCommerce (and anything else required) is installed and active.
3. Import Demo — optionally bring in ready-made example content, so you're not starting from a blank site.
4. Customise — quick jump-links straight into the Customizer sections you're most likely to want first: Brand Colors, Fonts, Product Grid, Header, Footer, and AJAX & Speed.
5. All Done! — a completion screen once you're finished.

It only takes a few minutes, and nothing here is a one-time-only choice — you can revisit any of these settings afterward from their normal locations.

If you'd rather build everything from scratch, that's fine too — skip the "Import Demo" step and go straight to Customizing Your Store.

#Step 4 — Import demo content (optional but recommended)

If you'd like your store to start with example products, pages, and menus already in place (which you can then edit or delete), see Importing Demo Content.

#What's next

• Customizing Your Store — set your colors, fonts, and store-wide settings
• Menus & Navigation — set up your header and mobile menus
• Building Pages with Blocks — design your homepage