The first time you open Tendlio, a setup wizard asks what kind of store you run, whether you’ve entered cost prices, how long a restock takes to arrive, and how you’d like Tendlio to look. Then it analyzes your store and shows your two scores, together with the first thing worth fixing.
You will learn #
- What each setup question changes
- What you see while the first analysis runs
- What the results screen shows, and where to go from there
- How to change your answers later
Before you begin #
- Have two rough numbers ready. The wizard asks how many days a restock usually takes to arrive. If you haven’t entered a cost on your products, it also asks for your average gross margin: the share of the selling price you keep after paying for the product. Rough figures are fine, and you can change both later.
- Know whether your products have cost prices. The wizard asks. When you enter what you pay for a product, WooCommerce keeps it in a cost field on that product, and that field only shows once Cost of Goods Sold is switched on under WooCommerce → Settings → Advanced → Features.
- Your store can be brand new. If it has no orders yet, you can still finish setup. The wizard says what you can switch on before your first order, and your scores fill in as orders come in.
Open the setup wizard #
- In your WordPress admin, click Tendlio. Until setup is finished, Tendlio opens the wizard instead of the Dashboard.
- The first screen, Welcome to Tendlio, explains what Tendlio does with your orders, products and customers. Click Get started.
While the wizard is on screen, both the WordPress menu and Tendlio’s own menu are hidden. Which menu you get back when the wizard is done depends on the layout you pick on the third screen.
Tell Tendlio about your store #
The second screen, Tell us about your store, has three questions. The wizard won’t go on until you’ve picked a store type and answered the cost question.
- Under What kind of store is this?, choose the type closest to yours. Your answer sets what Tendlio treats as normal for your kind of store, such as how long your customers can go between orders.
- Under Do you track cost prices for your products?, choose one answer:
- Yes, I’ve set cost prices on my products in WooCommerce if your products already carry what you paid for them. Tendlio uses those costs.
- No, I haven’t entered a cost on every product yet if they don’t. A field called Average gross margin (%) appears, filled in with 50. Change it to your own margin if you know it. If enough of your products already have a cost, a line above the field shows the average margin on those products, and Use this copies it into the field. Tendlio uses your margin to estimate a cost from the price of every product that has none.
- Under How long do your restocks usually take to arrive?, type the days from ordering to receiving. It starts at 14.
- Click Next →.
Choose how Tendlio looks #
The third screen, How would you like it to look?, changes how Tendlio looks and how many settings it shows. It doesn’t change any of your numbers.
- Pick a layout:
- App layout (recommended) gives Tendlio its own menu on the left of its pages, in place of the WordPress menu. When you need the WordPress menu, Show WordPress menu at the bottom of Tendlio’s menu brings it back.
- Standard WordPress menu keeps the WordPress menu on the left, with Tendlio’s own sections across the top of its pages.
- The box Highlight the suite’s menu icon in color so it’s easy to find in the sidebar starts ticked. Untick it if you’d rather Tendlio’s icon in the WordPress menu looked like the others.
- Under How much control do you want?, choose Simple (recommended) or Advanced. Advanced shows extra settings on some pages, for fine-tuning how features work.
- Click Analyze my store.
Above Analyze my store, a short note says what Tendlio sends from your store. Its link opens the exact data in a new tab, so you don’t leave the wizard and lose your answers.
Wait for your first analysis #
Tendlio saves your answers and starts reading your orders, products and customers. The screen shows Analyzing your store… with a progress bar. Under it, tips about the tools you can switch on afterwards change every few seconds. How long the analysis takes depends on how many orders and products your store has.
If the analysis is still running after a minute, Continue to dashboard appears. Click it if you’d rather look around in the meantime. The analysis keeps running, and your scores appear on the Dashboard when it finishes, but you don’t get the results screen described under Read your results. Tendlio also skips that screen when your first analysis takes longer than an hour, and shows your scores on the Dashboard.
Read your results #
When the analysis finishes, the page reloads with Your growth map is ready. It shows:
- Your two scores, Inventory and Customers, each with a line about what its grade means. A dash instead of a number means the score can’t be given yet, and the article A score shows “-” instead of a number explains why.
- The first thing to fix. This is the top card from your to-do list, with a button that opens the tool that fixes it. A line under it says how many more opportunities are waiting on your Dashboard. If nothing is urgent, you see Your store looks healthy instead. If your store doesn’t have enough order history to judge, you see Not enough history to judge yet.
- Two switches that start it earning: cart capture, which starts saving abandoned checkouts without emailing anyone, and Bought together, which shows products your customers buy together on your product pages. Each one links to the page where you switch it on, and leaves the list once it’s on.
Click Go to dashboard → to carry on. Under the button, a link opens the Getting started guide, a checklist of your first steps. The link isn’t there once you’ve finished the guide or switched it off.
If the first analysis doesn’t finish #
If the analysis stops before the end, you see The first analysis did not finish instead of your results. Your setup is saved. Click Run the analysis again. If it keeps stopping, System status, under Help, shows what went wrong, and the article The analysis looks stuck or is taking long lists more things to try.
Change your answers later #
You don’t need the wizard to change one answer. Each answer is also a setting on Settings → General:
- Store vertical, under Store, is your store type. A change shows in your numbers after the next analysis.
- Your answer to the cost question (Cost tracking) and your average margin are under Costs & profit.
- Default lead time, under Inventory, is your restock time.
- App layout and Menu icon, under Access & appearance, are your layout and the icon color.
- Advanced mode, under Advanced options & guidance, switches between Simple and Advanced.
To go through the whole wizard again:
- Open Settings → General, and scroll to Setup at the bottom.
- Click Re-run setup wizard, and confirm.
The wizard opens with your current answers, except the cost question, which you answer again. Your scores and past analyses stay, and finishing the wizard runs a new analysis.
What else setup changes #
- Seasonal detection for seasonal stores. If you choose Event-Driven / Seasonal, setup also turns on seasonal detection, so a product that’s waiting for its season isn’t treated as dead stock. The results screen tells you it’s on. When you re-run the wizard, setup turns detection on only if you change your store type to Event-Driven / Seasonal. You can turn it off under Inventory → Seasonal.
- Who gets the weekly summary. Tendlio emails you a summary of your store once a week. Setup sets it to go to the email address of the WordPress user who finished setup, unless an address was already set. The first summary goes out about a week after setup. To send it somewhere else, open Reports → Store summary and change Send to.
Why setup asks these questions #
Your store type #
Stores sell at different rhythms. A customer of a luxury or event shop can go months between orders and still be one of its regulars. If Tendlio judged that shop by the rhythm of a store whose customers buy every few weeks, its regulars would show up as slipping away while they’re buying as often as they always have.
Your restock time #
Tendlio warns you about a best-seller while there’s still time to reorder it. To find the last day you can order in time, it counts your restock time back from the day the product would run out. If the time you enter is shorter than your real one, the warning can come after that day.
Your cost prices #
Profit per product, and the money tied up in stock that won’t sell soon, both depend on what each product cost you. When a cost is missing, Tendlio estimates it from your margin, so a missing cost doesn’t hold back those figures or your Inventory Score. Estimated figures are marked. Your real cost replaces an estimate right away when you add it on Products & insights, by hand or from a CSV file, and at the next analysis when you enter it on the WooCommerce product screen. Tendlio estimates costs even if you answered Yes: when too few of your products turn out to have a cost, it estimates the missing ones from a 50% margin, the figure the wizard starts with, until your own costs cover enough of your catalog.
Additional resources #
- How to set up Tendlio with the Getting started guide: the checklist of first steps.
- How to work through your to-do list: what the cards on your list mean.
- Understanding your scores
- How to give Tendlio your product costs
- How to switch between Simple and Advanced mode
- Your data and privacy: what Tendlio sends from your store.
- The analysis looks stuck or is taking long
Frequently asked questions #
Can I skip the setup wizard? #
No. Tendlio opens it until setup is finished, because your store type and restock time change how your store is judged. It takes three short screens.
Does answering the cost question wrong break my scores? #
No. If you answer Yes and too few products have a cost, Tendlio estimates the missing ones and marks them. You can change the answer under Settings → General → Costs & profit.
Do I lose anything if I run the wizard again? #
No. Your scores and past analyses stay, and the wizard opens with your current answers, except the cost question.