Duplicate a StoreFront

Duplicating a StoreFront gives you a second store that starts as a copy of the first. Use it to launch a campaign site, a seasonal store, or a product-line site without rebuilding from scratch: duplicate the StoreFront closest to what you want, then change what is different.

A duplicate copies the whole StoreFront: pages, settings, formatting, content, and items. That is more than copying a theme, which carries only the look and feel.

note

Navigate: Main Menu → StoreFronts → [select the StoreFront to copy] → General

There are two ways to copy a StoreFront:

• The Duplicate StoreFront button copies the StoreFront to your current account or to a different account.
• A sample file archive packages a theme together with the site content, so you can move both between hosts.

Duplicate with the Duplicate StoreFront button

1. Select the StoreFront you want to copy. On its General tab, click Duplicate StoreFront.

   

2. In the Duplicate StoreFront dialog, choose where the copy goes:

   • Duplicate to Current Account copies the StoreFront within the account you are signed in to.

     

   • Duplicate to Different Account copies it into another UltraCart account. Enter that account's Merchant ID, Username, and Password. All three are required, and the user needs permission to manage StoreFronts in that account.

     

   • If you have linked accounts, you can also duplicate to one of them.

3. Click Duplicate. To back out, click Cancel: nothing is copied.

A Duplicating StoreFront progress message appears while the job runs. A small StoreFront finishes in under a minute, and a large one takes longer. There is no completion message: the message closes and you stay on the StoreFront you copied. Reload the StoreFronts page and the copy appears in the StoreFront dropdown.

The copy gets an automatically assigned host in the form merchantid-#.ultracartstore.com, where # is a sequence number. The copy lands on the ultracartstore.com host even when the original is on the ultracartdev.com host.

What the duplicate includes

The dialog says the operation copies the whole StoreFront and its associated content: pages, settings, formatting, content, and items. A copy in the same account matches its source on:

• Themes: every theme in the source is copied, including the inactive ones, and the active theme stays active.
• Pages: the same set of pages at the same paths.
• Site attributes and redirect rules: identical.
• Lock state: if the source is locked, the copy is locked too, so it is not public until you unlock it.

After the copy, review the new StoreFront before you point shoppers at it:

• Change the Home page content and the title so it does not read as the original.
• Point the copy at its own domain if it needs one. See Hosts and aliases.
• Confirm which items the copy should offer.

Remove a duplicate you no longer need

You cannot delete a StoreFront, so a duplicate you no longer want stays in your account. Lock it instead, as described in Lock a StoreFront instead of deleting it.

Copy a StoreFront with a sample file archive

A sample file archive bundles a theme with the content of the StoreFront it came from. Use it when you are moving a theme and its content together between the hosts of one account, for example building on merchantid.ultracartdev.com and pushing to merchantid.ultracartstore.com. To move a StoreFront to a different account this way, see Moving a StoreFront from one merchant to another.

warning

This route depends on the Sample Sites section at the bottom of the theme's page. The section does not appear once you change your host away from the default merchantid.ultracartstore.com or merchantid.ultracartdev.com. In that case you can copy only the theme and reconfigure the rest by hand.

1. Create the archive in the source StoreFront

Do this before you copy the theme. The archive is called a sample file, but it holds the entire site.

1. Open the source StoreFront and go to Themes, then open the active theme.

2. Scroll to the very bottom, past the version list, to Theme Developers, then Sample Sites.

   

3. Click Create a Sample File Archive.

4. When the browser asks for a tag name, enter one and confirm. The prompt reads Please enter a tag name for this sample site. Letters and numbers only, please. and suggests default. Add a date, such as mystore20261013, so you can tell archives apart later. Stick to letters and numbers, as the prompt asks.

5. When the archive appears in the list, stop. Do not click Apply in the source StoreFront: it would import the archive over the site you are copying from.

Archives are zip files stored in a sample_sites folder under the theme's directory, and they travel with the theme when you copy it.

2. Copy the theme to the destination

Copy the theme to the destination StoreFront as described in Copy a theme to another StoreFront. Choose the destination StoreFront, name the theme, and confirm.

3. Apply the archive in the destination

1. In the destination StoreFront, activate the copied theme.

2. Scroll to Sample Sites at the bottom of that theme and click Apply next to the archive you created.

3. In the Site Import Settings dialog, check what you want to bring across. All eight boxes start unchecked:

   • Import Pages
   • Import File System
   • Import Attributes
   • Import Menus
   • Import Url Mappings
   • Import Advanced Settings
   • Import Sample Items
   • Import Blog Posts

   

4. Click Import Sample Site. To back out, click Cancel: nothing is imported.

danger

The import replaces what the boxes you check cover in the destination StoreFront. To copy the whole site, check every box. Check only the ones you want to overwrite if the destination already has content you need to keep.

The Trial theme

:::note Legacy theme This theme predates the Visual Builder and is available only to merchants who still have a legacy StoreFront active. New StoreFronts should use a Visual Builder theme. See Picking a Visual Builder Capable Theme. :::

The Trial theme requires the sample file installation step, and that step overwrites the existing StoreFront configuration. Install it into a new StoreFront host unless you intend to overwrite what is already there.

Next steps

• Copy a theme when you want the look and feel alone.
• Hosts and aliases to set the web address of the StoreFront you copied.