Using Your own Domain for the Cart and Checkout
By default, all stores in DPD come with a cart and checkout set up as a subdomain of dpdcart.com such as our demo store, https://demo.dpdcart.com. You can customize the "demo" portion of this URL to match your store (e.g. bobs-bits.dpdcart.com or funbooks.dpdcart.com) and use it as-is without any other configuration.
If your plan includes the Custom Cart URL feature you can configure your store in DPD to use a custom subdomain of your existing website address. For example, we have configured the DPD demo store above to work at https://store.portallabs.com as a Custom Cart URL.
The Setup Process
Warning: This setup requires you edit DNS settings at your existing website host or domain name registrar where your domain configuration is managed. We have provided links to instructions how to edit DNS settings at the end of this article for many popular services, but you should consult your own service provider's instructions for editing DNS records if you do not know how to do so. Improper DNS setup can break your website's ability to resolve requests and display correctly.
Step 1: Configure DPD
During setup it is useful to have 2 tabs or browser windows open- the DPD admin in one and your domain control panel in the other. You will be copying and pasting between these two windows.
- Log in to your DPD Account and navigate to Settings -> Store Settings in the left menu.
- Under General Settings, enter the Custom Cart URL, including the subdomain and domain, at your website you want to use for the DPD cart but do not save the page yet.
In the example screenshot below we've setup the DPD Demo Store at https://demo.dpdcart.com to use https://store.portallabs.com as a Custom Cart URL.
It is important to use the complete URL and not just the subdomain in this field. The domain used must be a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) that matches the domain you own.
store.portallabs.com works. Just "store" or "store.portallabs" will not.
Step 2: Configure Your Domain
In a second browser tab or window log in to whatever service you use to manage your domain's DNS records. This could be your domain name registrar or your website host depending on where you purchased or manage your domain and is unique to your website.
- Add a CNAME (Alias) record that points the custom cart domain you've entered in DPD (in our example, store.portallabs.com) to proxy.dpdcart.com
- Add a TXT (Text) record that includes the complete dpd-site-verification=... string to verify your ownership of the domain. This verification string is randomly generated, unique to your store, and should never be shared.
- Save and publish your changes to your domain's DNS configuration if needed.
All hosts and registrar control panels will look different, but you should end up with 2 records similar to this:
Step 3: Verify in DPD
- Once you have created your DNS records at your web hosting service or domain name registrar, return to DPD and save your changes made in Step 1.
- DPD will verify the DNS records and if correct your new cart domain will be activated.
Important Notes:
- You do not need to buy a SSL certificate for your Custom Cart URL. DPD will issue and manage the SSL for your Custom Cart URL. Non-secure http:// links are not supported and all requests will automatically redirect to https:// URLs even if you don't have SSL on your main domain.
- Any existing add-to-cart, instant checkout buttons, links to your cart and checkout, or links to your store index/product list using your *.dpdcart.com checkout URL will continue to work, but they will show the old *.dpdcart.com URL in the address bar.
- Once a Custom Cart URL is configured for the store, all new buttons and links generated using the DPD admin for that store will use the new custom cart URL instead of the *.dpdcart.com domain.
- Changing your Custom Cart URL (e.g. changing "store.portallabs.com" to "mystore.portallabs.com") will cause all links and buttons using the old Custom Cart URL to break and they will need to be replaced with the new links/buttons using your new Custom Cart URL.
- Deleting the Custom Cart URL value from the DPD admin store setup page will revert it back to the default behavior of only generating and resolving your *.dpdcart.com domain for links.
Links to Domain Setup Instructions for Popular 3rd Party Services:
If you're unable to find DNS setup instructions for your specific host or registrar by searching their website or Google, please send us a support ticket and we'll do our best to help you find the instructions you need.