About This Site and Its Author, Peter Benes

This site is a standalone, vendor-neutral reference for single-store retailers in Canada and the US who sell at a counter and online. It is written by Peter Benes, a digital marketing consultant based in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

Who writes it

I run Google Ads, Merchant Center, Search Console and Shopify for single-store retailers across Canada and the United States. Most of the stores I work with have one location, one register, an owner who does the marketing, and no developer on call. I am a Shopify Partner, and my background is in retail marketing and search for independent shops with a front door.

Alongside client work I run kPixies, Attention Optimization and Atomic Wax.

Why this site exists

The same questions come up in almost every store I work with. Why did pickup disappear from checkout? Why does the web count not match the shelf? Can a refund stay in the store as credit? What return on ad spend do we actually need? The answers exist, but they are spread across vendor help centres, forum threads and pages that went out of date years ago.

This site puts those answers in one place, written for the person standing behind the counter.

How pages are written

• Answer first. Each guide answers the question in its first paragraph. Then it gives exact setting names and menu paths, and ends with a short checklist.
• Sources on every page. Every claim about a product, setting or policy comes from the vendor’s or government’s own page. That page is read on the day the guide is updated and listed as a source.
• Practice is marked as practice. “In our accounts” or “in practice” marks experience from real stores, not a vendor claim.
• Both sides of the border. Pages note CAD and USD, GST/HST and US sales tax, and cross-border rules where they change the answer.
• Vendor neutral. When Shopify’s own route is wrong for a single store, the page says so. When a third-party tool is the better fit, the page says that too, by type of tool.

What this site is

• A standalone reference, owned and written independently.
• Free to read, with no sponsors and no affiliate links.
• Sourced on every page, and dated so you know when it was last checked.

What this site is not

• It is not affiliated with Shopify, Google, Lightspeed, Square or any other platform, carrier or software vendor.
• It is not affiliated with any retail community, coaching program, membership or training course.
• It is not legal, tax or accounting advice. Where a decision turns on law or tax, the page says to check with your accountant or lawyer.

Corrections

Vendors change their software every week, which is why the Change Ledger exists. If a menu path no longer matches what you see, check the update date at the top of the page. It shows when the page was last checked against vendor documentation.