A Checklist to Help Launch Your Shopify Store

So how can you properly set up your own Shopify website? This checklist is for a brand new store, from the first login to the moment you take the password off. If you’re moving an existing store from another platform, start with our guide to migrating to Shopify instead, since redirects and data imports come first in that case.

The simple process of setting up your own Shopify store

What’s great about Shopify is that it’s a platform focused on growth and ease of use. It allows you to pretty much ensure that the e-commerce website works exactly as expected, and you don’t have to undergo a lot of steps to make this happen. Follow these steps and you can start customizing your site and generating sales.

Generally, these are the main steps:

• Create your Shopify account. Shopify offers a free trial (currently 3 days free, then $1/month for 3 months) to help you get started and to familiarize yourself with the platform. It’s fast, easy to do and it will take just a few minutes to set it all up.
• Choose a theme. After the initial setup, you can start with one of Shopify’s free themes, like Horizon or Dawn, or purchase one from their Theme Store (you’ll also be able to try the theme before you buy!). Once you have chosen the theme, you can begin customizing your store. We also have a guide to help you choose the theme.
• Customize your store’s look & feel. With your new theme, you’ll be able to apply your brand’s identity by adding a logo, setting up colors, fonts and much more.
• Add your products to the catalog. When you add products, you need to add the product title, product description, but also photos and set up prices. You can set up variants of each product (different sizes, colors, etc.). Double-check your work - the last thing you want is an error in a description, or worse, in a price.
• Add additional pages. Add additional content to your store like an About us page, contact us, FAQs and more. Your theme should already include many of these templates. It’s equally important that you include as much information about your brand and business as displaying the products that you want to sell. This helps establish trust with your customers which is necessary if you want customers to feel safe buying your products.
• Set up the payment processor. You can use Shopify Payments or a third-party provider, depending on your needs and your country.
• Connect your domain. Once you’re ready to launch, all that’s left is to connect your domain name (the website address). Shopify makes it easy whether you already have a domain name or if you need to purchase one.

This is a basic overview of what’s needed to be done. Below is the longer checklist, with the actual settings to check in your Shopify admin.

Your store launch checklist:

1. Insert the desired sales channels

When you create a Shopify ecommerce website, it’s important to add the right sales channels. Shopify has its own channels for Facebook & Instagram, Google & YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Target Plus connect through Shopify’s free Marketplace Connect app, and Etsy through 3^rd party apps. Each channel is another place people can find and buy your products, but each one is also another product feed to keep in sync, so start with the ones your customers actually use.

One thing to know before launch: the Google & YouTube channel has its own requirements. Your refund policy and terms of service need to be set up and linked in your footer, at least one contact method (phone, email, address or contact form) has to be visible on the store, you need a shipping zone for the country you’re targeting, and your domain has to be verified and claimed in Google Merchant Center. Sorting those out early saves you a rejected product feed later.

2. Choose your payment processor

Payment providers are set up in Settings > Payments. Shopify has its own, Shopify Payments, which is available in 41 countries, and you can choose from over 100 other providers like PayPal, Stripe and Authorize.net. You can also turn on express options like Shop Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay.

The math matters here. If you use a provider other than Shopify Payments, Shopify adds a third-party transaction fee on top of what that provider charges: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced, according to Shopify’s pricing page. PayPal doesn’t trigger that fee as long as Shopify Payments is your main provider. So unless Shopify Payments isn’t available for your country or business type, it’s usually the cheaper option.

3. Choose your theme, customize your website and prepare pages

You could start with a free Shopify theme like Horizon or Dawn, or purchase one from their Theme Store. You also want to figure out a style and stick to it, since it will help your branding efforts. We also have a guide to help you choose the theme. Once you have chosen the theme, you can begin customizing your store.

Also, the more information you include about your brand and your products, the easier it is for your customers to make a decision without second-guessing your legitimacy. You want the visitors to your site to easily find the information that they’re looking for in order to make a purchase.

Ideally, and at a minimum, your store should have pages like an FAQ page, about us/our story, and contact us but there’s so much more you can add like a blog which will add so much value to your store.

And if you’re looking for a specific way to display certain content on any given page and your theme doesn’t provide a way to do so, check out abrasections.com. They offer a large variety of pre-built sections that you can easily install on your own and expand your theme’s capabilities.

Add a website section or a content block that perfectly fits your store and gives you the flexibility to customize it without hiring a developer to do it for you.

Visit abrasections.com

Aside from content pages, make sure you add functionality like displaying related products on a product page, product filters on collection pages, and product reviews, just to name a few. Filters are set up in Shopify’s free Search & Discovery app (Apps > Search & Discovery > Filters), and your theme has to support them for customers to see them. Adding multiple product categories is also important. The more detailed your collections are, the more easily your visitors can find what they’re looking for, and these collections may even give them ideas on what to buy. We go deeper on this in how to create a high performing category page.

4. Add your store policies

You also need pages explaining your store’s return policy, shipping policy, privacy policy and terms of service. These live in Settings > Policies. Shopify can generate automated policies for returns, terms of service, shipping and contact information (turn on Use automated policy for each), and the privacy policy is handled through its automated privacy settings. Read whatever gets generated and make sure it matches how you actually operate, like your real return window and who pays return shipping. Then add the policies to your footer menu so customers, and Google’s product feed review, can find them.

5. Test your checkout flow system

Since your Shopify website is here to make you money, focusing on payments is extremely important. Add all the payment methods you want and make sure they all work. Check that shoppers can easily add to and edit their cart, that your discount codes work as expected, and that tax and shipping come out right at checkout for a few different addresses. Also look through Settings > Checkout, where you choose things like how customers are asked for their contact info and how marketing sign-up works.

With Shopify Payments you can place test orders without charging your own card. Go to Settings > Payments, click Manage in the Shopify Payments section, select Enable test mode and save. Then check out with a test card like 4242424242424242 (Visa), any future expiry date and any 3-digit code. Two things to watch: customers can’t place real orders while test mode is on, so turn it off before launch, and don’t fulfill test orders, because shipping labels you buy for them are real charges. If you use a different provider, you can place a real order and refund it right away instead.

6. Integrate email automations

You want to stay in touch with your customers. Ideally, you want to start using an email marketing app such as Klaviyo, Mailchimp or even Shopify Email. They can help you set up and send emails like abandoned cart notifications, welcome series, product sales or notify of new products added to your catalog. They keep your brand and your products top-of-mind with your customers.

7. Ensure that the email notifications are working

Be sure to test all of the email forms you have on your site as well as all of the notifications and confirmations sent from your store. Usually, you’d have a form on the contact page, a newsletter signup form and of course email confirmations are sent after making a purchase, including notifications regarding shipping status. Your store’s templates are in Settings > Notifications.

One step a lot of new stores miss is authenticating the sender email. In Settings > Notifications, the Sender email section has an option to authenticate your domain, which means adding the CNAME records Shopify shows you, plus a DMARC record (a TXT record named _dmarc), at your domain provider. If you skip it, Shopify sends your order emails from a shopifyemail.com address instead of your branded one, since Gmail and Yahoo require authentication for branded senders. It can take up to 48 hours for the records to verify, so do this well before launch day.

8. Set up shipping options and rates

Shipping is set up in Settings > Shipping and delivery. Rates are organized into shipping profiles (groups of products, useful for oversized items or products that ship from different locations) and shipping zones (where you ship to). In the US, Shopify Shipping lets you buy discounted labels from USPS, UPS, DHL Express and FedEx. You can also add multiple warehouse locations and track inventory, and there are many apps that connect your store to 3^rd party shipping and fulfillment services.

The common mistake: a customer whose address isn’t in any shipping zone gets a message that no shipping rate is available for their region and can’t check out. Before launch, run a test checkout to every country or region you plan to sell to, and check that products with their own shipping profile, like a heavy item, actually have rates for every zone.

9. Assess your content and perform an audit

Do a final read-through of everything for grammar, spelling and other mistakes. Another thing to do here is to check and see if there are broken links (links that lead to incorrect pages or pages that aren’t available or don’t exist) on your website and within your content.

10. Provide an easy way for people to contact you

A contact page makes it simple for customers to get in touch. You can also add a chat system, where a bot answers the common questions and hands the rest to a real person. Live chat is appealing for customers, since they know they can get quick support. Shopify’s free Shopify Inbox app gives you live chat plus automated answers to common questions, and it’s plenty for most stores in the beginning.

But aside from that, make sure you have a contact page with a form and your address and phone number so people can reach out if needed.

11. Start using an analytics tool

An analytics tool shows you where visitors are coming from, which pages they are visiting, how long they are there and much more. Shopify has its own analytics tool which provides a lot of useful information regarding your store, but you should also use the Google Search Console and Google Analytics. Shopify gives you an easy way to connect your site with your Google Analytics account. After you set up a Google Analytics 4 property, install the Google & YouTube channel in Shopify and connect your account there. Note that Google Analytics can’t track anything while your store is still password protected, so don’t panic if you see zero data before launch. If an old Google Analytics snippet was pasted into your theme code, remove it so visits aren’t counted twice.

12. Prioritize your SEO (search engine optimization)

SEO is important if you want your website to be easily found in search. A good idea is to perform keyword research and see what keywords are suitable for your website. Shopify automatically creates a sitemap at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml, but you need to submit it to Google in Search Console. Google can’t read the sitemap while your store is password protected, and Shopify says to take the password off before verifying your domain in Search Console, so this is a launch day task. You should also make sure your theme includes schema markup so that Google and other search engines can index your site most efficiently.

When it comes to keyword optimization, you want to add the keywords in image file names, meta titles like page title and description, product and category description, add “ALT tags” to all of your images, as well as many other similar places. Shopify makes it easy to add most of these elements directly in the site admin. Read more about SEO guidelines here.

Another recommendation is to optimize the site speed. Your site will load fast and not frustrate your users, as most people don’t wait more than a few seconds for a page to load.

13. Maintain a blog

Another thing you can focus on is to create great content. The idea here is to have a blog section for your Shopify website. Posting useful content regularly can bring in traffic from Google and other search engines.

Good posts also earn backlinks. Don’t over-optimize for search engines though. The content still needs to sound natural and actually help the people reading it.

14. Optimize your images

Ideally, you want to reduce the size of your images to improve site speed, and rely on JPEG or WEBP file formats for most images, with PNG being a great format for icons and graphics or any image that needs a transparent background. In addition, write alt text that describes each image, using your keywords where they fit naturally, which also helps your images show up in image search.

You can read more about how to optimize your images here.

15. Set up taxes for your area

You should check that the tax settings are appropriate for the products that you’re selling. Shopify makes it easy to charge sales tax, but it only charges tax where you tell it to. In the US, go to Settings > Taxes and duties, select United States, click Add new state for each state where you’re registered, enter your sales tax ID and click Collect taxes.

Two things people get wrong. First, Shopify calculates and charges the tax, but it doesn’t file or pay it to the state for you unless you use Shopify Tax with automated filing turned on. Second, every state has its own rules about when you owe sales tax, so work out where you’re liable before you set anything up. Shopify itself recommends talking to a tax professional, and that’s good advice here.

16. Establish a marketing plan

You want to ensure that you get your own pre-launch marketing plan in order. This means you need to figure out how much you want to spend on ads, where you will place ads, what other types of marketing you want to do and so on. Have your launch emails, social posts and any ads ready to go before you take the password off.

17. Install a minimum number of apps

You want to avoid installing too many apps and only install essential ones. Browse the Shopify App Store, create a list with the apps that will bring value to your website and then narrow them down to just a few.

Too many apps add clutter and can slow your site down, sometimes considerably. Plus, most apps have a monthly cost and you don’t want to get overwhelmed with a high monthly bill, especially in the beginning. Before installing an app, check whether your theme or a free Shopify app (Search & Discovery, Shopify Inbox, Shopify Email) already does the job.

18. Add billing info

Before your free trial ends, make sure you’ve entered your billing information so Shopify can begin charging you and your store keeps running.

19. Add a custom domain

A custom domain boosts brand recognition and makes your store look legitimate. Pick a brand name that has an available domain and isn’t trademarked, and take your time with it, because changing it later is a lot of work. You can also use a .shop or .store top level domain (among many others), not just .com.

You can buy a domain through Shopify or connect one you already own in Settings > Domains > Connect existing domain. For a domain from another provider, Shopify’s instructions are to point the A record to 23.227.38.65, the AAAA record to 2620:0127:f00f:5::, and a www CNAME record to shops.myshopify.com, and to delete any other A or AAAA records. It can take up to 48 hours to go fully live. Once it’s connected, make it your primary domain (click the domain, then Change next to Type and choose Primary domain) so your myshopify.com address redirects to it.

20. Check your Markets settings

Markets control how customers in different places experience your store, like currency, language, domain and shipping options. They’re managed on the Markets page in your admin. Even if you’re only selling in one country, open it before launch and confirm which countries are active. Customers in a country that isn’t in an active market can’t place orders, even if you set up a shipping zone for them. If you do sell internationally, check that prices display in the currencies you expect and that your shipping zones line up with your markets.

21. Remove the password and launch

New Shopify stores are private (password protected) until you open them up. When everything above is done, go to Online Store in your admin, click the Private label, select Public and click Launch store. If you’re still on a trial or haven’t added a business address, Shopify will ask you to finish that first.

Right after launch:

• Make sure Shopify Payments test mode is off, then place one real order and refund it.
• Verify your domain in Google Search Console and submit your sitemap.
• Check that Google Analytics is now receiving data.
• Open the store on your phone, logged out, and go through it like a customer would.

Conclusion

Go through this checklist and you’ll catch most problems before your customers do. Shopify’s admin changes often, so if a setting isn’t exactly where we say it is, search for it in the admin search bar.

And if you need help, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us - we’ll be happy to help.