Shopify Guide - Shopify Launch Checklist
Getting set up on Shopify properly can be a daunting task, but with our experience launching over 200+ Shopify stores, we have compiled this detailed guide to launching your store on Shopify covering all of the key tasks you need to do before you start selling online.
Please be aware, we predominantly work with New Zealand stores, so there may be important tasks for your specific location that are not covered here such as tax, privacy, or disclosure requirements.
The Basics
Create your Shopify account
You can't start your Shopify store until you have a Shopify account! Shopify usually also has some form of free trial or promotion to help you save cost when starting out. Go with the "Basic" plan until you need the features from the more expensive plans.
Get StartedRegister your domain
Your domain determines your website URL, this can be registered on Shopify or through an alternative domain registrar such as Crazy Domains or GoDaddy. Avoid complicated or lengthy domain names.
Set up a mailbox using your custom domain
Using a gmail address for your official customer support email looks less trustworthy to customers. Instead, use Google Workspace or another mail hosting solution to set up an email inbox that uses your own domain.
Design your logo and branding
A good logo and brand will make the shopping experience more memorable for your customers. Your branding is also used across a lot of other important channels including social media, email marketing, and packaging. There are free options available if you want to do this yourself, such as Canva and Hatchful, but you may want to consider engaging a professional for this if you have the budget.
Secure your account with 2FA
Don't let your store get hijacked, two factor authentication protects your store by requiring both a password and a second layer of authentication to access your account. Consider doing this for other critical accounts as well, such as your mailbox and domain registrar.
Read Shopify's GuideSet up social media channels
Having an active social media profile helps build trust with prospective customers that you are a real store. Most stores have a Facebook and Instagram, but you could also consider TikTok, Pinterest, or YouTube if it's a good fit for your business. Post at least once weekly on each social media channel to show you are active.
Theme Setup
Pick the right theme
Make sure that you pick a Shopify theme that will support your unique business model and goals. When deciding on a theme, look at the features available, other stores that use the theme, and reviews from other store owners.
Add a favicon
A favicon, also known as a shortcut or website icon, is what people see in the website tab and search results to identify your website. Usually, this is a square version of your logo.
Add your homepage metadata
Your homepage metadata is used to show your website in search results. To set that up, from the Shopify admin go to Sales Channels → Online Store → Preferences. Your homepage title and description should reflect the focus of your store and what you sell.
Set up your header and footer menu
Your header and footer menus are used by customers to navigate through your website. Common links to include are links to collections, links to customer support and policy pages, a link to your informational pages, a link to customer reviews or other social proof, and and a link to your contact page.
Show accepted payment methods in the website footer
Customers check the website footer to see if you accept the payment method they want to use, and showing your payment methods available helps build trust with customers. Most Shopify themes let you enable this in the theme settings under "Footer" → "Payment Icons".
Show your contact details in the website footer
Displaying contact details in your website footer is crucial and often over-looked. It helps customers reach you easier, shows customers that you are a real business, helps your local SEO, and is required by Google if you want to run Google Ads. An email address, phone number, and physical address is ideal; include store hours if you have a physical store.
Add your social media links
As discussed in an earlier recommendation, showing customers you have active social media accounts builds trust that you are an authentic store, and linking to your social media can help drive engagement.
Customise your checkout
Make your store look more professional by adding your logo, brand colours, and font to the checkout. You can also install apps that customise the checkout further, such as adding cross-sells or post-purchase surveys. To customise this, go to Settings → Checkout → Customise Checkout.
Customise your homepage
Your homepage is often the first impression you will make on customers, and is absolutely crucial to get right. Read my detailed guide to learn more about how to customise your homepage.
Customise your product pages
Customise your product pages to include important information about your products, such as a size guide, specifications, or nutrition. Make sure the features of the product, and why customers should buy it from you, are clear.
Customise your collection pages & filters
If you are selling a lot of different products, set up product filters to make it easier for customers to find the right product for them, such as filtering by brand, product type, availability, or price.
Make your key selling points obvious
Your key selling points should be clearly seen on every page. For most stores, these may be your generous returns policy, free shipping offer, great customer service, loyalty program, quality of your products, or payment methods you support. Think about what you can provide to customer's shopping experience that makes you different from similar stores.
Add an about page
An about page will make your store more authentic and increase trust with customers. On the about page, you can talk about points such as your team, how you started your store, or your mission and values.
Add a contact form page
Many customers will look for a contact form to get in touch about returns, product questions, or other customer support enquiries. Create a contact form page, add your contact details to it, and link it in your main menu and/or footer.
Add a FAQ page
A page for frequently asked questions will reduce the amount of repeated questions and enquiries you get from customers. Most Shopify themes now come with a template for FAQ pages that you can use, or you can use a Shopify app.
Add a blog
Blogs can be great for increasing your SEO, engaging with your customers, and building up a mailing list; but only if you have the time to post at least once a month.
Customise your cart page
Your cart page should upsell or cross-sell some recommended products, and restate your key selling point. Make sure order notes are also enabled to collect customer instructions for delivery.
Customise your 404 page
Hopefully most people won't be visiting your 404 page, as customers only see it when they have a visited a broken link, but you should at least show some recommended products on this page and make sure the language and branding is consistent with the rest of your website.
Customise your search page
Most shopify themes allow you to customise the filtering options for searches, or you can use a Shopify app for more advanced customisation options.
Enable quick view
Quick view is where customers can view the product details in a popup and purchase the product without navigating to a different page. Most Shopify themes provide this as an option that can be enabled.
Show that you accept pickups (if applicable)
If you accept pickups, add your pickup information to the product pages and shipping policy page. Most Shopify themes will have a prebuilt block you can add to product pages which will automatically show the pickup availability, address, and processing times.
Enable a cart drawer or dropdown
Enabling a cart drawer or dropdown will let customers see the contents of their cart without navigating away from their current page, which can increase average order value and conversion rate.
Show navigation breadcrumbs
Navigation breadcrumbs help customers navigate through your website, such as going from a product page to the overarching product category. Most Shopify themes will have a setting to enable this.
Enable dynamic checkout buttons
Dynamic checkout buttons let customers skip the cart and go straight to the checkout from the product page, which helps increase conversion rate.
Use high quality images, avoid stock images
Using blurry, low quality, or obvious stock images on your website will make it seem less authentic and trustworthy. Good photography is one of the most important aspects of the shopping experience, so consider engaging a local photography to take photos for your website.
Show social proof
Another important factor of turning website visitors into paying customers is social proof. This can be in the form of product reviews, written testimonials, video testimonials, user generated content, awards you won, or good press. You should have at least one section featuring social proof on every page, and a standalone page linked in the main menu that aggregates all of your social proof.
Show your shipping, returns, and privacy policy
Your shipping, returns, and privacy policy should be featured in either your main menu and/or footer menu. This is required by some advertising platforms, and will also make it easier for customers to find.
Products & Categories
Set up your product collections
Collections help organise your products for customers. Stores commonly will group products based on their brand, product type, season, or use-case. You should also consider having a sale collection for when you run promotions, and a new arrivals collection if your stock is seasonal/short-lived. Link to your most important collections in your main menu.
Use high quality product photos
High quality product photos are one of the most important factors in conversion rate for product pages. If you don't have good product photos available, consider investing in a professional product photographer, or a lightbox to take good quality photos yourself.
Write a description for every product and collection page
A detailed and well-written description will improve the SEO and conversion rate for the products. Shopify offers native A.I copywriting to help you get started, but I recommend always rewriting what you get out of A.I in your own words to keep your tone consistent and avoid SEO penalties.
Add product vendor, type, and unit cost
Even if you do not intend to use them straight away, adding the correct vendor, product type, and unit cost for all of your products from the beginning will simplify reporting and product segementation in the future.
Set up gift cards
If you plan to offer gift cards, enable them in Shopify under Products → Gift Cards. Make sure to add a custom gift card image and description.
Apps & Integrations
Add a social feed app
Displaying a social feed on your home page or social pages can be a good way to feature user generated content and improve the authenticity of your store. The app I always use is InstaFeed
Automatically hide out of stock products
If your store has seasonal products or product drops, such as a clothing store, consider installing a Shopify app that will either automatically hide out of stock products or push them to the bottom of collection pages. For this, I use Knockout.
Use a back in stock app
If instead your products are evergreen, meaning that you will restock them often, consider installing a Shopify app that will let customers enter their email address to be notified when the product is back in stock. For this, I use Back in Stock.
Add a wishlist app
Wishlist apps improve customer retention, and provide you with a valuable touchpoint for marketing. I recommend using Wishlist Plus.
Add an app for product upsells and cross-sells
Upsells and cross-sells can be used to increase your average order value. There are a lot of different apps available depending on where you want to show your upsell, but I personally use Frequently Bought Together.
Add an app for post-purchase feedback
Collecting feedback from customers is invaluable to know where you can improve and what to work on next. I use Zigpoll because it has a generous free plan.
Connect an email marketing app
Email marketing is a crucial part of almost every store's marketing strategy. Shopify has it's own email marketing app, Shopify Email, but I recommend using Klaviyo instead because it has a lot of useful features for email automations and smart sending.
Add an app to promote email signups
Building an email marketing list can be difficult at first. You can increase your signups by offering a small incentive for subscribing, such as 10% off their first order, and by installing a Shopify app that will show a subscriber popup such as Klaviyo or Shopify Forms.
Consider installing a product filter and searching app
Out of the box, Shopify's built in searching and collection filtering options are fine for most stores, but some industries such as clothing use Shopify apps such as this app to get better control over customising their filtering and search functionality.
Connect Google's suite of apps
Connect Google Analytics, Google Merchants, Google Ads, and Google Search Console. Most of these can be automatically set up and connected by using the Google app.
Connect Facebook & Instagram
Like Google, this can be easily connected by using the official app. Connecting Facebook & Instagram will allow you to advertise and display your products on these social channels.
Connect other social media platforms
If you are active or planning to advertise on other social media platforms, such as Snapchat, Pinterest, or TikTok, search for and install the official apps to connect them to your store.
Install Shopify Inbox
Shopify Inbox is a free messaging tool by Shopify that allows customers to talk to you through a live chat interface, which you can respond to from the Shopify admin or the Shopify mobile app on your phone.
Add the Shop channel
The Shop app is a mobile app marketplace set up by Shopify. Adding the Shop channel is easy, and is becoming increasingly popular with customers.
Install the Shop appInstall a fulfillment app
Most New Zealand stores use a fulfillment app such as GoSweetSpot or StarShipIt to simplify their fulfillment. These fulfillment apps typically can't be installed from the Shopify app store directly, but after signing up with a fulfillment provider they will give you instructions to install their app onto your Shopify store.
Install an app for rural shipping rates (if applicable)
If you charge more for rural shipping, I recommend installing an app that makes sure that rural shoppers only see the rural shipping rate to select at checkout. For this, I use the Postcode Shipping app.
Add your other sales channels (if applicable)
If you plan to sell on other marketplaces, such as Amazon, TradeMe, or The Market, download their official Shopify apps to automatically sync your products from your Shopify store into these marketplaces.
Store Settings
Add your branding
From the Shopify admin, go to Settings → Brand → Fill out all of the fields on this page. These assets are used to apply your brand logo and colours across your store and other channels.
Set up your shipping rates
To set your shipping rates, go to Settings → Shipping and delivery → General shipping rates. Make sure to delete the global shipping rate if you do not want to accept international orders.
Set up for rural shipping
If you want to charge rural customers in New Zealand more, the best way to guarantee they select the correct shipping rate at checkout is with an app. We recommend "KiwiSprout Rural Shipping" for this.
Learn moreCollect tax
To set up your tax collection, go to Settings → Tax and duties → Select New Zealand from the list (assuming you are a New Zealand business) → Press "Collect GST" → Enter your GST number. Make sure "Include tax in prices" and "Charge tax on shipping rates" are ticked.
Add your IRD number (NZ only)
Go to Settings → Billing → Tax Registration → Tick "Yes, I'm GST registered" → enter your IRD number.
Set your inventory location
Your inventory location will be shown for pickup orders and calculating delivery rates if applicable. To set your inventory location, go to Settings → Location → Select the default location from the list → Update the address.
Enable pickup and local delivery
If you want to accept pick up or local delivery orders, go to Settings → Shipping and Delivery → click a location under local delivery or pickup and enable.
Review your store details
Go to Settings, then Store Details, and make sure the following is correct: Your store name, your store phone, your store email, your legal business name, your business address, your currency, your time zone, and your metric system.
Add Shopify Payments
Shopify Payments is Shopify's card processor for accepting Visa and Mastercard. Other card payment gateways such as WindCave can also be installed if desired instead. Go to Settings → Payments → Set up Shopify Payments → fill out the form to activate Shopify Payments.
Accept Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Shop Pay
Once you have set up Shopify Payments, make sure you have Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Shop Pay enabled. These payment methods are popular with customers that like to use the express checkout.
Add your other payment methods
If you need to add other payment methods, such as Afterpay, Laybuy, or Klarna, go to Settings → Payment Methods → Additional payment methods → add them from here. Instructions are also usually on the payment gateway's website as well.
Enable customer accounts
Enabling customer accounts increases customer retention and provides more opportunities for customer engagement. To enable this, go to Settings → Customer accounts → enable customer accounts.
Edit your email templates
Make your store's email communications more professional by adding your logo and brand colours. To do this, go to Settings → Notifications → Customise email templates → Add your logo and accent colour.
Add your store policies
Adding your policy pages is important to communicate with customers how you will handle shipping, returns, and their privacy. It's also required for many advertising platforms, and linking to these in the website header or footer makes your store more trustworthy. Go to Settings then Policies to add your policies, you can start with Shopify's templates, but make sure to replace any placeholder text from the templates.
Invite your team
If you need to give other people access to your store, to add them go to Settings → Users and permissions → Add staff. Each person that logs into your Shopify admin should do so with their own account (do not account share, it is a security risk), and get every staff member to use 2FA.
Enable email notifications
To be notified when you receive an order, go to Settings → Notifications → then under "Staff order notifications" press "Add recipient" to add a new email.
Add your domain
If you didn't purchase your domain from Shopify, you will need to update some DNS records to point your domain to your Shopify website.
Read Shopify's GuideVerify your sending email
This is similar to the previous recommendation, but this authenticates the email address you use to send email to customers through Shopify. This is important to do so that emails are less likely to end up in your customer's spam folder, and so that you can send emails using your own domain. To set that up, go to Settings → Notifications → under "Sender email" click on "authenticate your domain". We've also included our DMARC guide below.
Read Our GuideEnable Shopify Markets (as required)
If you are selling in multiple countries, go to Settings → Markets → press "Add market" to add your new country. If you're enabling Shopify Markets, also install the Geolocation app to automatically redirect customers to the right version of your website, and enable the currency converter on your Shopify theme.
Enable Shopify Privacy & Compliance (as required)
If you are selling in Europe or USA, install Shopify's Privacy & Compliance app.
Install appLaunch Strategy
Test purchasing on your store
Starting from your website homepage, run through the entire buying experience as a customer and make sure that it all works as you expect, including that: the correct products are in stock, the products are priced correctly, you can add to the cart, your shipping rates are correct, and your payment methods are correct.
Check your website links
Click every link on every page of your website, and make sure that they all navigate to the right page. There are online tools that can do this automatically for you, but personally I think it's best for your launch to do this manually so you can also make sure every link goes to where you expect it to.
Check your grammar and replace placeholder content
Poor spelling or grammar can give a poor impression to customers, as it makes your site look less trustworthy. Similarly, placeholder images or text also make your website look unfinished, which will make customers concerned about purchasing anything off the store.
Remove your storefront password
Once the storefront password is removed, anyone will be able to visit your website by going to it's URL. To remove the storefront password, go to Online Store → Preferences → Untick "Restrict access to visitors with the password". Once this is done, your website is officially live, congratulations!
Announce your launch on all channels
Once your store is live, make sure that you announce that to your customers on every platform that you engage with them on, including your newsletter, social media accounts, and anywhere/anyone else you can share it to.
Consider running a launch promotion
A launch promotion is a great way to get those first few sales rolling. A common approach to this is offering between 10% to 30% off your customer's first order, but requiring them to sign up to your newsletter to get this discount, so that you can start building up your mailing list. Run this promotion for as long as you see fit, and make sure you communicate your promotion through your social media, advertising, and website.
Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console
Submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console helps expedite your website appearing in Google. To do this, log into Google Search Console, click on "Sitemaps", then "Add Sitemap", and paste in your URL followed by "/sitemap.xml", e.g. "https://example.com/sitemap.xml".
Read my Shopify Success checklist
My Shopify Launch Checklist covered everything you need to do to launch your Shopify store, but once you are up and running there are other activities you should consider doing to help grow sales. This free checklist covers everything I have learnt over 10 years of helping Shopify stores ranging from $0 to $50M+ in sales improve their shopping experience and grow their conversions.
Read the Shopify Success ChecklistGot questions for us?
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