Shopify General Checklist - Web Designer Portfolio

Complete Shopify launch checklist: Design Your Store Following these List

Starting a Shopify store? Use this general checklist for starting a new Shopify store to ensure a smooth and successful launch. This step-by-step guide walks you through everything—from creating your store and adding products to choosing a theme and setting up payment gateways. It also covers essential tips on launching and promoting your store effectively. Whether you’re new to eCommerce or switching platforms, this checklist is your go-to resource. We recommend downloading or printing it for easy reference throughout the setup process. Start strong and build your Shopify store the right way!

Set up your online store

How to Set Up Your Shopify Store for Success

Before adding products, it’s essential to set up your online Shopify store properly. Start by entering key information about your business, including your store name, address, and contact details. Establish clear standards for product listings—such as pricing, descriptions, and images—and define your customer transaction policies. Next, configure your custom domain to ensure your store is easy to find online and looks professional. A well-structured setup builds trust, improves SEO, and creates a seamless shopping experience. Taking time to properly set up your Shopify store lays the foundation for long-term success.

Log in to your store

Logging in to your Shopify account

You can access your Shopify account securely across many devices, as well as activate additional security measures to help protect your store.

Password protect your store

Password page

You can restrict visitor access to your online store by adding a password. Your password page is the landing page where you allow customers to enter your store with the password that you provide.

When your password page is active, search engines find and display only the password page of your online store. Other pages, such as product pages, are hidden and aren’t displayed in search results.

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Add your online store password
Remove your online store password
Password page sections
Edit your password page settings
Hide the footer on your password page
Edit the theme code for your password page

Name your store and set your legal business name

Set or change your store name and contact information

Your store name is the name that’s displayed on every page of your website. By default, your store name will be “My Store”. To open a Shopify account, you must provide your full legal name, your business address, an active phone number and a valid email address. You might be required to provide further information on request. This information is used to verify your identity when registering for a Shopify account and is not shared with your customers. You might be required to provide further information. Learn more about Shopify’s Terms of Service.

You can choose to share information such as your phone number with customers to provide customer service.

Enter your business address

Set or change your legal name and business address

Your legal name and business address displays on your bill. With the correct name and address listed on your Shopify bill, you might be able to claim Shopify as a business expense.

Add your billing information

Managing payment methods for your Shopify bills

This page provides instructions on how to manage the payment methods that you use to pay the bills on your Shopify account. You can also add a backup payment method, and change your billing address.

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Add a payment method
Update or change a card payment method
Adding a backup payment method
Delete an additional payment method
Change your billing address

Set the default currency for your store

Select a store currency

In the General settings page of your Shopify admin, you can choose which currency your store uses (for example, USD, EUR, CAD, AUD, JPY).

If you’re using Shopify Payments as your credit card payment gateway, then you must change your currency by editing the bank account and currency settings used by Shopify Payments.

Display multiple currencies

Set a default weight unit for your store listings

Set or change your store's default weight unit

You can choose from the following default units of weight:

Pounds (lb) – Imperial system
Ounces (oz) – Imperial system
Kilograms (kg) – Metric system
Grams (g) – Metric system

Choose the weight unit that is most appropriate for your business. This is just the default value, and can be edited on a product-by-product basis later on.

Before choosing your default weight unit, you should choose your Unit system from the same screen.

Set up your shipping settings

Setting up shipping and order fulfillment

Order fulfillment and shipping can be one of the more complex parts of a business to set up and manage. It can also be one of the biggest costs that you have per order, and it can be difficult to know how much of that cost to pass on to your customers.

You can read about the different shipping carriers, the different shipping rates you can offer, and how to work with any fulfillment services. After you understand how shipping works in Shopify, you can configure your shipping settings, such as shipping rates, shipping profiles, order routing, and fulfillable inventory.

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Order fulfillment and shipping setup checklist
Locations
Shipping profiles
Shipping rates
Delivery methods
Shipments and packages
Processing time and delivery dates
Order routing
Setting up fulfillable inventory
Store notifications
Fulfillment options and dropshipping services
Shop Promise
Carbon-neutral shipping with the Planet app
Order status page
Order fulfillment and shipping terminology

Set up Shopify International, if applicable

Managing markets

International sales tools help you manage the experience of your brand by assigning different settings to different countries and regions. A market can contain a single country or region, or a group of countries or regions. For example, you can create a market called “North America” that targets Canada, the United States, and Mexico, all with one group of settings. If you have a different group of settings that you want to apply only to Japan, then you can create another market that targets only the country of Japan.

The maximum number of markets that you can have depends on your store’s Shopify subscription plan:

Pause and Build – 3
Starter – 3
Basic – 3
Grow – 3
Advanced – 3 included, 50 max
Shopify Plus – 50

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Accessing markets for the first time
Maximum number of markets
Staff permissions required for managing markets
Market types
Add a market
Preview a market
Activate a market
Deactivate a market
Remove a market
Editing the countries or regions within an existing market

Set up pickup and local delivery

Delivery methods

When customers are located close to your business, you can offer local delivery or pickup methods for them to receive their products. This can speed up your fulfillment time and create a better experience for your customers.

You can configure local delivery or pick up in store delivery options in your store. Your customers can choose these methods when placing an order at checkout.

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Setting up local delivery for online orders
Setting up pickup in store for online orders

Set up your taxes

As a merchant, you might need to charge taxes on your sales, and then report and remit those taxes to your government. Although tax laws are complex and can change often, you can set up Shopify to handle common sales tax calculations. You can also set up tax overrides to address unique tax laws and situations.

Shopify uses many default sales tax rates, which are updated regularly. If you use the default rates, then you should confirm that they’re current and correct. You can override them whenever necessary.

Make sure your tax settings are correct for your store, and you need to remember to file your store’s taxes. Learn more about taxes.

Set up your payment gateways

Payments

Make sure that you understand the payment process. When a customer checks out, they can choose to pay for their order using any of the methods that you’ve activated in the Payment providers area of your Shopify admin. You can activate a variety of payment methods using Shopify.

There are a few different things to consider when you’re choosing which payment methods to offer. If you want to let your customers pay using a credit card, then you can use Shopify Payments or a third-party provider.

There are also several ways for customers to pay online without using a credit card, such as PayPal, Amazon Pay, and Apple Pay. You might also want to accept additional methods of payment such as cryptocurrency.

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Getting paid
Shop Cash
Shop Pay accelerated checkout for fast, secure payments
Shopify Payments
PayPal Express Checkout
Accelerated checkouts and accelerated checkout buttons
Shop Pay Installments
Third-party payment providers
Additional payment methods
Manual payment methods
Collecting and recording partial payments
Payment authorization and capture
Chargebacks and inquiries
Fraud prevention
Troubleshooting payment gateways

Staff your store, if applicable

Inviting users

You can invite staff members to your store or organization by creating users in your Shopify admin and assign them roles to limit their access to parts of your store or organization. Learn more about roles, and the available permissions for different role categories.

If you have Shopify POS, then you can also set up POS only staff who don’t have access to your Shopify admin. Learn more about adding POS staff.

The number of users that you can add depends on your plan. Learn more about the maximum number of users for each plan.

Set up your domain

Domains

A domain is the URL or web address where your customers go to find your store online. By default, your online store was given a myshopify.com URL when you signed up for Shopify. To change the web address that’s displayed to customers when they browse your online store, you need to use a custom domain, such as www.example.com. You can use domains that you buy from Shopify or from any third-party domain provider. Using a domain name that matches your brand can help you build trust in your online store. You can also change your myshopify.com domain name, but you can do this only one time.

If your store is on the Basic, Grow, Advanced, or Plus plan and you want to sell to customers in multiple countries or regions, then you can use international domains to set up regional domains for every country or region where you have a target market.

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Adding a domain to Shopify
Changing the domain type and target
Removing domains
Managing ownership of your domain
Email hosting and forwarding
Managing your domain settings in Shopify
Domains terminology
IPv6 support
Troubleshoot issues with domains connected to Shopify

Organize your online store

The aesthetics of your Shopify store and the products you sell play a crucial role in your online success. Start by exploring different Shopify themes to find one that fits your brand’s identity. Once your look is locked in, focus on adding and organizing your product listings. This step can be time-consuming, especially if you’re offering a large catalog. Take time to group products properly and set accurate tax and shipping information. A well-organized, visually appealing Shopify store not only improves user experience but also boosts SEO and conversions.

Make your website look great with a theme

Shopify themes

Different themes provide unique styles, layouts, and experiences tailored to the specific products you sell. With Shopify themes, you can customize your online store to match your brand and business needs.

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Choosing Shopify themes

Adding, previewing, and buying themes

Managing themes

Adapting themes for specific markets

Theme structure

Customizing themes

Theme support

Password page

Customize your theme

Customizing themes

After you choose a theme that defines the basic look and feel of your online store, you can use the theme editor in your Shopify admin to customize the theme to suit your unique brand. With the theme editor, you can preview your theme, make changes to your theme settings, and add, remove, edit, and rearrange content. For more information about which sections and settings are available for your theme, check your theme’s architecture version and the available customization options in the theme editor.

If your theme doesn’t include settings for the changes that you want to make, and you’re comfortable with HTML, CSS, and Liquid, then you can edit your theme code.

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The theme editor

Editing your theme with code

Extend your theme with apps

Accessibility for themes

Language and wording in themes

Adapt your theme for specific markets or Shopify B2B

Common customizations

Add your products

Adding and updating products

You can add new products, or update product information such as price, variants, and availability, from the Products page in your Shopify admin, or in the Shopify app.

If you want to save specialized information or files for your products, then you can add custom fields to your product pages by using metafields. If you have a compatible theme, then you can add references to your product metafields in the theme editor.

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Add a new product

Duplicate a product

Edit a product

Preview a product

Set product availability in your sales channels

Add or remove tags

Edit the search engine listing for a product

Scan a barcode with your device’s camera

Archive a product

Delete a product

Organize your products into collections

Collections

The Starter plan doesn’t support grouping your products into collections to make it easier for customers to find them by category. If you require the ability to create collections, then you need to upgrade to a higher plan such as Basic, Grow, Advanced, or Shopify Plus. Learn more about the different plan features.

If you’re on the Basic plan or higher, then you can group your products into collections to make it easier for customers to find them by category. Here are a few examples of collections that you might create:

clothes for men, women, or children

items of a certain type, such as lamps, cushions, or rugs

items on sale

items in a certain size or color

seasonal products, such as holiday cards and decorations

You can create two types of collections, a smart or manual collection. After you create a collection, it can be displayed on your online store as a webpage with a gallery of the products that are in the collection. Your customers can then click a product image on the collection page to visit a specific product’s page. You can help customers find and view collections by adding links to the collections in your store’s menus.

The exact layout and appearance of collection pages depends on your theme.

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Collection types

Create Smart collections

Create Manual collections

Adding links to collections

Managing collections on your sales channels

Searching and viewing collections

Customize Collection layout and appearance

Collection types

Customize your menus

Menus and links

Adding menus to your store helps your customers browse your online store and find important pages. Add menus to your online store to display and organize links to products, collections, webpages, blog posts, and more.

You can add, remove, change, and view your links and menus from Content > Menus in your Shopify admin. Choose where on your store’s theme you want the menus to display in your Theme settings.

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Create and Setup menus

Add, remove, or edit menu items in your online store

Set up drop-down menus in your online store

Creating and managing URL redirects

Add a blog to your store

Blogs

Your Shopify online store comes with a built-in blogging engine. Blogging is a great way to improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO), build your audience, and generate more traffic and sales for your business. Setting up a blog can help you build a community around your products and your brand.

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Manage blogs for your online store
Understanding blog posts
Writing blog posts
Managing comments on blog posts
Advanced publishing

Test your online store

Before you launch your online store, place some test orders to see how the checkout process works.

Test successful and failed transactions

Placing a test order

By placing a test order, you can make sure that your checkout process and settings for order processing, inventory, shipping, email notifications, and taxes are all correct. You should place at least one test order during your store setup or whenever you make changes to your payment settings.

You can place a test order by simulating a transaction through Shopify’s Bogus Gateway. If you’re using Shopify Payments, then you can test your configuration by using Shopify Payments’ test mode. You aren’t charged for test orders placed through these gateways.

Test orders and simulated transactions don’t display in your payouts or reports. You can test a payment gateway only after you’ve chosen a paid plan.

To place B2B test orders, you must activate customer accounts and create a test company with a company location. Learn more about testing your B2B setup.

You can also process an order using a real payment provider, and then immediately cancel and refund the order. You might be subject to fees from the payment processor you use.

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Activating a payment gateway in test mode
Processing a test order

Test refunding and canceling orders

Refunding orders

You can refund an entire order or only part of an order in your Shopify admin. When you refund an order, you send payment back to the customer. You can refund an order without creating a return, but you can’t create a return after a refund has been issued. In some cases, you can cancel an order and then issue a refund.

As part of the refund process, you have the option to restock the items and to send a notification email to the customer. If there is no payment to refund, then you can restock the items from the order.

If you’re a customer looking for a refund on an order that you placed on a Shopify store, then you need to contact the store directly.

Test fulfilling and partially fulfilling orders

Fulfilling orders

After your customer places an order, you need to prepare, ship, and deliver the items to your customer. This process is referred to as order fulfillment. You can fulfill orders by yourself, use a third-party app, or use a fulfillment service to fulfill orders for you.

The fulfillment process usually includes the following tasks:

picking and packaging products
labelling the order for shipment
shipping the package with a shipping carrier

Before you start fulfilling orders, make sure that you set up order fulfillment and shipping in your Shopify admin.

Test archiving successful orders

Archive orders manually

Most orders that you’re done with are automatically archived by default, but you can archive orders manually if you need to. If you deactivated automatic archiving, then you can keep your open orders view tidy by manually archiving orders.

Archived orders are displayed on the Closed order view.

Learn about Shopify’s fraud analysis settings

Fraud analysis

Shopify’s fraud analysis helps you identify orders that could be fraudulent. Review high-risk orders to avoid potential chargebacks. Fulfilling high risk orders can result in a higher number of chargebacks and that can result in disabling payment processing and removal from Shopify Payments.

Credit card companies can reverse funds for stolen cards after orders are fulfilled. Shopify helps you to gather evidence for any disputed charges. However, the decision to reverse funds is made by the bank that issued the credit card, not by Shopify. Shopify does not cover charge reversals from banks.

Fraud analysis is designed to work with online credit card orders, when Shopify can verify the payment. This means that some types of orders, including those that are processed offline, don’t receive recommendations.

If your store is on the Basic plan and you don’t have Shopify Payments, then fraud analysis includes the following:

Add other online sales channels

Fraud analysis

Sell with Buy Buttons

Buy Button

Buy Buttons help you add your products to your external website and blog posts. They also make purchasing the products easier for customers by removing the need to go to a separate page to finalize their order.

Buy Buttons help you create shortcuts for customers to buy your products. You can place Buy Buttons on your non-Shopify website or blog. Buy Buttons can display product pictures, descriptions, and prices, all while letting customers purchase products without leaving the website. Any updates to a product’s details in your Shopify admin display on the product’s Buy Button.

For example, Fen sells clothing and accessories for sun protection. They create a Buy Button for their best-selling sun hat. Fen writes a blog post on WordPress about the risk of sunburn even on a cloudy day and adds the Buy Button to the blog post. When someone reads the blog post, they can choose to buy the sun hat by clicking the Buy Button. They complete their order without ever having to leave the blog.

You can track Buy Button orders from your Shopify admin.

You use the Buy Button sales channel to create Buy Buttons. The Buy Button sales channel is included in all Shopify subscription plans.

You need to use a supported payment gateway to use Buy Button. To see a list of supported payment gateways in your country or region, refer to Payment information by country or region.

You can also use the Buy Button channel to create cart permalinks that you can then share with customers through an email campaign, direct message, or social media post.

Sell on Facebook and Instagram with Facebook and Instagram by Meta

Facebook and Instagram by Meta

You can use Facebook and Instagram by Meta to sync your products to a catalog on Facebook and Instagram, so that you can sell on Facebook Shop and Instagram Shopping.

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Facebook and Instagram by Meta quick guide
Setting up Facebook and Instagram by Meta
Facebook and Instagram by Meta requirements
Instagram Shopping
Facebook Shop
Publishing products on Facebook and Instagram by Meta
Checkout methods for Facebook and Instagram by Meta
Shopify Payments on Facebook and Instagram by Meta
Processing orders from Checkout on Facebook and Instagram
Providing Google Product Categories
Verifying your domain with the Facebook and Instagram by Meta

Promote your online store

After you launch your online store, you need to promote it. You can improve your store’s visibility by adding the information that will be used by search engines and by promoting your store in all of the appropriate spaces.

Define your home page metadata

Set or update your home page metadata

Metadata, such as a page’s title and meta description, is displayed in search engine results. It doesn’t affect your chances of being listed by a search engine, but a good meta description can increase the likelihood that visitors will click through to your store. It’s a great way to attract more traffic.

The title and meta description must be unique for each page, and must describe the content of that page. For every product, page, or blog in your Shopify admin, there’s a search engine section where you can input the information as you want it to display on search engine results pages.

There is a 70 character limit for titles. Not all search engines will truncate after the character limit is reached, but most will truncate on a word, rather than in the middle of a word, to improve readability. Search engines list only about 140 characters of your meta description below your title tag, so keep it short.

we can view a preview of how your page displays as a search result on a Google result page.

Promote your store

Marketing and promotions

There are many tools to help you with marketing your Shopify store. You can see marketing key performance indicators, top marketing channels, and create marketing campaigns and automations directly from the Marketing section in Shopify. If you’re selling your products in an online store, then you might want to try improving SEO to help customers find your online store in search engines or social media.

You can also run promotions such as seasonal sales and flash sales to increase traffic and sales in your store.

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Developing a marketing plan
Content marketing
Managing your brand assets
Improving search engine optimization (SEO)
Setting up marketing in Shopify
Shopify Knowledge Base
Analyzing the success of your online marketing campaigns
Shopify Audiences
Remote shopping experience
Preparing for seasonal sales
Shopify Collabs
Flash sales
Pixels and customer events
Managing increased sales

Create a marketing plan

Setting up marketing in Shopify

Campaigns can help you organize and track multichannel marketing efforts that work towards a specific goal. For example, you can promote a product or sale over a specific time using multiple marketing channels such as paid advertising and social media.

You can also create marketing automations to convert visitors to customers on an ongoing basis. Campaigns and automations can each help you grow your customer base in different ways, and you can use both in your overall marketing strategy.

From the Marketing page in Shopify, you can create and manage your marketing campaigns and automations, as well as review key marketing performance metrics. Learn more about measuring marketing performance.

we can also create marketing outside of Shopify using third-party services or apps. Explore apps for selling more online and email marketing.

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Campaigns for multichannel marketing
Marketing automation tools
Marketing on Facebook
Collecting customer contact information
Shopify Forms app
Marketing automations
Posting on social media
Shopcodes
Using Shopify Email for email marketing
Launchpad
Opt in to the new abandoned checkout automation
Recovering abandoned checkouts

Set up Shopify Email and send your first email marketing campaign

Using Shopify Email App for email marketing

Email marketing can help you to grow your business and build relationships with your customers. Sending newsletters to customers who sign up for your mailing list is a great way to let them know about new products and upcoming sales.

You can use Shopify Email to create email marketing campaigns and marketing automations and send them from Shopify. You can design your emails to match your brand, and link directly to products to share them with your customers. Learn more about how to grow your business with email marketing on the Shopify blog.

All merchants with Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Shopify Plus plans can use Shopify Email. Pricing is calculated based on how many emails you send. Learn more about Shopify Email pricing.

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Set up Shopify Email
Email marketing campaigns using Shopify Email
Email subscriber list management
Best practices for Shopify Email
Email delivery and deliverability
Data privacy and legal compliance for email marketing campaigns
Shopify Email pricing
Frequently asked questions about Shopify Email

Improve your store’s SEO

Improving search engine optimization (SEO)

Whether you’re launching a new product, building a web presence for your retail location, or starting a dropshipping business, when you’re trying to sell online you have an important problem to solve: how do you get customers to find your store? People who find your online store in a search engine are probably looking for products like yours, so they’re more likely to buy something. You can use search engine optimization (SEO) to improve the search engine ranking for your store and help customers find your products.

More In this section

SEO overview
Editing robots.txt.liquid
Adding keywords for SEO to your Shopify store
Grow SEO
Optimizing your site structure for search engines
Finding and submitting your sitemap
Hiding a page from search engines
Frequently asked questions about SEO

Use discount codes and sales

Discounts

Offering discounts can be a marketing strategy that you use to drive sales in your Shopify store. To offer discounts, you can create discount codes or set up automatic discounts, or you can alternatively set sale prices for individual products.

You can create codes for a monetary value discount, a percentage discount, a buy X get Y discount, or a free shipping discount. Customers can enter discount codes online at checkout, or in person if you’re using Shopify POS.

You can also create other types of discount by using a third-party app from the Shopify App Store. Some third-party apps let you manage discounts directly in your Shopify admin, or you might need to create your discounts in the app’s settings.

If your store is on the Shopify Plus plan, then you can create your own custom discounts app.

When you offer a discount on an order, the discount is applied to the subtotal of the order before taxes, and then any applicable tax is applied afterwards.

You can update and manage existing discounts from the Discounts page in your Shopify admin. Before you update a discount, check if another staff member might also be making changes to the same discount.

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Discount types
Combining discounts
Managing discount codes
Exporting discount codes
Automatically apply discounts to abandoned checkout recovery emails
Add a discount to a gift card
Managing sales channel settings for discounts
Discount codes FAQ

Customize your abandoned cart emails

Customizing email notification templates

Your store has multiple notification templates that you can access in the Notifications section of your Shopify admin.

You can customize your email notifications by adding a logo or changing the color scheme for all templates at the same time. You can also edit the content of email notifications individually.

Before you can edit the body and the subject heading of your email notifications, you need to confirm your sender email address.

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Add a logo to your email templates
Choose colors for your email templates
Changing the language of your email templates
Customize specific email templates
Add a custom message to notifications
Style email templates using inline CSS
Automatic conversion of plain text emails

Read and respond to messages in Shopify Inbox

Shopify Inbox

Shopify Inbox is a mailbox that lets you offer customers the ability to chat with you from your online store. You can respond to customer messages, send product links, send discount codes, and send images from Shopify Inbox.

You can access Shopify Inbox on your desktop at inbox.shopify.com, and through an iOS mobile app and Android mobile app.

When customers send you messages, you can respond from your desktop or mobile device, and manage conversations across staff members.

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Installing and accessing Shopify Inbox
Managing customer conversations
Configuring Shopify Inbox
Configuring chat settings and appearance for Shopify Inbox

When customers send you messages, you can respond from your desktop or mobile device, and manage conversations across staff members.