Trusted by over 4 million online merchants, Shopify is undoubtedly one of the best eCommerce platforms in the world. If you decide to go for Shopify and are looking for a Shopify launch checklist, welcome on board. In this article, LitExtension – The World #1 Shopping Cart Migration Expert will walk you through a detailed Shopify checklist to kick off your online store.
Keep scrolling because, in this post, you will discover steps to start a Shopify store:
- Register a website name and domain
- Select your sales channels
- Optimize your checkout process and payment options
- Adjust your Shopify sales tax and shipping settings
- Provide your billing information
- Install and set up analytic tools
- Get rid of paltry Shopify apps
- Set up your standard pages
- Review your contact information
- Pay attention to search engine optimization
- Double-check your website content
- Make sure your email notification works
- Secure your Shopify store with two-factor authentication
Without further ado, let's get started!
Shopify Launch Checklist – An Overview
After setting up your Shopify account, you might wonder how to launch Shopify store or how to build a high-converting Shopify store. If these questions are uppermost in your mind, you've come to the right place. In this part of the article, we has compiled a 13-point Shopify launch checklist to kickstart your online business.
Without further ado, let's get this show on the road.
Shopify Checklist Before Launch
1. Register a website name and domain
Your website name and domain are not simply the virtual path leading consumers and search engines to your online store. They play an important part in improving your brand recognition and awareness. Besides, a good website name also helps your store stay on top of customers' minds easily.
That's why the very first point in our Shopify launch checklist is getting your website a custom domain and name. Make sure you choose a relevant yet unique store name to distinguish your online business from other competitors in the market. But don't be too stressed about this. You can always change your Shopify store name whenever you want.
Now that the “name” part is done, how about the domain? One good thing is that you can buy a domain name from Shopify and let this platform host it. The price for each domain starts from $14 per year and you can cancel it anytime. Please feel free to browse through Shopify generator tool to check the availability of your domain name. Shopify also enables users to change their Shopify domain name.
2. Select your sales channels
There's no doubt that Shopify is a great platform to sell online. But the question is, why limit yourself to one platform only?
This is when multi-channel selling comes into the picture. By displaying your products on different platforms, you can dramatically increase your traffic and sales from multiple sources. You can fully integrate your Shopify store with other marketplaces like Etsy and eBay to expand your reach effortlessly.
Multichannel-selling Made Easy
Want to minimize manual efforts when selling multi-channel? Try out LitCommerce – The Multichannel Selling Tool! LitCommerce allows store owners to list products on marketplaces seamlessly and easily.
3. Optimize your checkout process and payment options
Before getting to this third point of our Shopify launch checklist, here are some important facts you should know about.
- 27% of customers abandon their cart due to the complicated checkout process.
- Cart abandonment leads to $18 billion loss in sales revenue each year.
To reduce the cart abandonment rate, it is vital to create a smooth and frictionless checkout process. To ace this, you can use Shop Pay – an accelerated checkout method for Shopify stores. And don't forget to include popular payment methods (like PayPal or Apple Pay) on your checkout page so that customers have more payment options to choose from.
You can refer to these sources to set up Shopify payments in minutes:
4. Adjust your Shopify sales tax and shipping settings
Before launching your Shopify store, please double-check your tax and shipping price for the products you are selling. Otherwise, by not charging enough, you might be unable to generate more sales and max out your profit.
On another note, depending on your store's location, you might need to set up Shopify sales tax. Don't forget to add this amount of money to your product price, or else, you’ll have to pay that sales tax out-of-pocket.
5. Provide your billing information
Before your 3-day-free-trial comes to an end, make sure to fill in your billing information. If you fail to provide this piece of information, you won’t be able to accept or process orders in the future.
To provide your billing information, go to Setting in the Shopify Dashboard. Then, select Billing and fill in your information in the Billing address section. After finishing, click Confirm to complete.
6. Install and set up analytic tools
Analytics must be put up from the dawn of your business. This data will provide you with vital information about the overall situation of your store. How many sales does your store make, how many orders has your store been fulfilling, or how many customers have purchased from your store? These questions can be answered through reports and analytics tools.
Though Shopify comes with its own set of reports and analytic tools, it is not compulsory to use these metrics. You can install other eCommerce analytic tools like Google Search Console, Adobe Analytics, or Google Analytics. You may even combine tools to examine your business, but we recommend that you start by tracking these essential eCommerce indicators.
7. Get rid of paltry Shopify apps
Yes, Shopify does offer a great wealth of apps on their App Store. Sometimes, you might feel the urge to install tons of them in hope that they can expand your business's possibilities.
Nonetheless, not every plugin on Shopify App Store is suitable for your business. Installing too many paltry apps might add up to your monthly expense. Moreover, unnecessary applications might cause slow and sluggish performance on your website.
To avoid that, make sure only to install essential apps to streamline your business. In case you don't know which one you should go for, please check out our recommendation of the best Shopify apps and best Shopify apps for SEO.
8. Set up your standard pages
The next tip in our Shopify launch checklist is preparing your standard pages. Now that you have a new Shopify store ready to be published, it’s time to share with customers about your brand through standard pages. A website filled with detailed and carefully-written content will greatly improve customers’ trust, as proved by Shopify.
Even if you don’t have much time, make sure to include these landing pages in your Shopify website before launch.
- Homepage: It is undeniable that the first impression is hard to beat. The homepage is the first (or maybe second) place that visitors go to when they browse through your site. Therefore, don’t forget to set up clear navigation so that customers can wander around your store with ease.
- About Us: Unlike the homepage, the “About Us” section is normally not the first place that customers land. Nevertheless, if we exploit this page correctly, it can become an effective sales channel. Your About page is an opportunity to reassure clients that your business is legitimate, allowing them to invest in your brand over time.
- Contact Us: A Contact page assures customers that a store is real and currently active. Don’t forget to include your phone number, email, or any means of communication that you have. Make sure to always have your customer service agent on standby and ready to tend to consumers.
9. Review your contact information
In the previous part of this article, we talked about compiling a Contact Us page before launching your Shopify store. But the key thing is, please make sure that your contact information is correct and customers can reach you easily. In this case, your customers can have their inquiries answered immediately, thus improving your customers' experience.
10. Pay attention to search engine optimization
Research by Oberlo has shown that 46% of product searches come from Google. Hence, improving your store's Google search rating will boost your chances of receiving more orders. In the long run, a positive Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plan can undoubtedly attract more visitors to your store and thus increase sales.
Here are our recommendations to improve your Shopify SEO:
- Conduct keyword research
- Optimize keyword and internal links
- Design a sitemap
- Improve page loading speed
- Don't forget about content marketing
11. Double-check your website content
The next tip in our Shopify launch checklist is always proofreading to check your content. Small spelling or grammar mistakes are inevitable, but we can avoid that by double-checking all your website content before publishing.
But that's not all. Make sure to find and fix every broken link on your site. And don't forget to check your website on different browsers and different devices to see how it performs and how we can improve customers' experience across platforms. For maximum ease, it would be good to get help from a grammar checker. It will quickly scan the given web content to find grammar mistakes and then provide quick suggestions to correct them.
12. Make sure your email notification works
Email can come in handy when you start an eCommerce business. Therefore, please take some time to customize automated emails before launching your Shopify store.
To make changes to Shopify automated emails, visit Settings > Notifications in your dashboard to edit your email templates. Feel free to add a logo, change color, edit CTA, or anything that fits your brand.
13. Secure your Shopify store with two-factor authentication
Before launching your Shopify store, make sure to turn on two-factor authentication to strengthen security.
Two-factor authentication (or two-step authentication, multifactor authentication) is a more secure login technique that requires you to input a password and another piece of information when logging into your store. It might be a one-time security code sent via your phone number or email or a biometric authentication such as fingerprint or face recognition.
This makes your Shopify shop considerably more difficult to hack, as well as keeps you in compliance with data protection rules.
Shopify Post Launch Checklist
#1 Double-check all apps and integrations
The first step in our post-launch checklist starts with verifying that all your chosen apps and integrations are working seamlessly. From payment gateways and shipping providers to email marketing tools and any other third-party applications, confirm that each one is correctly configured and functioning as expected. A great way to do this is by going through the checkout process yourself to identify any potential obstacles or glitches that could lead to abandoned carts and frustrated customers. This preemptive step on your Shopify launch checklist will save you headaches down the line.
#2 Check your site speed
Slow loading times often lead to high bounce rates, negatively impacting your conversion rates and SEO ranking. Therefore, before directing any traffic to your website, it's crucial to ensure your website runs smoothly with little delay.
To assess your website's performance, utilize tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to pinpoint areas for improvement. Simple adjustments like compressing images, optimizing your Shopify theme, and minimizing the use of resource-heavy apps can dramatically enhance your site speed, leading to a smoother, more enjoyable customer journey.
#3 Test and monitor your conversion
A visually appealing Shopify store is important, but it's only the first step. The ultimate goal is to transform visitors into paying customers, and this is where conversion rate optimization comes in. Here are some of our useful tips that you can consider to optimize your conversion:
- Implementing tracking system tools like Google Analytics to understand user behavior on your site.
- Analyze crucial metrics such as conversion rates, average order value, and customer lifetime value.
- Experiment with A/B testing on various elements on your site
#4 Promote your website on different channels
Now that your store is ready, don't forget to let people know you are ready for business. You need to actively guide shoppers to your digital doorstep, and strategic marketing will help you achieve this goal.
My first advice is that, do not limit your efforts to a single platform. Instead, you should embrace a multi-channel marketing approach to reach your target audience across various channels. You can create compelling social media campaigns that showcase your brand's personality and resonate with your ideal customers. Or, you can use email marketing to nurture relationships with potential buyers by offering exclusive discounts and updates about new products.
Why Choose Shopify?
Armed with a great wealth of outstanding features, Shopify is an ideal solution to take your business to the next level. Its ecosystem offers everything you need to sell online, from exclusive inventory management to a dedicated payment system. Thus, no matter how big your business is, Shopify is always an option worth considering.
Here's our quick evaluation of Shopify based on four vital categories.
Platform | Features | Rating |
 Score: 4.8/5 |
|  |
A salient feature that makes Shopify well-known is its user-friendliness. Shopify is extremely easy to use. Even if you are new to the eCommerce world, starting to sell online with Shopify is not much of a problem. On top of that, this platform comes with 200+ well-designed website templates on its Shopify Theme Store. Therefore, you can easily create a stunning eCommerce website that matches your brand.
If you are not familiar with this platform, let's learn how to quickly build a Shopify store with our detailed Shopify tutorial below.
Are you ready to start a new adventure with Shopify? Check out our Shopify resources now to learn everything you need to know about this eCommerce platform:
Shopify Launch Checklist – FAQs
How many steps are there to set up and launch a Shopify store?
There are nine steps in total to launch a Shopify store. To discover the complete roadmap to build a Shopify business, don't forget to check out our Shopify tutorial.
How to open Shopify store to the public?
Now that you've done configuring your store, it's time to make it live. Simply go to Online Store > Preferences, then disable the Password Protection section.
How do I test my Shopify store before launch?
It's important to take a few test orders to ensure that the system works smoothly. To enable test mode, go to Settings > Payments in your Shopify Dashboard. Then, in the Shopify Payments section, click Edit, tick on Use Test Mode, then Save.
Shopify Launch Checklist – Final Words
And that brings us to the end of this article. We hope that with our detailed Shopify launch checklist above, you can kick off your business effortlessly.
If you're currently on a different platform, LitExtension will help transfer your data from 200+ shopping cart solutions (i.e. Magento to Shopify, BigCommerce to Shopify) quickly, accurately, and securely.
In case you have any questions or inquiries, don’t hesitate to contact our 24/7 customer support team to get your problems resolved as quickly as possible.
Last but not least, please check out other Shopify-related articles on our blog to learn more insights about Shopify.
