Overview

Are you looking to launch your Shopify store? It requires a lot of hard work and can become quite challenging. The excitement of launching your own online business can be overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness or unsurety, and a million questions will confront you; is everything set up correctly? Did I miss something? What do I need to do in order to ensure success? Will customers be encouraged enough to buy from my website?

If you're in a state of uncertainty leading up to your Shopify launch, here is a Shopify launch checklist you need to complete before you can be sure that the next step you're taking is in the right direction.

The essential launch checklist

1. Set up a domain name

You want to set up an online business that you hope to grow big in the future. You can't do it without establishing a brandable domain name. Get a custom domain name for yourself (youronlinestore.com). This is an important first-step, and the availability of your desired domain name will affect how you brand your online business.

2. Set up a payment gateway

Shopify provides easy integration with payment services. However, you need to have your payment gateway configured correctly. You will be losing out on sales if customers want to purchase a product, but can't complete the order. Make sure your entire order process is seamless and error-free by placing a test order for yourself, which you can refund immediately.

3. Set up email notifications

Email notification are powerful and can be used to reinforce trust in your online business among your customers. Ideally, you should send out automatic emails to customers when they sign up, place a new order or perform any transaction. Customers would like to receive electronic receipts via email, get notified when their order has been shipped and so on.

Shopify has all these types of email notifications built-in. All you need to do is customize the templates, add your store's branding and give the emails a personal touch.

4. Prepare your standard pages

Just as with standard email responses, your online store should also have a few standard, static web pages in addition to the actual store. They are an absolutely must and are expected of any website. These pages include:

Home: Should contain captivating graphics, or list your most popular products or active deals in order to attract customers at first glance.
Contact: Include all relevant contact details, including email, phone number and physical address in you have an office space. Some websites also have a contact form for user queries
About: Tell the world about your business; what is your vision? What are your core values? Do you want to tell your customers anything about yourself? Tell them about your team!
FAQs: Ask and answer frequently asked questions that your customers might have.

5. Add multiple channels

When looking for products, customers will almost always explore multiple channels. This can include B2C and C2C ecommerce platforms such as eBay, online retailers such as Amazon, or even social networking channels (e.g. Facebook), Google Shopping, and so on.

Integrating multiple channels onto your account Shopify store is an important first step towards capturing a wide target audience. You will be able to gather order inquiries, answer product-related questions quickly, or provide effective after-sales support.

6. Review your website

Before going live (and whenever you make new changes), it is a good idea to always review the content on your website. There might be broken links or 404 pages, or you may come across grammatical mistakes within product descriptions, or even misspelt product names. Such small mistakes can end up costing you big in terms of first impressions on a customer, so make sure you iron them all out before launch.

7. Image optimizations

While we're on the subject of content review, it will also be a good idea at this point to optimize the images on your website as well. Ecommerce stores tend to be image-extensive. Make sure you have filled out alt descriptions for all images, and captioned them appropriately (where necessary). Also make sure not to use images that are very large in size, as they slow down the website load speed and negatively impact usability.

8. Set up analytics

Analytics is crucial for monitoring site performance and fix technical or user-level issues. Make sure to set up Google Analytics (or similar analytics engine) scripts on your website before launch.

9. Make sure people can contact you

Verify your contact details, and make sure that the contact forms on your website are running and people are able to get in touch with you. Mention your email, phone number and physical address (as necessary) in order to generate trust and allow your customers to contact you in case of any issues.

10. Keep your site simple

The Shopify system allows you to install any number of plugins and applications to enhance your website. However, the more of them you install, the more complex your website becomes and (possibly) the slower it will get. Before launch, make sure that you have only the bare minimum number of applications set up.

11. Double check prices and tax settings

Are you aware of all factors that will impact your revenue? Set up your tax and shipment settings so you will be fully aware of the costs incurred on you. Then set up prices accordingly to make sure you don't lose out on your revenue.

12. Subscribe

Shopify is a paid service. You get a 14-day free trial in the beginning, but will have to pay in order to get your store up and running. Make sure you have paid for the service and that your billing information is correct before launching your online store. You do not want your store to be taken down, once you have launched it, due to non payment.

13. Prepare a marketing plan

Before you officially launch your store, make sure you have a created a marketing plan. While not a hard necessity, a marketing plan is crucial for the long-term success of your business. Being able to make a viable marketing plan and sticking to it will make the difference between success and failure. Besides, having a marketing plan ready can be handy in certain situations, such as when talking to potential investors.

Final thoughts

Now, you should be all set up and ready to launch your awesome store. Remember that its success will depend on you being able to stick to a plan and achieve targets in a timely manner. The next step is to go ahead with the launch, and start serving customers! Good luck!

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