You tremble with enthusiasm. The time is almost here – you are finally getting ready to launch your Shopify online store after all of your efforts. There are steps to get started at Shopify store.
But very quickly, you panic when you realize that the task is far from fun – then you try to verify that all the necessary elements for a successful e-commerce launch are there.
That’s why we wrote this article. Today we cover the most important steps to launch a successful online store.
The importance of making a checklist
Your online store looks great, your product pages are ready to welcome visitors, and all of your social accounts have been created.
Is there something you missed, though?
The point is, to err is human – and sometimes you could miss a very simple, yet essential step to successfully launching an online store.
Pilots and spacemen use a checklist for every flight or mission. After the checklists were created for the Boeing B-17s, the pilots spent in their planes 1.8 million hours without any incidents occurring, and they together proved that the Boeing B-17 was a safe plane.
Another example: Surgical complications are reduced by 36% when checklists are used during operations.
“A good checklist should be detailed, clear, and easy to follow, even in the most difficult situations. It can not be used to list all the steps in the process. Instead, your list should provide reminders of the most important steps – ones that even the most skilled professionals might miss. A good checklist is, first and foremost, a practical tool. » – Atul Gawande, surgeon, author, researcher and lecturer
So, why not use a checklist for launching your online store? This is what we will help you do.
Let’s go:
1. Add all available sales channels
Want to reach prospects beyond your website? Start by adding all the sales channels available to your e-commerce store from your administration interface.
All sales channels sync with your primary Shopify online store. You can, therefore, easily follow from your administration panel your orders, your products, and your customers, and this, across all platforms.
2. Add a custom domain
This is usually the first thing to do when opening an online store – but depending on how you go about it, it could also be a point that you think of last.
Add a custom domain name to your online store, or purchase one directly through the admin panel of your Shopify online store.
3. Check the settings of your payment gateways
Before you start driving traffic to your online store, you would do well to make sure that customers can make payments on your site! We recommend that you place an order in your store through a payment gateway configured to make sure everything works.
4. Prepare your standard pages
It is important to have static pages that your visitors can visit when you open your e-commerce site.
At a minimum, you should create the Contact, About, Shipping, and FAQ pages before you launch.
5. Check your email notification settings
You could personalize your customers’ experience by offering them discounts on their next orders. The good technique to do this is to customize your email templates from your Shopify store interface.
6. Have your content proofread to correct spelling and grammar errors
Sometimes you’ll be so focused on your work that you won’t even notice spelling and grammar errors in your site content. It is, therefore, important to have your content proofread by a professional proofreader, colleague, or even a friend or family member to avoid glaring errors.
You can also use a spell checker if you think you can proofread your content on your own.
7. Optimize all the images on your site
There is nothing worse than slow-loading images – especially if you’re having a flash promotion in your store on your initial launch. You may need to assure that all of your images are optimized for the web to ensure fast loading times.
You can also use a tool like Optimzilla to compress your images without compromising their quality.
BONUS: Bring your online store to life with free and royalty-free professional photos!
Burst is a free and royalty-free image bank created by Shopify. Review 1000+ product photos and lifestyle images for use in your store and marketing campaigns.
8. Install an analytical tool
It is important to install an analytical tool on your online store before your launch. Analytical data will provide you with valuable information about your visitors and customers. In a physical store, it is possible to track consumer behavior and start conversations very easily. But online, you are literally blind with no analytical data.
9. Develop a pre-launch marketing plan
All of these optimizations aside, you need to make sure you have a well thought out pre-launch marketing plan . Otherwise, you won’t reach any leads.
10. Adjust your shipping preferences and configure settings related to tax collection
Make sure you configure your tax collection settings and shipping preferences correctly for the product (s) you are selling. Double-check these settings through the admin panel of your Shopify store.
11. Make it easy for your prospects to contact you
Clearly highlight contact information on every page. Try to include your business address, phone number, and even set up a live chat service on your website if you can. These optimizations have been shown to help reduce buyer concerns.
12. Install only essential applications
It can be hard to control your enthusiasm when discovering Shopify’s App Store and all the amazing apps you can add to your online store. But when it comes to preparing for the opening of your e-commerce site, it is best to install only the essentials.
If we were preparing the launch of our own online store, we would install an email marketing application like Klaviyo.
13. Configure your billing settings
If the end of your 14-day Shopify free trial is approaching and you are still preparing to launch your online store, be sure to fill in your payment information in your site interface to avoid any inconvenience. Once your store is open to the public.
Digitac 