- Hey guys, Sam here from keycommerce.com.
In this video, you're going to get
my ultimate launch checklist
for launching a Shopify e-commerce store.
These are things that you need to check
before you launch your e-commerce store on Shopify
to make sure it goes well.
I'll leave a link below this video
to the checklist that I go through in this video,
so you can go and access it yourself
and make sure that you check off every single point.
Number one, most important,
check your website functionality.
Go through your website, check it on your desktop,
on your phone, on multiple devices,
does it work on both narrow and wide screen devices?
With Google Chrome,
there's a feature that allows you
to test your e-commerce store on different device sizes,
it's really, really helpful.
It's really important
that you make sure your website looks good
on a mobile device, that it's mobile friendly.
What about cross browser compatibility?
I also recommend that you check your website on Safari,
Chrome, Firefox, even Internet Explorer
just to see what it looks like on these other browsers.
You wanna make sure that you check all the images
or the text, the fonts,
make sure the fonts are loading as well,
as well as make sure all the buttons are working.
That's also important too.
Make sure you double check the header links
and the footer links too
'cause these can sometimes break.
Okay, once you confirm that your website,
your e-commerce store is looking good
and it works on all these different browsers and devices,
the next thing you need to do,
is check your Shopify settings.
This means checking things like your business settings,
make sure that your customer service email
and your website admin email are correct.
And they're sending it to your email address.
Make sure that your store name your phone numbers,
your address, they're correct in Shopify,
as well as on your actual website.
You also wanna confirm your payment setup.
Make sure that your payment gateway is set up,
make sure it's working.
And if you also wanna set up other payment gateways,
like you wanna get PayPal installed,
make sure it's properly installed and working.
I then recommend checking your shipping settings,
go through those shipping settings
and just confirm that they're set up
to what's actually applicable for your store.
How do you actually ship your products?
And is that reflected in the settings?
And when someone buys, go through the checkout and test
does it actually work for their zip code,
their postcode, their location?
Another tip, if you're running Google Shopping campaigns,
is to make sure that your shipping settings in Shopify,
match your shipping settings in Google Merchant Center.
If you don't set this up properly,
you can actually get suspended
and it's a real pain in the butt to fix it.
Trust me, I know.
The last thing is your tax settings
and make sure this matches up the tax settings
for where you're selling to,
this is really important as well.
Okay, the next thing I'll do,
is go through every single product page
with a fine tooth comb.
I'm gonna make sure that it's all set up properly,
and for each individual product,
make sure the title is correct,
the images are for that product
and they're correct as well.
The description is good,
just go through and check everything
so you haven't copy and pasted something wrong
or done something wrong here.
Also make sure you check the variance.
That's really important too,
a lot of people make that mistake.
Lastly, I'll make sure I check the inventory.
So if you're tracking inventory in Shopify
and making sure it's up to date,
make sure it's up to date
with the inventory that you actually have.
Okay, so you check the product pages,
the next thing are the legal pages.
The legal pages are the pages on your website
that tell the customers all about
how you actually run your store.
Stuff like the shipping page, the returns and refunds page,
the terms and conditions page, the privacy policy page,
all these pages are very, very important.
Make sure that you've added them
so they match the actual policies
and the way that you've run your store.
If you just use a template, make sure you edit it
based on your store.
Okay, this is a really important thing.
I'll leave a link below this video
in the description to another video
I created here on YouTube,
where I go through how to set up these four pages,
terms and conditions, privacy policy page,
returns on refunds and shipping page, all on Shopify.
I walk you through what to put on each page,
what you should look out for,
what you should change based on your store as well.
Go check out that video links in the description.
So you basically have to add these pages
as pages in your Shopify store.
And if you wanna drive page traffic to your store,
you're going to need these pages.
For example, Google will suspend your account
if you don't have these pages properly set up on your store.
So make sure you get them set up right now.
Okay, the next thing I like to do,
is go through all the apps on my store,
review them, make sure they're all okay.
I'll go through each app independently,
go through the settings
and make sure it's set up properly.
I'll also check if there are any apps that I'm not using.
You don't want that app on your store
because the code could slow down your website, okay?
I only want the apps installed
that I'm actually going to use.
Okay, I review the apps,
the next thing I review is the Favicon.
If you don't know what the Favicon is,
is that little icon image at the top of the browser
when people are browsing your website.
It just represents the website
and that changing tabs they can get a better idea
of what your story is.
You can put your logo there,
and you can add that in Shopify in the theme section,
there's a setting in there.
Okay, we're almost there.
The next thing I recommend doing,
is reviewing your checkout.
Put through a fake order, does your checkout actually work?
Shopify has its own way
of allowing you to put through fake orders,
but it means actually pausing your site.
If you haven't launched yet,
that's generally okay.
Something else you can do,
is put through a 100% discount code.
So you need to create a discount code for 100% off,
and then put through an order,
with these discount codes you don't have to pay.
Just make sure you go through that checkout process,
make sure it works and everything looks okay.
I also recommend you test the contact page form
on your website.
You probably have a Contact Us page,
and you probably have a form on that page.
And make sure that when someone fills it in,
you get sent an email to your email address,
you don't wanna miss out on those contacts.
If someone sends you a message from that contact form,
you wanna receive it.
So check to make sure that it's sending emails
to your email address.
Okay, once I go through all these items,
and I make sure they all match up, everything's ready,
we're ready to launch our e-commerce store.
Remove the store password,
and you're ready to go live.
That's it guys,
I hope that checklist was helpful for you guys
for launching your e-commerce store.
If it was, let me know in the comments below.
Give this video a thumbs up I really appreciate it
and check out my other videos.
Check out the video on creating your legal pages,
check out the rest of my channel.
I'm really doing everything I can to help you guys
with this content.
Other than that guys, thanks for watching,
and I'll see you in the next video.
Bye for now.
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