Setting up your online store

After you've set up Shopify, most of the work is done.

  • Your online store will automatically use your Shopify settings for checkout and order fulfillment.
  • Your products will automatically appear on your online store.
  • Your online store is automatically assigned a unique myshopify.com domain name, or website address. You domain name is based on either the store name that you entered when you signed up or the domain name that was autogenerated if you did not enter a store name at that time. You can choose a new myshopify.com domain name after you sign up for Shopify to display in the address bar to customers. You can only change the myshopify.com domain one time. Learn more about choosing a new .myshopify.com domain name.

There are a few steps you should follow before launching to make sure your online store is ready for customers.

Edit the theme defaults

Your online store uses a default theme, Dawn, to lay out content. You can choose a different theme, but either way you will need to edit the theme's default sections using the theme editor.

You can also change the General settings for the theme to customize colors and fonts to match your business.

You should link to store policies from your online store navigation so that your customers will know what to expect for order fulfillment and returns.

Customize and launch your online store

Launch your online store and open for business by removing the password. You can further customize your online store, but it is best to start selling as soon as possible. If you launch your online store, then you can start promoting your products and working to increase traffic to your store. Then you can use reports and analytics to see how customers are interacting with your online store and make improvements based on that information.

There are a few things you can do to customize your online store:

Upgrading from Shopify Lite

The Online Store sales channel is automatically added to your Shopify admin in the Sales Channels list, unless you are on a Shopify Lite plan. If you upgrade your Shopify plan from Shopify Lite, then you can add the Online Store sales channel.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, click the + button beside the Sales channels heading.
  2. Within the list of available channels, click Learn more beside Online Store.
  3. Click Add channel.

In this section

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