Quick Shopify Launch Services Checklist for 2026

What should be on a Shopify launch checklist?

Ask anyone who has launched a Shopify store what went wrong and it's rarely anything big. It's the confirmation email that still had the theme's sample logo on it, or a shipping rate to Kerala that somehow said ₹0, or a returns page that went live with nothing on it.

We built this list from the launches we've run at Amwhiz and trimmed it to what still matters in 2026. It's split into five phases, roughly in the order you'll need them. If an agency is building your store, go through it together and write a name next to every item, because the ones without an owner are the ones that get missed.

A few items depend on someone outside your business approving something, like payment gateway KYC. We've marked those (start early). Get them moving in the first week, even if nothing else is ready.

Want this as a Google Sheet with owners and due dates? Message us on WhatsApp and we'll send you a copy you can share with your team. Get the checklist

Phase 1: Accounts and decisions

Nothing here involves design, which is exactly why people skip it. Sort these out first and the rest of the project runs a lot more smoothly.

• Open the Shopify store with your own business email, not your agency's

• Pick a plan that suits the order volume you expect in year one

• Buy or connect your domain, and set up email on it

• Add your agency or developer as a collaborator rather than the owner

• Apply for Shopify Payments, Razorpay, PayU or your chosen gateway (start early)

• Open your courier or shipping aggregator account (start early)

• Write down what must be ready on launch day and what can wait

• Pick a launch date and set milestone dates working back from it

Phase 2: Building the store

This is the part everyone pictures when they think about a launch. Try to get product data and photos in early, because they hold up this phase more than design does.

• Choose a theme and work on a copy of it, not the live version

• Add your logo, favicon, brand colours and fonts

• Build the homepage, product page, collection page, cart and contact page

• Set up the main menu and footer links

• Load products with titles, prices, SKUs, variants, weights and stock levels

• Name image files sensibly and add alt text to every product photo

• Write descriptions that answer what buyers actually ask about

• Group products into collections the way your customers shop

• Install only the apps you need on day one, such as product reviews

• Edit the order confirmation, shipping and abandoned cart emails

• Check every page on a phone, since that's where most visitors will see it

• Confirm currency, time zone and weight units in settings

Phase 3: Payments, shipping and legal pages

In India this phase has a few extra moving parts, mainly COD and GST. Leave enough time for your accountant to look at the tax settings.

• Turn on your gateway and test it with a real, low-value order

• Decide whether to offer cash on delivery, and set any COD fee or order limit

• Set up GST or other tax rules with your accountant's help

• Create shipping zones and rates, including any free-shipping threshold

• Add pincode checks if your courier doesn't deliver everywhere

• Connect your shipping or label printing app

• Publish your returns, shipping, privacy and terms pages

• Show your registered business name, address and contact details

• Add a cookie notice if you sell into the EU or UK

• Make sure invoices show the correct tax details

Phase 4: SEO and tracking

It's much easier to set these up before launch than to fix them once Google has already crawled the site.

• Give your homepage, main collections and best-selling products their own page titles and meta descriptions

• Tidy product and collection URLs so they're short and make sense to a person

• Shrink oversized photos so pages still load on a patchy 4G connection

• Add your store's sitemap to Google Search Console

• Link your products to Google Merchant Center so they can show up in Google Shopping for free

• Get GA4 and the Meta Pixel running, then place a cheap test order and look for it in both dashboards

• Moving from an old site? Map every old product URL to its new address with a 301, or you'll lose rankings you spent years building

• Publish a couple of blog posts your customers would actually search for, like a sizing guide or care instructions

• If people find you on Instagram, switch on Instagram and Facebook shopping

Phase 5: Testing and launch day

Keep the final week for testing only. Any new idea that comes up goes on the phase-two list, and whoever wanted to build it can spend the week clicking through the store instead.

Before launch

• Buy something with each payment method you offer, COD included

• Refund one order in full and another one partly

• Try your discount codes, including one that should have expired

• Check that stock goes down after an order and sold-out products can't be added to the cart

• Open the store on an Android phone, an iPhone and a laptop, using at least two browsers

• Click through every link in the menu, footer and emails

• Read each page once, looking for typos and leftover demo text

• Run the homepage and one product page through PageSpeed Insights and fix the worst issue it reports

• Send a test order to a Gmail address and make sure the confirmation doesn't land in spam

On launch day

• Remove the password page and make the finished theme live

• Buy one product with your own card and follow the parcel until it reaches you

• Keep the Shopify orders screen and analytics open for the day, so nothing odd goes unnoticed

• Send the launch announcement to your mailing list and post it on your social accounts

• Ask your developer to stay on standby for two days, in case real customers hit something testing missed

How long does all this take?

Fifty-three items sounds like a lot, but plenty of them take five minutes. If your product data and photos are ready, a small team can usually get through the whole list in two to four weeks. The slowest part tends to be phase one, simply because you're waiting on other companies, so get those gateway and courier applications in first.

Questions people ask about launch checklists

Which items cause the most delays? Gateway approval, courier account setup and missing product information, in that order. All three can start on day one.

Can I launch before everything is ticked off? Yes, for some items. A blog or social shopping can wait until after launch. Payment testing, policy pages and mobile checks can't.

Can Amwhiz work through the checklist for us? Yes. Our two-week Starter launch (₹45,000) covers a store with up to 10 products. The four-week Professional launch (₹1,20,000) covers up to 50 products, app setup, speed work and analytics.

Want us to tick these boxes for you?

We've launched Shopify stores for fashion, beauty, Ayurveda and lifestyle brands in India and the Gulf. Share your products and your target date, and we'll tell you honestly how long your launch should take.

Book a free consultation · Chat on WhatsApp · sales@amwhiz.com · +91 91500 65500

Keep reading: How to Launch a Shopify Store Faster With Amwhiz · Rapid Shopify Store Setup and Theme Build by Amwhiz