Shopify website launch checklist: the storefront

The admin shows everything you have created, including products that are not yet part of the online store and themes that are not yet live. A product can be complete and visible to you, yet missing from the storefront because it was never published to the online store. A collection built from rules can be empty for visitors if no product matches the rule. A password page may still sit in front of the whole store. You see a finished store from inside admin, and a visitor sees an unfinished one from outside.

• Open a private window, sign out of admin, and load the address customers will type, not a preview link.
• Search the storefront for each product by name. A product that search cannot find is not on the storefront.
• Open every collection a visitor reaches from the menu on a phone, and count the products in each.
• Click every link in the main menu and the footer, and note any that lead to a missing or hidden page.
• Add one product to the cart, open the cart, and confirm checkout opens with the right item and price.

Launch checks usually begin in admin, where every product is one click away. Start somewhere else. Open a private window, sign out of anything you are logged into, and type the address your customers will use, not the preview link you have been sharing with your team. A preview can show a theme that is not yet live, and an admin session can show products the public cannot reach. The first page a stranger sees is the one that decides whether the rest of the check matters.

A product reaches the storefront only when it is published to the online store. Until then it can be complete in admin, with photos, prices and a stock count, and still be absent from collections, search and its own page address. Check this by searching the storefront for the product by name, not by opening it from admin. If the search finds nothing, the product is not on the channel, and any link you send will open to a missing page.

Automated collections follow a rule rather than a list. A collection that filters by a tag stays empty if the tag was typed wrong on every product. Check the tag on one product first, then on every product in the collection. Open each collection a visitor reaches from the menu on a phone, and count the products. An empty collection looks finished in admin and broken on the storefront.

Two settings decide what a stranger sees before any of this matters. While password protection is on, visitors see a password page and nothing else. The theme visitors get is the one set as live, which may not be the theme you have been editing or previewing. Check both before you announce the store, since a launch email that leads to a password page wastes the first visits the launch was meant to bring.

The purchase path is where a launch fails quietly. A stranger adds one product, opens the cart, and checks out. Run that path yourself in a private window with a product you have just published, not one you have checked for weeks. Confirm the cart count changes, the cart shows the right item and price, and checkout opens. A stranger who gets an empty cart or a stalled checkout does not write to you. They leave.

A simulated visitor runs the same path with no admin access, so the cart and checkout are the ones a stranger gets. It reports the step where the run stopped, a screenshot, and any script error or failed request recorded there. If password protection is on, the run needs a site password you provide, using paid credits, and it stops at the gate without one. It does not read your products, collections or menus, so the checks above still come from you.

Stores keep changing after launch. A new product that is never added to the online channel, a menu link to a page you renamed, or a theme switch can break the storefront while admin looks fine. After each change, search for the new product from the storefront, tap the menu on a phone in a private window, and run the purchase path to the payment step.