What to set up first in a new Shopify store

You have a store in your admin and it looks good. Before you add products, spend an hour on the settings that are easy to forget and awkward to fix once orders arrive. Menu names below are Shopify’s as we last saw them; they move around now and then.

1. Store details (5 minutes)

Settings → Store details. Check the store name, the contact email, your business address, the currency and the time zone. The address appears on invoices and in your policies, so it should be the one you want customers to see. If you work from home, think about whether to use it.

2. Pick your plan (2 minutes)

Settings → Plan. Until you pick, the store runs on a trial or developer plan and you cannot take real orders. A store you took from us arrives with the Shopify plan decision still open: the choice is yours, and monthly or yearly billing changes the monthly price.

3. Payments (10 minutes)

Settings → Payments. Turn on Shopify Payments if it is offered in your country. It asks for ID and a bank account, and can take a day or two to check you. Do this early. Decide whether you also want PayPal. Each method has its own fees, so look at the rates before you switch one on.

4. Shipping (15 minutes)

Settings → Shipping and delivery. Three things matter:

Ship-from address. It sets which rates and carriers you see.
Zones and rates. Start simple: one rate for your home country, one for the rest. You can refine later.
Package weights. If a product has no weight, weight-based rates will not work for it.

Match what you tell shoppers to what you really charge. A rate that loses money on every parcel is the most common early mistake.

5. Taxes (5 minutes)

Settings → Taxes and duties. Shopify can collect tax where you are registered. Whether you must register, and where, depends on your country and your sales. That is a question for an accountant or your tax office, not for a settings page.

6. Policies (10 minutes)

Settings → Policies. Shopify offers templates for refund, privacy, terms and shipping. Read them and change them to describe what you really do: how many days buyers have to return an item, who pays for postage, how long you take to make a custom order. Shoppers check these pages before they buy, and so does your payment provider.

7. Emails customers receive (5 minutes)

Settings → Notifications. Open the order confirmation and send yourself a preview. Change the sender email and add a sentence in your own voice. These are the emails people actually read.

8. Take the password off, and place one real order (10 minutes)

When you are ready: Online Store → Preferences, remove the storefront password. Then buy your cheapest product yourself, from a phone, all the way through payment. Refund it from the admin afterwards. If something in that path confuses you, it will confuse your customers.

9. Your own address (optional)

Settings → Domains. You can buy a domain through Shopify or connect one you already own. The .myshopify.com address works from day one, so this can wait until you have your first orders.

What to leave for later

Apps, discount codes, email marketing and ads. None of them matter until the steps above work. If a theme section confuses you, you can hide it in the theme editor without losing it.

If you are bringing your products from Etsy, see moving your listings with a CSV file.