Lesson 6 of 7 5 min
Test it, then go live
Place a real test order with every payment method, walk it through the statuses, then Publish and share the link the right way.
Launch day has one rule: you place the first order. Not a friend, you. A test order catches the missing delivery charge, the UPI ID with a typo, and the confirmation email that went to spam — before a customer does.
Before you publish
Run the go-live checklist top to bottom. It names every setting from lessons two to five and links its guide. If anything is unticked, fix it now; it takes less time than apologising to a customer later.
The test order
- 1Click Open Store at the top of the dashboard and use it on your phone as a customer: browse, filter by category, open a product, add to cart.
- 2Place one order with each payment method you switched on. For online payment, pay a small real amount — you can refund it from the gateway. Check that each order appears in Orders and that you received the order email.
- 3Open each order and walk it through Confirm → Mark shipped → Out for delivery → Mark delivered, pasting a tracking link when you mark it shipped. Then archive it. How to fulfil an order shows every button.
- 4Open the invoice PDF for the manual-payment order and check your UPI ID and bank details on it are right.
Publish
Click Publish in the dashboard header (on a phone, the Publish store bar at the bottom). The pill switches from Draft to Live, and a window shows your link with WhatsApp and Instagram share buttons and a downloadable QR code. Your link is yourslug.sitesplaced.site; a custom domain, if you want one, is in Your own domain. Publishing is free, and you can Unpublish any time without losing anything. See Publish & share.
Share it the right way
- Put the link in your Instagram bio and change DM to order to link in bio on your pinned posts.
- Post it to your WhatsApp status with one product and one line — the message from Find your first ten customers.
- Download the QR code from the Home tab and print it on the thank-you card that goes in every parcel.
- Change the slug before you share, never after; old links stop working when the slug changes.
Launch with an opening offer, not a discount war
A small, time-limited opening coupon with a minimum order — set under Settings → Discounts — gives people a reason to buy today. Price it from your floor, as in Price it right. See How to run a sale or discount.
Write down
The date you went live, and the first order number. You will want both later.
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