The 30-Minute Store Launch Checklist

The quickest way to learn what sells is to open your shop and let real customers tell you. Your logo, your colours and a full catalogue can all wait. What matters on day one is a few good products, a way to get paid and a way to deliver.

The setup below takes about 30 minutes, as long as your payment provider account is already approved. If it isn't, apply for that first. Approval isn't instant.

Before you start

• A merchant account with iKhokha, Yoco or Peach Payments, so customers can pay by card. Customers pay into your own account and your provider pays you out.
• Photos of three to five products. A phone, daylight and a plain background are enough.
• A support email, a phone number and the address couriers will collect from.

1. Sign up (about 5 minutes)

Create your account, answer the three setup questions and accept the merchant agreement. Your shop goes online straight away at its own address, like yourstore.shopeazy.co, and your 7-day free trial starts. For the full walkthrough, see Set up your store.

2. Add three to five products (about 15 minutes)

Start with your best few, not everything you could sell. A small range is easier to photograph, describe and keep in stock. For each product:

• Add a clear photo. Customers can't touch the product, so the photo does that job.
• Write an honest description: what it is, what it's made of, sizes and care.
• Enter your real stock. If stock is left at 0, customers can't buy it.
• Set the status to Active and save. New products start as drafts, hidden from customers.

In a hurry? Create with AI can draft a listing from a photo or a short description. Check everything it fills in before you save. More detail in Add your first product.

3. Connect payments (about 5 minutes)

Go to Settings, then Payments, and paste in the keys from your provider. Your shop can't take card payments until this is done. If you use Yoco, live keys only unlock once Yoco has verified your shop's web address. Until then you can connect a test key. See Connect a payment provider for where to find each provider's keys.

4. Set up delivery (about 5 minutes)

Keep it simple to start: one flat delivery fee for everyone, set high enough to cover your typical parcel. You can add free delivery over a certain order amount, and let local customers collect for free. Once you connect your own The Courier Guy or PUDO account, you can switch to live courier prices and offer lockers. See Set up delivery and collection.

5. Add your details and refresh your policies

Add your support email, phone and address under Settings, then Store details. Then go to Settings, then Legal, and reset each of your four policy pages to the template. They were written before your contact details were in, so until you do this they show placeholders like "[add your support email]".

6. Place a test order

Buy something from your own shop, the way a customer would, and check it shows as paid under Orders. iKhokha has no test mode, so this is a real card payment. Refund it from your iKhokha account afterwards.

Tell people

Share your shop's link on your WhatsApp status, with your contacts and on your social pages. ShopEazy lists your shop in its public directory once it's live with at least one active product, but Google visits on its own schedule. Sharing it yourself is the fastest way to get your first visitors. Ask your first few customers what nearly stopped them from buying, and fix that first.

Choose a plan before your 7-day trial ends. If you don't, your shop goes offline until you subscribe.

What can wait

• Your logo and colours. Add them under Settings, then Brand, when you have a moment.
• Your About page. When you have a moment, go to Storefront, then Pages, and click Start your About page. It starts from what you've already written about your shop, and it's included on every plan.
• Your own domain. Your shopeazy.co address works fine to start.
• A bigger range. Add more products once you know what people buy.

Related

Set up your store

Connect a payment provider

Set up delivery and collection

My shop isn't showing up for customers