Shopify Store Set Up

Shopify Store Settings, Pages, and Admin Set Up

Last modified: May 26, 2026

Updated May 26, 2026 Expert reviewed

Here’s something most successful Shopify merchants figured out early that nobody talks about enough. The stores that grow fast are rarely the ones with the best products or the cleverest marketing. They’re the ones that got the fundamentals right before they started scaling. A store name that shows up consistently everywhere. Backup systems that mean a theme update gone wrong is an inconvenience rather than a catastrophe. Security settings that mean an account compromise stays theoretical rather than real. None of this is the exciting part of running an ecommerce business, but all of it is the part that lets the exciting stuff actually work.

The good news is that most items in this guide are a one-time job or close to it. You set it up, you move on, and your store is better for it permanently. Most merchants who go through this list come out the other side surprised at how much more confident they feel about their store. Not because anything visible changed, but because they know the foundations are solid. That feeling is worth a lot when you’re trying to grow something.

Key Takeaways

Create your essential pages first, about, contact, FAQ, and legal pages build trust and reduce support volume.

Set your store name, password, and staff permissions before you start selling.

Back up your store regularly, Shopify doesn’t offer one-click backups, so use manual exports or apps.

Review your apps, hosting setup, and sales channels periodically to keep your store running cleanly.

This guide covers everything from building your core pages and getting your documents in place to managing translations, apps, hosting, and the full lifecycle of your store including what to do if you ever need to pause, duplicate, or close it. Let’s get into how to set up your Shopify store settings, pages, and admin.

30-Day Shopify Setup Checklist

If you are staring at a fresh Shopify admin and not sure where to start, here is the realistic priority order. The first seven items are the only ones you truly need before your first sale. The rest can wait until week two or three.

Day 1: Set store name, primary domain, and store currency. Add your business address and contact email to general settings.
Day 2: Configure payment providers (Shopify Payments or your preferred gateway). Test a transaction.
Day 3: Set up shipping zones and rates. Pick one or two shipping options and add free-shipping thresholds if relevant.
Day 4: Create the four legal pages: privacy policy, terms of service, refund policy, shipping policy. Use Shopify’s free templates as a starting point and have them reviewed by a lawyer before you scale.
Day 5: Build the trust pages: about, contact, and FAQ.
Day 6: Turn on two-factor authentication for the owner account. Add staff accounts only for people who actually need access.
Day 7: Configure tax settings for your region. Test that products show correct tax in the cart.
Week 2: Set up email notification templates (order confirmation, shipping, abandoned cart). Connect your social channels and Google Shopping if relevant.
Week 3: Add apps deliberately, reviews, email marketing, analytics. Avoid the temptation to install everything. Each app slows your store down.
Week 4: Set up your first backup routine. Audit which sales channels and apps you actually need.

Building your pages

Creating new pages

Most of the content on a Shopify store lives on product pages and collection pages, but there are plenty of situations where you need a standalone page. An about page, a stockist list, a size guide, a contact page. Standalone pages live under Online Store > Pages in your admin, and you can apply a different page template (assigned through your theme) to each one, useful when you want your about page to look different from your contact page. New pages are not added to your navigation automatically; you have to add them under Online Store > Navigation, which is the step that trips up most first-time merchants. The guide on how to create a new page in Shopify walks through the full process including how to add the page to your navigation once it’s published.

Editing your home page

Your home page is the first thing most new visitors see, and it does a lot of work in a short amount of time. Shopify’s theme editor lets you build and rearrange the home page using sections and blocks without touching any code, drag a section to reorder it, click into a block to edit text or swap an image, and use the preview to see changes before they go live. A few tips that help: keep the first visible section (above the fold) focused on one product or one promise, not five. Avoid sliders if you can, they hurt mobile load time and most visitors only see the first slide anyway. Use the “Mobile” preview at the top of the editor before publishing because Shopify’s mobile and desktop layouts can look very different. The guide on how to edit the home page on Shopify covers how to add, move, and remove sections, how to edit content within each block, and how to preview changes before publishing them.

Adding an FAQ page

An FAQ page reduces customer service volume and helps customers feel confident enough to buy. Common questions about shipping times, returns, sizing, and product details answered in one place mean fewer emails and fewer abandoned carts. Aim for 8 to 15 questions on a single page, fewer than that looks incomplete and more than that becomes hard to scan. Group them by topic (ordering, shipping, returns, product info) and write the answer first, then check that the question matches how a real customer would phrase it. If your FAQ page gets long, an accordion-style layout is easier to scan than a wall of text. The guide on how to add an FAQ to Shopify covers building one natively through the Pages section and using apps that add accordion-style formatting to make longer FAQ pages easier to navigate.

Adding Contact Information

Customers who can’t find a way to reach you don’t buy. It sounds simple, but a missing phone number or buried email address costs more sales than most store owners realize. At minimum your contact page should include an email address, a contact form, your business hours, and a typical response time so customers know what to expect. If you have a physical location, include an address and a map embed. If you do not have a phone line yet, that is fine, but say so explicitly rather than leaving the field blank, which reads as unprofessional. The footer of every page should also include at least one contact method. The guide on how to add contact information to Shopify covers adding your email address, phone number, and other contact details to your store’s footer, contact page, and anywhere else customers expect to find them.

Account and Store Management

The settings behind your customer-facing store matter just as much as the front end. The way you handle account access, sales channels, and store identity affects security, accountability, and how much manual cleanup you face when something breaks.

Removing Sales Channels

Adding a sales channel is easy. Removing one takes a few more steps, and doing it wrong can leave orphaned listings on the platform you’re trying to disconnect from. Before you remove a channel, pause or unpublish your listings on that channel first so Shopify can clean up the sync. Otherwise you can end up with stale product pages still live on Facebook or Google long after you have stopped selling there. Also check for pending orders on the channel you are about to disconnect, once removed, you lose access to that channel’s order data within Shopify. How to remove online sales channels from Shopify walks through disconnecting a channel cleanly so nothing gets left behind.

Store identity

Your store name

Your store name shows up in your browser tab, your customer emails, and your Shopify admin. It is one of the most frequently misconfigured settings for a simple reason, Shopify uses the same field as both your display name (what customers see) and what appears in the page title of your storefront. Get the capitalization and spacing exactly right because it carries over into Google search results and customer email subject lines. If you’re starting fresh and haven’t set one yet, the guide on how to add your store name to Shopify covers where that setting lives. If you’re rebranding or correcting a name set during signup, the guide on how to change a store name in Shopify walks through the change and flags the difference between your store name and your myshopify.com domain, which cannot be changed once set.

Translating your store

If you’re selling to customers in more than one language, Shopify’s translation tools let you add multiple languages to your storefront and either translate content manually or use an app to do it automatically. The cleanest approach is to start with the languages where you already see organic traffic in Google Analytics, translating into a language with zero traffic is a lot of work for no return. Native translation through Shopify Markets handles up to 20 languages but only translates the content that lives in Shopify’s database (product titles, descriptions, theme strings). Static content inside theme sections and most app outputs still need manual translation. The guide on how to translate Shopify covers enabling languages, applying translations to your storefront, and what’s included in native translation versus what requires an app.

Finding files in your admin

As your store grows, your Files section fills up with images, documents, and assets. Shopify’s built-in file search is easy to miss but useful once you know it’s there. Use consistent file naming from day one, “product-name-color-angle.jpg” beats “IMG_4823.jpg” by orders of magnitude when you are hunting for the right image six months later. The Files section does not support folders, so the file name is your only organization mechanism. The guide on how to search for a file on Shopify covers how to use it and how to keep your file library organized so it doesn’t become unmanageable.

Changing Your Password

If you need to update your Shopify account password, how to change your Shopify password covers doing it from account settings, what to do if you’ve forgotten your current password, and how two-factor authentication interacts with the process. Keeping your credentials current is one of the simplest security habits you can build. A password manager is the easiest way to use a strong, unique password without writing it down or reusing it across sites, and Shopify supports passkeys now if you want to skip passwords entirely on the owner account.

Adding Staff Users

Every person who needs access to your Shopify admin needs their own account. Shared logins create accountability problems and make it impossible to track who changed what. When a former employee or contractor needs their access removed, you cannot just keep using the same login, you have to suspend them properly so they cannot get back in. Set permissions as tight as you can: a fulfillment helper does not need access to financial reports, and a content writer does not need access to apps or payment settings. The principle of least privilege is the single biggest security upgrade you can make to a Shopify store. How to add a user to Shopify covers inviting staff, setting permissions so people only see what they need to, and the difference between account types across Shopify’s plans.

Apps Integrations

Extending your store with apps

Shopify’s app store has thousands of tools that add functionality your theme doesn’t include out of the box: reviews, upsells, loyalty programs, email marketing, inventory management, and much more. The hard part is restraint. Each app you install adds JavaScript to your storefront, which slows down page loads, and page speed directly affects conversion rate and SEO. Before installing any app, check the reviews for performance complaints, look at the app’s pricing on a 12-month basis (many apps look cheap monthly and expensive annually), and ask whether the same problem can be solved natively in Shopify or with one tool you already have. The overview of Shopify apps and integrations covers how to find apps worth installing, what to watch out for in terms of performance impact, and how to evaluate whether an app is solving a real problem or just adding noise.

Hosting options

Hosting your Shopify store on another platform

Shopify handles hosting for your store automatically, but there are situations where merchants want more control over where certain parts of their web presence live, typically a marketing site, a blog, or a content-heavy landing page where Shopify’s templating feels limiting. The trade-off is integration complexity: any visitor moving between the externally hosted page and your Shopify store should not feel a jarring change in design or speed. The guide on how to host your Shopify website on another web hosting platform covers what’s possible, what the limitations are, and when it actually makes sense to go down that route.

Running a blog on a separate platform

Some merchants prefer to keep their blog on a platform built specifically for content, like WordPress, while their store runs on Shopify. It’s a legitimate setup and there are good reasons to do it. WordPress gives you more flexibility for long-form content, custom post types, and SEO plugins like Yoast that Shopify’s built-in blog cannot match. The cost is that you now manage two platforms, two hosting bills, and a slightly more complex SEO setup (the blog typically lives on a subdomain or subdirectory, each with its own implications). The guide on whether you can host a blog on another platform and a store on Shopify covers how to connect the two, what the SEO implications are, and how to make the experience feel smooth to visitors moving between the two.

Managing Your Store’s Lifecycle

Backing up your store

Shopify doesn’t offer a native one-click backup, which surprises a lot of merchants. Your products, customers, and orders are safe on Shopify’s servers, but theme customizations and content can be lost if something goes wrong during an update or a theme change. The minimum viable backup routine is a monthly CSV export of products, customers, and orders plus a downloaded copy of your live theme’s .zip file. That gets you data restoration if something is corrupted and a rollback option if a theme update breaks the storefront. If your store has more than a few hundred orders a month or you make frequent theme changes, an automated tool like Rewind pays for itself the first time it saves you. The guide on how to backup a Shopify store covers the best ways to protect your store data using a combination of manual exports and apps.

Duplicating a store

If you’re launching a second store, testing a major redesign, or setting up a development environment, duplicating an existing Shopify store gives you a working copy to start from. Two things to know before you do this: Shopify’s Development Stores are free but cannot accept real orders until upgraded, which makes them ideal for testing without affecting your live data. And duplicating is not the same as cloning, Shopify lets you copy a theme and export product CSVs, but order history, customers, and most apps do not carry over and have to be set up fresh. The guide on how to duplicate a Shopify store covers what can and can’t be copied automatically and the fastest way to get a duplicate up and running.

Pausing your store

Life happens. If you need to step back from your store temporarily without canceling your plan entirely, Shopify’s Pause and Build plan lets you keep access to your admin at a reduced monthly cost while your storefront goes offline to customers. The catch most merchants miss: the Pause and Build plan keeps your storefront visible but prevents checkout. Customers can still see your products and browse, they just cannot buy. If you want the store fully invisible during the pause, you need to password-protect it through theme settings as well. The guide on how to pause or close a Shopify store covers both the pause option and what a full closure looks like, including what happens to your data.

Canceling your store

If you’ve decided to close your store for good, the cancellation process is straightforward but irreversible. Export everything you might need first: customer data (you may need to deliver this to customers under GDPR or CCPA), order history, product catalog, and any blog content. Cancel any third-party app subscriptions separately because canceling Shopify does not cancel them. Finally, decide what to do with your domain, Shopify lets you transfer it out or release it, and once released someone else can grab it within weeks. The guide on how to cancel a Shopify store covers what to do before you cancel, including exporting your data, and exactly what happens to your account, your domain, and any active subscriptions when you confirm the cancellation.

Viewing Your Finances Summary

Shopify’s Finances section gives you a snapshot of revenue, payouts, and transaction fees. It’s the quickest way to see whether your store is performing the way your order volume suggests it should be. The number you actually want to track is net deposit, what Shopify Payments sends to your bank after fees, chargebacks, and refunds. That figure tells you what you really earned this week, which is usually 5 to 10 percent lower than your gross sales because of payment processing fees and the occasional refund. How to view the Finances Summary page on Shopify explains what’s on that page, how to read it, and how to use it to track what you’ve earned versus what’s been paid out, which is useful context whenever you’re reviewing order performance or preparing reports.

What Most Merchants Forget to Set Up

These six settings live in obscure corners of the Shopify admin and routinely get skipped during initial setup. Each one matters in a specific situation, and the situation usually arrives at the worst possible moment.

Cookie consent banner. If you sell to anyone in the EU, UK, or California, you legally need a cookie consent banner. Shopify includes a basic banner under Settings > Customer privacy, but many themes hide it behind a setting you have to enable manually. Verify it actually appears on your storefront from an incognito window.
Abandoned cart recovery emails. Off by default in some Shopify plans. Go to Settings > Checkout > Abandoned checkouts and turn on automatic recovery emails. Industry average recovery rate is around 10 percent of carts, meaningful revenue you would otherwise lose.
Customer accounts setting. Under Settings > Customer accounts, you can choose required, optional, or none. “Optional” is the right default for most stores. “Required” hurts conversion. “None” prevents repeat customers from seeing their order history.
Email notification templates. Shopify’s default order confirmation and shipping emails look generic. Customize them under Settings > Notifications with your brand colors, logo, and tone. These are the most-read emails any business sends, they deserve more than the default template.
Tax overrides for digital products. If you sell digital products alongside physical ones, you probably need to override the default tax treatment for digital items. The default rules vary by region and Shopify does not always pick the right setup automatically. Worth a five-minute review with whoever handles your accounting.
Inventory location settings. Even if you only have one location, set it up properly under Settings > Locations with the correct address. Shopify uses this address to calculate shipping rates and tax. Wrong location address = wrong rates.

Once your store and team are set up, bookmark our Shopify admin login guide so you and your staff always reach the dashboard from the right URL.

FAQs

How Do I Change My Login Email on Shopify?
To change your login email on Shopify, follow these simple steps:
1. Log in to your Shopify account at www.shopify.com using your current email and password.
2. Once logged in, click on your account name in the top right corner of the page, then select “Settings” from the dropdown menu.
3. On the “Settings” page, click on “Users and Permissions” on the left side menu.
4. Find your email address under the “Users” section, and click on the “Edit” button next to it.
5. Now, you can change your email address in the “Email” field and click on the “Save” button when you are done.
6. Check your new email inbox for a confirmation email from Shopify.
7. Click on the confirmation link in the email to verify your new email address.
What is the Shopify admin app?
The Shopify admin app is like having your whole store in your pocket. It’s a mobile app that lets you manage your Shopify store from your phone or tablet, making it super easy to run your business on the go. Here’s what you can do with it:

Key Features
1. Order Management:
  - You can view, manage, and fulfill orders right from your phone. Plus, you get real-time notifications whenever a new order comes in, so you’re always in the loop.
2. Product Management:
  - Adding, editing, and organizing products is a breeze. You can even upload product photos directly from your phone - perfect for those last-minute additions.
3. Customer Management:
  - You have access to all your customer information and their order history. Need to reach out? You can email or call customers directly from the app.
4. Analytics and Reports:
  - Keep an eye on your sales, traffic, and other key metrics. The app provides detailed reports to help you understand how your store is performing.
5. Inventory Management:
  - Track your inventory levels and update stock quantities on the fly. The app will even notify you when you’re running low on stock.
6. Marketing and Discounts:
  - Create and manage discount codes with just a few taps. You can also monitor your marketing campaigns to see what’s working.
7. Sales Channels:
  - Manage your store’s presence on various sales channels, like social media and marketplaces, all from one place.
8. Staff Management:
  - Assign and manage staff accounts and permissions. You can also keep an eye on staff activity and performance.
Benefits
- Convenience: Whether you’re at home, on the road, or even on vacation, you can manage your store anytime, anywhere.
- Real-time Updates: Get instant notifications and alerts to stay updated on everything happening with your store.
- Efficiency: Respond to orders, customer inquiries, and inventory changes quickly without needing to be tied to a computer.
- Improved Customer Service: Communicate with customers and resolve issues promptly, helping you provide top-notch service.
How to Get the Shopify Admin App

Getting started is easy. Just download the Shopify admin app from Apple App Store for iOS or the Google Play Store for Android. Once installed, log in with your Shopify credentials, and you’re all set to manage your store on the go.
Do I need to set up all Shopify store settings before launching?

You don’t need every setting configured before your first sale, but a few are essential. At minimum, set your store name, add a contact page, create your privacy policy and terms of service, and configure your payment and shipping settings. Everything else - like translations, staff accounts, and app integrations - can be added as your store grows. The key is to get the trust-building pages live before you start driving traffic.
How do I add staff accounts to my Shopify store?

Go to Settings → Users and permissions in your Shopify admin. Click “Add staff” and enter their email address. You can set specific permissions for each staff member so they only access the sections they need - for example, giving your fulfillment team access to orders but not to store settings or financial reports. Each Shopify plan has a limit on how many staff accounts you can create.
Can I back up my entire Shopify store?

Shopify doesn’t offer a single-click full backup. Your product data, orders, and customer records are stored on Shopify’s servers and are safe there, but theme customizations, page content, and blog posts need separate backups. You can export products and customers as CSV files from your admin, and download your theme files manually. For automated backups, third-party apps like Rewind can schedule regular snapshots of your entire store.
What order should I set up my Shopify store settings in?

Start with the seven essentials before you launch: store name, primary domain, payment provider, shipping zones, the four legal pages (privacy, terms, refund, shipping), the trust pages (about, contact, FAQ), and two-factor authentication on the owner account. After launch, work through email notification templates, abandoned cart recovery, tax settings, and your first backup routine. Apps and translations come last, most stores install too many apps too early and slow themselves down before they have any traffic to lose.
What are the minimum security settings every Shopify store needs?

Three things, all free. Turn on two-factor authentication for every staff account, not just the owner. Set staff permissions to the minimum each person needs, fulfillment staff should not see financials, and content writers should not see app settings. Review your active sessions monthly under your account profile and sign out any device you do not recognize. If you handle a lot of orders, also enable login alerts so you get an email whenever someone signs in from a new device.

Conclusion: Getting Your Setting, Pages, and Admin Set Up Right

Every item in this guide is one of those things that feels like a chore until it’s done in a flash and then you never think about it again. Your privacy policy sits in the footer doing its job. Your store name shows up correctly everywhere customers see it. Your backup runs quietly so that if something goes wrong during a theme update you’re back up in minutes rather than hours. Your security settings mean your account is protected without you having to think about it.

That’s the real value of getting the admin side of your store right. Not any single thing on the list, but the cumulative effect of a store that has all its pieces in place. Customers feel it even when they can’t name it. A store that has a clear FAQ, visible legal pages, a consistent brand name, and a professional feel throughout converts better than one that doesn’t. That’s not an opinion, it’s just what trust does to buying behavior.

The merchants who build the most successful Shopify stores aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets or the most experience. They’re the ones who treat every part of their store as worth doing properly, even the parts nobody sees. Use the 30-day checklist at the top as your priority order, double-check the six commonly-missed settings before you start running ads, and treat each linked guide below as the in depth resource when you’re ready for it. Do that, and you’re already ahead of most of the competition.

Written by:

Lindsey Perry

I have 5+ years of experience with Shopify and 15+ years of experiences on other eCommerce platforms. My theme reviews are designed to help store owners find the best theme for them.