Publish and update a shop

Publishing a store works like publishing any FromScratch site — one button — but a store carries more than pages: a catalog, payment settings and its own admin. This guide covers the first launch and every update after it.

Before your first launch

Run through this list in the preview:

1. Catalog — the demo products are gone and yours have a price and a photo ("list my products").
2. A full order — cart, checkout, delivery method, payment. With Stripe in test mode, pay with 4242 4242 4242 4242.
3. Payments — manual only, or Stripe connected from the Payments button (Take payments in your store).
4. Currency and shipping — the right currency and delivery options (Currency and shipping).
5. Mobile — switch the preview to Mobile and browse the shop once.

Note

Publishing is included in the Starter and Pro plans. On the Free plan you can build and test the whole store in the preview.

Publish

1. Click Publish in the project's top bar. The button shows Publishing….
2. A store takes a few minutes: the platform prepares your shop's data (catalog, regions, settings) from the preview, then builds and starts the live store.
3. When it's done, the project shows Live and your store has its public address, with HTTPS.
4. An Admin button appears in the top bar: it gives the live admin's address and its Credentials (The store admin).

The live store doesn't change by itself

Your preview and your live store are two separate copies. Changes you make in the preview — new products, a new design, payments switched on — reach customers only when you Republish.

What needs a republish:

• product, price, photo and collection changes made in the preview;
• design and text changes;
• turning payments on, off, or switching Stripe from test to live;
• a currency or shipping change.

What doesn't: saving Variables on a published project updates the live store's settings and restarts it on its own. For Stripe, the Payments panel still asks you to republish once, so the live checkout picks up the new payment setup.

Orders on the live store

The live store keeps its own data: the orders and customer accounts created there live with the live store. A republish — and any restart of the live store, for example after saving Variables — starts it again from your preview's data.

Warning

Before you republish, check the new orders in the live admin and handle them. Card payments always stay in your Stripe dashboard, which remains your record of what was paid. Changes made directly in the live admin are not copied back to the preview.

Your own domain

Once the store is live you can attach your own domain from Domain (Starter and Pro): add the A record shown, and HTTPS is set up automatically. See Use your own domain.

Take it offline

Unpublish takes the store offline (« Take this app offline? »). Your project, catalog and preview stay intact; publish again whenever you want.

If publishing fails

If the button shows Build failed, click Retry once. If it fails again, ask the agent: "publishing failed, can you check why?" — it can read what went wrong and fix it. More in Fix common problems.

Publishing failed with "Build failed". Find out why and fix it, then tell me when I can publish again.

FAQ

Related

• Publish, republish, unpublish
• Preview vs published site
• Take payments in your store
• The store admin