I'm launching my first Shopify store — what order should I do things in?

Work outside-in so you never redo decisions. Roughly: (1) nail your brand basics — name, logo, colors, voice; (2) pick and style your theme; (3) load real products with good photos, descriptions, and variants; (4) wire the operational layer — payments, taxes, shipping zones; (5) set up the essentials only — analytics, one email flow, a privacy/returns policy; (6) QA on a real phone, then connect your domain and launch.

The mistake most first-timers make is installing 15 apps and obsessing over the theme before they have a single product properly loaded. Get one product page genuinely great first — it's the template for everything else. Don't wait for perfect; launch when checkout works and a few products look good.