Publishing your store
Switch your store from draft to live so customers can buy. Drafts let you preview the storefront privately before going public — only a published store is reachable by anyone outside your team.
Publishing your store
Your store has two main states: draft and published. While it's a draft, the store is private — only you and your team can view it. When you publish, it becomes live and anyone with the link can browse and buy. Publishing is a single switch in your dashboard, it takes effect instantly, and you can switch back to draft at any time. Before you flip it on, make sure you have at least one published product and that Stripe is connected, so customers can actually complete a purchase.
The two states
| State | What customers see | What your team sees |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | "Page not found" | The full storefront |
| Published | The full storefront | The full storefront |
There's also a rare "suspended" state that Zillo support may use in unusual situations. You won't encounter it in normal day-to-day use.
Switch from draft to published
- Publish at least one product. A store with no published products shows an empty catalogue — not a great first impression. Open Products, open a product, and set its status to Published.
- Make sure Stripe is connected. Open Settings → Payments and confirm you see a "Connected" badge. Without it, customers can't check out. See Setting up payouts.
- Click "Publish storefront" in the header at the top of your dashboard. The button is visible from any dashboard page.
- Confirm, and you're live. The button changes to show your store is published; click it again any time to return to draft.
The change takes effect immediately — anyone with your link can buy right away. Search engines typically discover your store's address within a few hours.
Before announcing your store, do a real test purchase. Turn on Test mode in Settings → Payments, buy one of your products, and confirm the confirmation email and receipt look right. Then turn Test mode off so real orders go through.
Previewing a draft
While your store is a draft, you and any team member can open the storefront link and see the full site, exactly as it will appear when live. Anyone who isn't on your team gets a "Page not found" page instead.
To see precisely what an anonymous visitor will see, open your storefront link in a private or incognito browser window — that way you're not signed in as a team member.
Want a customer or a colleague to preview the store before launch? Add them in Settings → Team and they'll be able to view the draft. See Inviting team members.
Common issues
"My customer says they can't access my store." The most likely cause is that the store is still a draft. Either publish it from the "Publish storefront" button in the dashboard header, or add the person in Settings → Team so they can preview it.
"A product isn't showing on the storefront." Each product has its own publish state. A product set to draft stays hidden even when the store is published. Open Products and check that the product's status is Published. Archived products are hidden too.
"Checkout fails or the buy button does nothing." This usually means Stripe isn't connected or still verifying. Open Settings → Payments and confirm you see "Connected".