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Getting Started

Going Live: Publish Checks, Policies and Privacy

What BestWebby checks when you switch a storefront on, how to review your store policies, how the cookie banner affects your store statistics, and the per-store voice search switch.

Overview

Switching a storefront on is one toggle on Channels → Sites. This guide covers what happens around that toggle: the checks BestWebby runs before a site goes live, the policy pages every store shows, how the cookie banner decides what your store statistics count, and the voice search switch each store has.

Step 1: Switch the site on

Go to Channels → Sites and turn on the toggle next to the site. Before anything changes, BestWebby checks your store for the things that would get in a shopper's way, in the order a shopper would hit them:

CheckWhat it means
No products are publishedShoppers would find an empty store. Publish at least one product first.
Payments are not connectedShoppers can browse but cannot pay at checkout until you connect your Stripe account.
No shipping ratesYou sell physical products but have no active shipping rate, so shoppers cannot choose how to get their order.
Store policies not reviewedYour refund, shipping, privacy and terms pages go live with the store.
No contact email for shoppersOrder emails would go out without a support address.

Each item links straight to the screen that fixes it. You can choose Not yet and fix them first, or Publish anyway and fix them after. When nothing is missing, the dialog says so and you just click Publish. If the site cannot be switched on, the toggle stays off rather than showing a site as live when it is not.

Step 2: Review your store policies

Every store shows a privacy policy, refund policy, terms of service and shipping policy from the day it opens. They are built from your store name and the returns, shipping and payments text you write in Shop settings, so a store that never fills those in goes live with policies that say nothing about how it actually trades.

  1. Go to Settings → Legal and open Your store's policies.
  2. Read each policy, then add your own returns, shipping and payments terms in Shop settings.
  3. To use your own wording for terms or privacy, publish a page of that type in your site's Pages. Your page then replaces the standard one everywhere it is linked.
  4. Click I've reviewed these.

Review your store policies is a step on your get-started checklist. It ticks itself once you have saved your own policy text or pages, or when you click I've reviewed these.

Your storefront asks each shopper before measuring anything beyond what the store needs to work. Cart, sign-in and checkout are essential and are always on.

  • Store statistics wait for a yes. The visits and purchases in your store statistics, and Google Analytics if you added a Measurement ID, count only shoppers who choose Accept all or turn on Analytics under Preferences. Shoppers who choose Reject non-essential are not counted, so your visitor numbers cover the shoppers who allowed it.
  • Marketing appears only with an ad pixel. The banner offers a Marketing choice only when a Meta or TikTok pixel is set in Settings → General → Tracking. Ad pixels, and purchase details sent to Meta's Conversions API, are used only for shoppers who allow it. A shopper's earlier yes never covers a pixel you add later.
  • Shoppers can change their mind at any time from the Cookie preferences link in your storefront footer.

The banner is on for every store by default. The Cookie consent banner card on Settings → General → Tracking lets you turn it off, which counts and tracks every visitor without asking. Only do that if you are sure none of your visitors are in a region that requires consent; that decision is yours as the store owner. A choice a shopper has already recorded is still honoured.

Your store's privacy policy explains the store statistics to shoppers automatically.

Each storefront has its own Voice search switch on Channels → Sites. When it is on, shoppers can search your store by speaking, and the store's privacy policy mentions it automatically. It is off until you turn it on.

Voice search also has to be enabled for stores on the platform. If it is not yet, the Sites screen tells you so; your choice is kept and takes effect as soon as it is.

Before your first refund

If you switch on two-factor authentication (Settings → General → Security), every refund asks for a fresh 6-digit code from your authenticator app. That covers refunding an order or a booking, approving a refund or store credit on a return, refunding a sale at the register, and approving a refund suggested in the Inbox or on Home. One code covers further protected actions for five minutes. Team members without two-factor authentication are not asked.

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