Common Mistakes New Shopify Store Owners Make
Setting up a Shopify store looks straightforward from the outside. Pick a theme, add some products, connect a payment gateway, and you're trading. In practice, most first-time store owners we meet across Wellington and the wider NZ have made at least a few of the same avoidable errors, usually in three places: the product pages, the checkout flow, and shipping setup. None of these mistakes are fatal on their own, but together they quietly cap how much a new store can sell.
Here's what we see most often, and what to do instead.
Product Page Mistakes
Thin or Copy-Pasted Descriptions
A product page with a two-line description copied from the supplier's catalogue tells Google, and your customer, almost nothing. Shoppers want to know what a product does for them, how it's used, and why it's better than the alternative sitting in a browser tab next to yours. Generic descriptions also make it harder to rank in Google search, because there's nothing unique on the page for search engines to index.
The fix is proper product content, written for the customer, not just the supplier's spec sheet. This is one of the reasons content writing is worth investing in from the start rather than backfilling it later once the store is live and sales are already underprforming.
Poor Quality or Inconsistent Images
New store owners often use whatever images the supplier provides: low resolution, inconsistent backgrounds, or watermarked stock photos. Customers can't touch or try a product online, so the photography is doing all the persuading. A store with mismatched imagery looks unfinished, even if the products themselves are excellent.
Missing the Basics That Build Trust
Reviews, clear pricing (including whether GST is included), sizing or specification details, and a straightforward returns policy all matter more than owners expect. Skipping these isn't usually intentional, it's just easy to miss when you're focused on getting products live quickly.
Slow Product Pages
Page speed is often overlooked until it's a problem. A product page loaded with oversized images and unnecessary apps can crawl, and Shopify shoppers will bounce before they even see what you're selling. Store themes should be built to score well on Google PageSpeed, not just look good in a demo.
Checkout Mistakes
Forcing Account Creation
Requiring a customer to create an account before they can buy adds friction at the exact moment you want none. Shopify's checkout is built to convert; new owners sometimes add extra steps or apps on top of it that work against the platform rather than with it.
Not Testing the Full Buying Journey
It's common for a new owner to test that a product can be added to cart, but never actually complete a full purchase, including entering a real card, choosing shipping, and receiving the confirmation email. Small breakages (a shipping rate that doesn't calculate, a discount code that doesn't apply) often only show up when you walk through checkout as a genuine customer would.
Ignoring Mobile Checkout
Most Shopify traffic in New Zealand, as elsewhere, arrives on a phone. A checkout that hasn't been checked on mobile, where buttons are too small or a form field misbehaves, quietly loses sales that never get flagged anywhere.
Shipping Mistakes
Flat Rates That Don't Reflect Reality
New owners frequently set a single flat shipping rate without checking it against actual courier costs for different weights, sizes, or delivery zones (rural NZ addresses being the classic example). This either erodes margin on heavier orders or overcharges customers on lighter ones, and both outcomes cost you sales or profit.
No Clear Delivery Expectations
Not telling customers how long delivery will take, especially for rural NZ addresses, creates support queries and refund requests that a simple line of text on the product page or at checkout would have prevented.
Forgetting GST and Payment Handling
Shipping, payments and GST all need to work together correctly from day one. This is exactly the kind of detail that's easy to get wrong when building a store solo, and expensive to unpick once orders are already coming in.
Why These Mistakes Are So Common
None of this happens because store owners aren't capable. It happens because Shopify makes it easy to get a store live, but doesn't automatically make it easy to get a store right. Product loading, image handling, shipping rules and checkout testing all take real time, and most new owners are running the rest of the business at the same time.
This is where a proper build process earns its keep. At Media Giant, we've built more than 200 websites for NZ businesses from our base in Wellington, and Shopify stores are one of the areas where the gap between "live" and "actually selling" shows up fastest.
Our approach uses AI-assisted development with a person reviewing every output, so stores go live fast without skipping the checks that matter. For Shopify specifically, that means:
- Free product loading, including variants, pricing and shipping rules, checked before launch
- Google Shopping Ads setup included, so products are visible to buyers searching with intent
- SEO-ready architecture and themes built to score in the high 90s on Google PageSpeed
- Content writing included, so product pages aren't left with thin or copy-pasted descriptions
- Plain-English reporting, so store owners can see what's working without needing to be marketers
One example: Possum Boutique moved to a new Shopify store built this way, with product loading handled for them, and organic traffic tripled within six months.
Shopify stores are priced at $250/month, or $2,500 upfront (ex GST), and include the full build, product loading, Google Shopping setup, hosting and reporting.
A Practical Checklist Before You Launch
Before pushing a new Shopify store live, it's worth running through:
- Are product descriptions written for customers, not copied from a supplier?
- Do all product images look consistent and professional?
- Has someone completed a full test purchase, on both desktop and mobile?
- Do shipping rates match real courier costs for NZ, including rural delivery?
- Is GST handled correctly across products and shipping?
- Does the store load quickly, particularly on product pages?
If most of these are ticks, you're in good shape. If a few are question marks, it's worth fixing before spending on ads or content to drive traffic to a store that isn't quite ready to convert it.
Next Step
If you're setting up a Shopify store, or you've launched one and suspect it's leaving sales on the table, get in touch with Media Giant. We're based in Wellington and build Shopify stores for businesses across NZ, with product loading, Google Shopping setup and SEO-ready architecture included from the start. Start your Shopify build and let's make sure your store is set up to sell from day one, not month three.