I am seeking guidance on the best way to introduce a new theme onto an already complex e-commerce Shopify website.
I am new to the Shopify go-live process, this is the first time I am going to launch a new theme that I have built. I understand the building process and could do with some clarification on the go-live steps.
The job:
A complex e-commerce company has had us build a new design and way of navigating through to product pages. Introducing new collections and tags. There are also new pages and will be a dramatic change to URLs from an SEO point of view.
The store will remain in the same place, on their server, the same domain name, in their control. I need to be able to provide them with an importable version of our development store, with guidance on how to push this live without breaking and allowing us to test the site on the live-server before opening it up to the users.
The implementation:
I have created the store, the pages, the collections, the tags, all the bells and whistles. I have uploaded their latest database of products onto the development store and set these up into the collections and store filters.
The question:
How do I put this live onto the old store with the least down-time & having the ability to test the newly created store before customers can see it?
The break-down of the question:
What files need packaging? What is the easiest way to package up these files for the client company? What is the best way to install the packaged files? What is the best way to test the website?
One last concern:
Is it possible to keep the existing stores orders and customer user profiles?
