How to set up a Shopify staging store (and publish changes safely)

Shopify lets you preview an unpublished theme, but there is no staging area for store content: products, collections, pages and navigation change live the moment you save. A staging store is a second Shopify store used to prepare and check changes before they reach customers.

1. Create the second store

Shopify Plus includes expansion and sandbox stores. On other plans, a development store created through a Shopify Partner account works as staging. Keep it password-protected so customers never find it.

2. Copy live content into it

Export products from live and import them into staging. Collections, pages and menus have no export in the admin, so they are recreated by hand or copied with an app.

3. Make and review changes on staging

Edit products, collections, pages and menus on staging. Before publishing, list exactly what differs from live, field by field, so nothing unintended goes out.

4. Publish, and keep a way back

Copy only the approved changes to live, and record live's version of everything you overwrite, so a bad publish can be reversed.

SafeStage automates steps 2 to 4: it pairs the two stores, copies live to staging, shows every difference, publishes only the changes you tick (checking each one after writing), and undoes any publish exactly.

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