What to prepare before building your website: a checklist for owners and operators
When a website build drags on, it's usually not slow development but materials that arrive late. Get these materials ready before kickoff and the project avoids a lot of detours.
From kickoff to launch, design and development usually take up only part of an ecommerce website project. Much more time goes into waiting for and revising materials. We recommend handing this checklist to the person in charge before the project starts.
1. Brand materials
- Logo source files (AI, SVG or high-resolution PNG), including horizontal, stacked and single-color versions.
- Brand colors and fonts (brand guidelines are ideal if you have them).
- Brand introduction: when you were founded, your team and your values, a few paragraphs that explain who you are.
Don’t have complete brand guidelines yet? No problem, we can work them out together during the project. See our brand & visual design service.
2. Product materials
- Product list: names, models, specs and prices (for retail stores) or spec sheets (for B2B sites).
- Product images: white-background main images, detail shots and lifestyle images, ideally originals rather than compressed files.
- Selling points: the 3–5 most important selling points for each product.
- Product categories: how you want buyers to find products.
3. Company and trust materials
- Photos of your factory, warehouse and team.
- Certificates, test reports and patents.
- Clients, press coverage and customer reviews (used with permission).
4. Operations and policies
- Shipping rates, delivery times and the countries and regions you ship to.
- Return and warranty policies.
- Payment methods and details of the receiving entity.
- Customer service email, WhatsApp or other contact details.
5. Accounts and access
- Login access to your domain registrar (or authorize your web team to manage DNS).
- Platform accounts (Shopify, Shoplazza, etc.) or server details.
- Ad and analytics accounts such as Google and Meta.
A quick tip
Materials don’t need to be 100% ready all at once. Prepare what the homepage and core products need first so design and development can get started, and fill in the rest as you go. But confirm your product images and product list as early as possible: they directly determine how many pages the site has and how it’s structured.