This is the shortest complete path from an empty account to a personalizable product a customer can buy. It takes about an hour if you have your artwork ready, and the order matters more than the speed: three of these steps cannot be done before the one above them.
Decide four things first
Write the answers down. Every step below is easier when you already know them, and the design you build is shaped by all four.
Build it in this order
Connect your Shopify store
Nothing publishes without it, so do it first even if you are only exploring. See connect your Shopify store.
Create the product
Give it a name, its variants, and a price on every variant you intend to sell. A variant with no price blocks publishing later, so it is quicker to do now. See pricing and inventory.
Build the design
Open the Design Studio on that product and place your artwork on the surface. Work at the size it prints; the surface carries its real size in millimetres, so what looks right here is what arrives. See product, design, template, surface.
Mark what the shopper can change
Select the layer they will edit and open its Personalization tab. Give the field a Label they will read, decide whether it is Required to check out, and set the rules for what they can enter. See what a personalization field is.
Check the order of the questions
Open the Customizer panel and drag the fields into the order a shopper should meet them. Turn on the eye button, Highlight what customers can change, in the customer form to dim everything they cannot change.
Publish, then place the block
Publishing creates the Shopify product and writes the settings your storefront reads. It does not put anything on your theme; that is the theme block. See what publishing does and the customizer theme block.
Buy it yourself
Place one order through Shopify’s test gateway. It produces the real print files and stops before any provider, so it costs nothing and proves everything up to production. See what it costs to try.
What to do with the second hour
Read your own product page as a shopper would. Is the first question the one they expect? Does the help text under each field say what a good answer looks like? Is there anything they can enter that you would not want to print?
Then pick one thing to improve and leave the rest. A product that sells is worth more than a product that is finished.
Common questions
Can I start in the Design Studio?
Only on an existing product. A design attaches to a product, so the product comes first even when the artwork is the interesting part.
Do I need a print provider for this?
No. Build and preview without one, and connect a provider when you are ready to fulfil real orders.
How long does publishing take?
Usually seconds. If it refuses, it tells you how many things to fix. See publishing errors.
My product is on Shopify and shows no customizer.
Publishing and placing are two steps. The theme block is the second one.
What should my first product be?
The simplest thing you would actually sell. One surface, one field. Every recipe in this category builds on that shape.
Next
Pick a recipe: a photo shirt for the most common product, or a monogram for the strictest one.