Nail Your Product Launch in 2025: A Step-by-Step Guide - Shopify

Unlock secrets to a successful 2025 product launch with step-by-step strategies, key metrics to track, and expert tips to make your product stand out.

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Launching a new product is no small feat. With so many moving parts, the journey from concept to market can feel overwhelming—especially if it’s your first time.

Success comes from in-depth research, tight planning, and marketing to the right audience.

In fact, 95% of launches fail to hit their commercial targets, according to a recent analysis by Zero100. That’s why building a strong foundation for your product is key to standing out and driving real results.

Ahead, you’ll learn six steps for a product launch that helps you sell out on day one.

A product launch is the process of taking a validated product concept to market, turning a finished prototype into something ready for consumers. It brings together teams across product, marketing, sales, and operations to create a go-to-market strategy that builds demand and sustains momentum beyond day one.

Any time you release a new product into the market, you have an opportunity to connect with people, whether they’re new to your brand or have been loyal for years. A well-executed product launch engages existing customers, attracts new ones, and creates urgency.

A successful product launch isn’t optional anymore. With rising competition and AI helping companies uncover product opportunities faster, how you launch can make or break your product’s success.

Here are four data-driven reasons to treat your launch as a high-impact initiative:

🧁 Success Story: Why Getting Packaging Right Was Important to this Brand

The founding couple behind Pastreez moved to the US to share their love of traditional French sweets with a new market. They faced a challenge: packaging that would protect delicate confections in the mail but also represent their brand and be special enough to give as a gift.

Different types of products call for different go-to-market strategies, but the planning fundamentals stay the same.

Nail these pillars down upfront to build a launch plan that goes live on time and outperforms your goals.

Product launches fall into two categories:

A soft launch releases your product to a limited group, like VIPs or beta testers, to gather early customer feedback. It’s a great way to iron out any flaws and refine messaging before going wide.

For example, a retailer might introduce a new product line to loyalty program members first, then tweak the packaging and product attributes based on reviews.

A hard launch goes live to your entire target market or customer base on day one. Ads, press releases, promotional events, and influencer collaborations help create hype for the release.

Think of Apple’s iPhone launch every September: a global event followed by an all-out product advertising media blitz—TV spots, billboards, YouTube ads, and more.

Launching at the right time is essential to your product’s success. Here are a few factors to consider:

There’s no one-size-fits-all formula for timing a product launch. Conduct market research to understand what customers want and when they’re most likely to act.

Unsure if it’s the right time to launch a new product? Here are a few signs you’re ready:

Here are the essential steps to bring your product to life and into the hands of eager customers.

Your launch date anchors your plan. It’s what you’ll work backward from as you develop marketing copy, create assets, and map out key milestones.

Create a reverse timeline starting from launch day:

Use a shared project tool like Asana so all stakeholders can track deadlines and see status updates in real time.

Choosing your launch date carefully helps you avoid lost momentum, repeated delays, or, worse, never launching at all.

Your product launch channels include the platforms you already use to connect with customers and make sales, as well as any other channels where your target audience hangs out or expects you to be.

Use your most active marketing channels to launch your new product. Some channels to consider:

Before you start creating marketing materials, answer the following questions:

Once you have the answers to these questions, the next step is high-quality product photography.

If you don’t want to spend the money on hiring a professional, you can absolutely take some great images yourself. Just remember, they’re often the first impression potential customers will have, so make them count.

Choosing the best visuals and writing compelling copy will take time, but it’s worth the effort. The right assets can dramatically impact your launch’s success, capturing attention and driving action.

🚀 It’s your turn! Put together your launch materials, including social media posts, emails, paid ads, SMS messages, flyers for in-person events, and YouTube videos to start drumming up excitement for your upcoming product launch.

Use Shopify Magic to help write the copy for these assets. The AI commerce assistant pulls data from your store and generates branded materials in minutes.

Let Shopify Magic write product descriptions for you

Ever wished a product description would just write itself? With Shopify Magic—Shopify’s artificial intelligence tools designed for commerce—it will. Create product descriptions in seconds and get your products in front of shoppers faster than ever.

Time-limited launches create a sense of urgency and exclusivity, two powerful drivers of interest and sales. Here are a few tactics to promote your upcoming product drop.

Olipop is good at building buzz for its product launches.

On Instagram, this brand builds curiosity and anticipation by partially obscuring the product with a pixelated blur. It also uses excited customer comments to create hype without confirming what’s dropping.

Gymshark is excellent at leveraging social media influencers. Fitness partners like Whitney Simmons promote drops for the Adapt product line.

A post shared by Whitney Simmons (@whitneyysimmons)

“Anybody who is running a rapidly growing inventory-based business knows that getting ahead of cash for new product lines that have a significant investment can be hard to catch up,” says Sarah Resnick, founder of Gist Yarn, on a Shopify Masters episode. “It’s hard to make the cash flow that you need to launch something new. It’s expensive. Preorders have let us do that. It’s our customers investing in us and getting yarn back.”

💡 Check out Shopify’s collection of preorder apps.

🦠 Success Story: How This Brand Used preorders to Launch Its Business

The founders of portable hand sanitizer brand Sanikind launched in the wake of the pandemic, using preorders and crowdfunding to drum up excitement for their new business idea.

The moment you and your audience have been waiting for is here: It’s launch day and time to start making sales.

Release your launch day content—social media posts, email campaigns, and SMS messages—anything that lets your followers know your product is live and available to buy.

Before (and during) launch, check your sales pages on both mobile and desktop. If you’ve enabled Shop Pay, shoppers can breeze through checkout with pre-filled information and one-tap payment—making conversions faster and easier.

Did you know? Shop Pay boosts conversion by as much as 50% compared to a guest checkout, outpacing all other accelerated checkouts by at least 10%, according to a recent study by one of the Big Three consulting firms.

After launch, dive into your platform analytics to see what worked and what didn’t. These insights will help you fine-tune your strategy and inform future product launches.

The following metrics tie into your launch goals. They show whether you’re attracting attention and converting interest into sales, and which levers are driving conversation.

Take a peek at the numbers on your social media apps and track engagement across posts. If you use a social media tool like Sprout Social or Buffer, you can generate a report to see what performed best.

Review the results from any email or SMS marketing campaigns. What were the click-through and open rates for launch emails? Which subject lines performed better than others?

Then, look at how many sales you made during the launch. If you’re on Shopify, you can dive into your shop’s analytics and measure success directly in your Shopify admin. For traffic insights, you can consult Google Analytics to see how many people visited your shop on launch day and where they came from.

A product launch leaves you with a ton of product and customer data. Refine your strategy based on early results.

For example, say your post-launch analytics show 35% of shoppers bail after seeing variable shipping fees. Consider rolling out a flat-rate option and a free shipping tier so there are no surprises at checkout.

From the product side, say your return rate jumps past 8% after launch. The main reason customers cite is that the “item felt flimsy.” Maybe your materials or product design don’t match perceived value. You could also tweak the product based on this information, then call it out on your product page.

Our Place launched its cookware label in 2019—and in just five years, it has grown from offering only its multipurpose Always Pan into a global kitchenware brand.

The Always Pan landed on Oprah’s “favorite things” list and racked up a wait list of 30,000 eager shoppers before it even shipped, as reported by Forbes.

That early demand helped the cookware startup reach profitability within six months, with its hero product finding a home in the kitchens of celebrities from David Beckham to Selena Gomez.

After primarily selling through Amazon and national retailers, hydration brand Stur saw a surge of user-generated #WaterTok videos in early 2023.

Many of the clips featured TikTok users mixing two Stur flavors into “mermaid syrup” drinks, contributing to roughly one-third of the hashtags’ billions of views. This gave Stur the perfect opening to treat TikTok Shop as a launch channel for new products.

To move quickly, Stur’s parent company, Dyla, built an in-house R&D lab capable of turning an influencer’s flavor idea into a finished, shippable product in four weeks—one for sampling, two for production, one for fulfillment. The facility bottles thousands of units per day and ships them directly to customers from its on-site warehouse.

Stur also sent out more than 100,000 free samples to creators—everyone from micro-creators to accounts with 20 million followers—fueling a steady stream of UGC, according to ModernRetail.

Stur now surpasses $100 million in annual revenue, a milestone the founder attributes in part to its TikTok momentum.

The Honey Pot is a sexual health and wellness brand specializing in feminine care. It has built a reputation for having honest and real conversations about sexual health, creating meaningful connections with customers. The brand partners with creators who share its values.

When launching a new product, The Honey Pot takes a thoughtful approach to influencer marketing, going beyond traditional beauty influencers.

“How about an esthetician, or someone who is experiencing hard skin conditions [who] can naturally segway into talking about products?” asks Giovanna Alfieri, VP of marketing at The Honey Pot.

Listen to Giovanna discuss influencer strategy, event marketing tips, and how to use storytelling to expand your brand’s reach on the Shopify Masters podcast.

Susie Harrison and her team led the product launch strategy of Hearth Display with a deep, research-driven prelaunch process. Their goal was to understand and address real family challenges around scheduling and chores.

To validate the product idea, the team conducted 30-minute interviews with potential customers. These conversations directly influenced product design, offering invaluable insight into customer pain points and unmet needs. Hearth then ran two campaigns to demonstrate market demand:

💡 Read Hearth Display’s story.

Want your product launch to be a massive success? Make sure to avoid these mistakes during your campaign:

Launching your new product involves much more than just unveiling a new item in your shop—it’s an opportunity to grab attention, connect with your customers, and boost sales. It all boils down to how well you know your audience and how creatively you tell your product’s story.

So, as you gear up for your next big launch, remember: those thoughtful touches in planning and marketing can make a difference. After all, you’re not only launching a product, you’re also setting the stage for your brand to flourish and grow.

The most common mistakes that prevent a successful launch are failing to understand your market’s needs and not validating the problem you want to solve. You can resolve many of these mistakes by incorporating feedback and testing your product before launch.

A product launch can cost anywhere from $10,000 to more than $10 million. In most cases, you’ll spend between $20,000 and $500,000. The cost of launching a new product depends on your product type, marketing plan, distribution costs, research methods, and more.

Testing whether a product will sell involves conducting market research, creating prototypes, and getting feedback from beta testers and focus groups. Prelaunch marketing efforts, such as email sign-ups and preorders, can also gauge interest and predict sales performance before the official launch.

Choosing a launch date for a product involves considering market readiness, completing the product development and testing phases, and considering external factors like seasonality and competitor activity.

Track metrics like website traffic, conversion rate, and sales by channel. You can also check social engagement metrics and customer acquisition costs to see if your product connected. If your numbers meet or beat your targets, you can call your product launch a success.

The biggest risk is commercial. As mentioned above, 95% of launches miss their revenue goals. Common causes include poor market validation, misaligned teams, or bad timing. You also risk wasting budget and damaging your reputation if you underdeliver on your product’s promise.

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