Publishing sounds like flipping a switch. It is closer to taking a photograph: Composerie records what the product is right now, sends that to your store, and points the storefront at the record. This guide explains what ends up in that record, because almost every “why is it not live” question is answered by something that is not in it.
A publication is a snapshot with a pointer
It checks before it does anything
The Publish screen opens on its readiness list. Two kinds of thing appear there and they behave differently.
A blocker, in red, stops the publication. “No variant is switched on” is the common one: without a variant there is nothing for a shopper to buy, so there is nothing to publish. A warning, in amber, does not stop anything. “No images yet” tells you the product will reach your store without a photo, and lets you go ahead if that is what you meant.
Each line links straight to the field it is about, so you do not have to go hunting for what it means.
What reaches your store
The listing goes over as one piece: the title, category, collections, tags, description, images and variants shown under This goes to Shopify. Read it before you press the button. It is easier to fix a missing category here than after a shopper has seen the page.
Alongside the listing, the publication records how the customizer appears, from How customers buy this. Choose Linked, Embedded, or Full page explains what each one puts on the page.
Send as draft, when it is offered, creates the product in Shopify as a draft. It is a real publication with a real record, and it is not visible to shoppers until you make it live in Shopify.
What does not reach your store
Your design keeps changing after you publish, and the store does not follow it. The publication points at the design revision that existed when you published, which is deliberate: it is what keeps an order tied to the artwork the shopper actually approved. See design versions.
To move the store forward, update the publication. Changes are not showing walks the four steps between an edit and a shopper seeing it.
Reading the result
Publishing to several stores can partly succeed. Keep the screen open until each store reports, and read them one at a time.
Afterwards the store’s row on the product carries its own state: Pending publish means configured but not pushed live, Update available means the store has an older revision than the product, Needs attention means live but wanting a re-sync, and Reconnect needed means Composerie has lost access to the store.
I published and nothing appeared. What now?
Read the per-store result first. A draft publication and a failed store both leave the product invisible, and they need different fixes.
Do I need to publish again after editing the design?
Yes. Saving writes a new version of the design; updating the publication is what points the store at it.
Can one product use a different mode per store?
Each connected store carries its own publication details, so review the mode inside that store's flow.
Why is Publish greyed out?
There is a blocker in the readiness list. It names the field and links to it.
Next
Read design versions for why an order stays tied to one revision, or publish a product to your storefront for the full walkthrough.
Every term used here has a one-line definition in the glossary.