No. You can start the activation process in Vela before creating an account on the new platform. Vela gives you a full workspace to prepare and optimize your listings first. When you’re ready to publish, you’ll be prompted to create or log into your account on that platform, then connect it to Vela.

After activation, your listings appear in a new workspace inside Vela. You’ll have unlimited time to edit, optimize, and add more products before connecting the shop or publishing live. Once connected, you can choose when to publish the listings live in the new shop.

Absolutely. The activation workspace is your staging area—you can build, optimize, and preview listings long before your new shop goes public. Until you connect a live account on the new platform, you have free access to Vela tools for that shop. This lets you perfect content, imagery, and SEO before opening day.

To start a new shop directly from Vela, click “Add Shop” from your Shops dashboard. This opens the list of supported marketplaces, including Etsy, Shopify, Faire, and eBay. You can copy listings to this new shop using AI copy to instantly optimize them for the destination platform. For a full guide to the process, see the article and video on Activate Channels in the help center.