I seem to be getting mixed messages from reading on my own. I don't know WP much at all.

WP for beginners has something about backup and moving to local servers for testing or, testing and later uploading to a live server.

I have the test site running and eventually want to move that to the real website(s). Where I can do menu and renaming, but I wanted a complete working package, before I start uploading files.

Is it possible to have the working site and transfer it all via backup or ftp, or do I have to start over and make all the adjustments?

Anyone know for sure and can you explain how that works?
 
I have Symbiostock, plugins, themes, don't have a working cart yet. Got that Alamy link thing working (which was perfect except "operator Error" and I was typing in the wrong names in the description and using - instead of = ) 

I would keep your existing site as a test site so you can try things out in the future without going live, I keep a test site for this purpose.

Then set up a completely new one for your live site - you will find you are much faster the second (third, fourth) time around and can copy and paste things like contents of your child theme.

Moving Wordpress sites can be a bit of a performance. See details on the Wordpress codex on how this should be done.

However, with a bit of planning, you probably won't need to.

We host all our sites on Hetzner. www.hetzner.co.za - They have servers in Germany. It's possible with Hetzner to build your site on a staging domain. Everything works and can be tested on this staing domain. Then, when the time comes to go go live, simply point the domain to this server or apply for the full domain to be trasferred.

In the Wordpress general settings, simply change the Wordpress url and Site url to the proper domain and all should work just dandy.

Of course, other ISPs will probably have something similar too - I just don't have much experience with other ISPs.