You can see that in each section, there is a small hole in the back where you can see the box through the hole. When you buy these, each hole has a pin in it, keeping the ball in the starting area. When you pull the indicator off the backing, the pins come with it. So you only have to keep it upright after you peel the backing off.

Here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuLClpWRmQ8

You can see that each hole has a red colored pin in it, and you can see the pins come away with the backing (at about 0:21 in the video).

You ship them in a box with one sticker applied to the side, of course. #inception

There are little dots at the top of the place where the each ball starts. I expect there is something in those spots which prevents the balls from moving and you remove it before you apply the detector.

I believe those dots above the start area have something pulled out when you take the back of the sticker that stops it from rolling around until it gets applied to the correct thing

You don't, you just flip them all around and jiggle them to reset them. Then you hope nobody does that to your box...