Launch checklist

Launch only when the complete purchase journey works

A launch checklist should test the store as a customer and as an operator. A page can look finished while shipping rules, analytics, emails or refund workflows remain incomplete. Review the whole system before sending paid traffic to it.

Catalogue and content

Check product names, prices, variants, inventory, specifications, imagery, category placement, filters, search synonyms and discontinued-item handling. Confirm that promotions and badges are generated from reliable data rather than manually copied across pages.

Cart and checkout

Test guest checkout, account checkout, discount codes, shipping methods, taxes, payment failures, address validation, order confirmation and mobile keyboards. Place real test orders with more than one payment method if possible.

Operations

Verify fulfilment notifications, packing information, inventory changes, refunds, cancellations, customer-service access and the handoff between the store and any warehouse, booking or accounting system.

Search and discoverability

Review titles, descriptions, canonical URLs, robots directives, sitemap generation, internal links, structured data where appropriate and indexability of important categories and products.

Performance and accessibility

Test representative pages on mobile and desktop. Check image sizes, layout shifts, keyboard navigation, labels, contrast, focus states and readable error messages.

Measurement and ownership

Confirm analytics events, consent behaviour, advertising tags, reporting access and ownership of third-party accounts. Document who is responsible for product data, content, technical maintenance and performance after launch.

Run a post-launch review

Schedule a review after the first meaningful period of live traffic. Check broken searches, failed payments, support questions, slow templates, unexpected mobile behaviour and pages that attract traffic without helping customers continue. Launch data often reveals assumptions that staging could not. Fixing those issues quickly is more valuable than immediately starting a second redesign.

Use this guide as a working document. Compare the recommendations with actual customer behaviour, support questions and operational constraints before changing the store.

Continue through the buying journey

Product pages

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Checkout UX

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Conversion

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