Launch day for an online shop is the worst possible time to discover that order emails go to spam, that tax is calculated wrongly for half your customers, or that the checkout button does nothing on an iPhone. Every one of those problems is easy to catch in advance and expensive to catch afterwards. This e-commerce website checklist covers the 20 things I’d check before taking a store live, grouped so you can split the work between yourself, your developer and anyone else involved. It applies whether you’re on WooCommerce, Shopify or another platform, although some of the wording leans towards WordPress.
Products and catalogue
- Every product has a real price, stock level and SKU. Look for leftover placeholder prices like 0.00 or 999 from testing, and items accidentally set to “out of stock”.
- Variations work. If a T-shirt comes in four sizes and three colours, try selecting every combination that should exist and make sure the ones that don’t exist can’t be bought.
- Images are consistent and optimised. Same aspect ratio across a category, compressed, and with descriptive alt text. Heavy product images are a common reason stores feel sluggish; my guide on how to speed up a WordPress website covers the fixes.
- Descriptions answer buying questions. Sizes, materials, dimensions, what’s in the box, compatibility. If customers keep emailing to ask, it belongs on the page.
- Categories and filters make sense to a stranger. Ask someone who’s never seen the site to find a specific product. Watch where they get stuck.
Checkout and payments
- Place real test orders with every payment method. Use your payment provider’s test or sandbox mode first, then make at least one small live purchase with a real card and refund it. Sandbox success doesn’t prove the live keys are set correctly.
- Test guest checkout and account checkout. Forcing account creation loses some customers; if you offer both, both need to work.
- Coupons behave as intended. Check expiry dates, minimum spends, exclusions and whether codes can be stacked when they shouldn’t be.
- Failed payments are handled gracefully. Use a test card that gets declined and confirm the customer sees a clear message and their cart is kept.
- Checkout works on mobile. Try it on an actual phone, not a resized desktop browser. Check that the keyboard doesn’t hide fields and that autofill works for addresses.
Shipping and tax
- Shipping rates are right for each zone. Test addresses in your own area, elsewhere in your country and, if you ship abroad, at least one international address. Check free-shipping thresholds kick in at the correct amount.
- Tax is calculated correctly. Sales tax in the US, VAT in the UK, GST in Australia and GST/HST in Canada all have their own rules about where tax applies and whether prices are shown inclusive or exclusive. Your platform can calculate it, but an accountant should confirm the settings. This is not a guessing exercise.
- Delivery times and costs are visible before checkout. Surprise shipping costs on the last step are a well-known reason people abandon carts.
Emails and notifications
- Order emails arrive and look right. Check the customer confirmation, your admin notification, shipping updates and refund emails. Send them to Gmail, Outlook and a work address, and check spam folders.
- Emails are sent through a proper mail service. Many hosts send WordPress email in a way that ends up in spam. An SMTP plugin connected to a transactional email service, with your domain’s SPF and DKIM records set up, fixes most delivery problems.
Legal pages, trust and security
- Policies are published and linked. Returns and refunds, shipping, privacy and terms. Requirements differ by country, so base them on your actual practices and get advice if you’re unsure, rather than copying another store’s pages.
- SSL is active everywhere. Every page, including images and scripts, should load over https with no browser warnings.
- Backups are automatic and tested. Daily backups at minimum for a store, kept off the server, and you should know how to restore one. Orders placed between backups are part of the reason for daily rather than weekly.
Tracking and the final pass on your e-commerce website checklist
- Analytics and conversion tracking are firing. Install Google Analytics (and any ad platform pixels you use) and confirm a test purchase shows up as a conversion. It’s much harder to set up retroactively once you’re spending on ads.
- Search engines can see the site. In WordPress, check that “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” under Settings, Reading is unticked. It’s often left on after development. Then submit your sitemap to Google through Search Console.
A few things that aren’t on the list but matter
Twenty items cover the technical basics, but launch also has a human side. Decide who answers customer emails and how quickly. Know what you’ll do if an order comes in for something you’ve just sold out of in your physical shop. Make sure whoever packs orders knows how to mark them as shipped so the right email goes out.
It’s also sensible to launch quietly: open the store a few days before any announcement, let friends or regular customers place real orders, and fix the small things they find. A soft launch takes the pressure off and turns your first customers into testers who are inclined to be forgiving.
Who should do what
Most items here can be checked by the store owner with a phone and a credit card. Items 6, 12, 15, 17, 18 and 19 usually need a developer or at least someone comfortable in the settings. If you’re working with a freelancer, ask them to walk you through the checklist before handover rather than simply saying the site is done. I’ve written about what to ask before you hire a freelance web developer, and much of it applies here too. If you’re still budgeting, the ranges in how much a small business website costs include notes on online stores.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long before launch should I start testing?
Give yourself at least a week between “the site is built” and “the store is public”. Testing payments, shipping and email delivery properly takes time, and fixes need re-testing.
Do I need to make a real purchase before launching?
Yes. Test mode proves the checkout flow works; a small live order proves your live payment keys, payouts and order emails are all connected correctly. Refund it afterwards.
Can I use this e-commerce website checklist for Shopify?
Mostly, yes. A few items, like SSL and backups, are handled by the platform on Shopify, and the search-engine setting is in a different place, but the product, checkout, shipping, tax and email checks apply to any store.
Need help?
I build and fix online stores through my e-commerce website service, and I can run through a pre-launch review on a store someone else built as part of my wider website development work. Get in touch with your store details and I’ll reply within 24–48 hours.