Pre-launch checks

Going live is one click. Everything that makes it safe happens before it. Work through this list rather than trusting that it looks fine, because the parts that break are rarely the parts you were looking at.

1. The storefront itself

• Experience Studio › Sites: the site's Live column reads Yes rather than Out of date. Out of date means a newer build exists and an older one is still serving.
• The active deployment on the Overview tab is the one you expect.
• For a managed theme: Installed Themes shows the right theme, and its Live on column names your domain.

2. The domain

• Status: Live, DNS Status: Active, and the right target under Serving. Not routed means the hostname answers with nothing.
• The certificate shows an issuer and a valid-until date in the future.
• http:// redirects to https://.
• If you have an apex and a www, one of them redirects to the other. Serving both independently splits your SEO and confuses buyers.
• The Access protection is removed, or deliberately kept if this is a pilot for named customers.

3. What the three audiences see

The check that catches the most, and the one most often skipped. Open the shop three ways and write down what you see each time:

If any of the three surprises you, the configuration is wrong. See What buyers see before they log in.

4. The catalog behind it

• Completeness for the channel and locale you are launching: the specific number for this storefront, rather than a general "the catalog is done". See Completeness and readiness.
• Spot-check ten products across different families for missing images, missing units of measure and untranslated names.
• If the channel is set to hidden until assigned, confirm products are actually assigned. An empty shop at launch is nearly always this.

5. Prices

• Resolve a price for at least one product in each market and confirm the currency and the net-or-gross basis are right. See Check a price.
• Confirm a product with no price behaves the way you intend: hidden, shown without a price, or shown as on request. All three are valid; only one is what you meant.

6. Search

Do the twenty-search test from Search and product discovery. Fewer than fifteen of twenty landing the right article in the top three is a launch risk rather than a polish item.

7. Content and legal

• Every page you intend to publish is published, in every language the market serves, including the ones you did not edit.
• Imprint, terms and privacy pages exist, are reachable from the footer, and are the current versions. In Germany this is not optional and it is the cheapest thing on this list to get wrong expensively.
• Follow every link on the homepage and the footer.
• Check the shop on a phone.

8. Forms and mail

• Submit every live form once from the real storefront and confirm both the submission and its routing.
• Run the provider check in Messaging.
• Place a real test order and confirm the order confirmation arrives, in the right language, from the right sender address.

9. Checkout

Walk one order through end to end as a real customer: add to basket, apply the delivery address, choose the payment method, place it, and find it again in the order list. See Checkout.

Then go live

Use Go-Live on the domain. Then re-check items 2 and 3 immediately: the protection coming off is exactly when a misconfigured price becomes public.

What to watch afterwards

Four screens, once a week, five minutes:

Add the zero-results list from your search to that rotation once a month. It is the only one of the five that tells you about revenue you are not getting rather than something that is broken.

Next

• Search and product discovery: the twenty-search test in full.
• Why a product is not visible: when the shop is live and something is missing.