The WooCommerce launch checklist

Launching a WooCommerce store is the moment months of work meet real customers, real cards and real expectations. Most launch-day problems are not exotic: a tax rate that is wrong for one region, an order email that lands in spam, a shipping option that never appears, a checkout that crawls on a phone.

This WooCommerce launch checklist walks through what to check before you go live, section by section, and finishes with a single test order that ties it all together. Use the checklist at the end as your sign-off sheet.

Products and catalogue

Customers judge a store by its product pages, and search engines index them. Get the catalogue right first.

• Every product is complete. Title, price, description, images, SKU, weight and dimensions (shipping depends on them), categories and stock status.
• Variations work. For products with sizes, colors or other options, check that every variation has a price, stock and image, and that unavailable combinations cannot be added to the cart.
• Stock management is set up. Decide whether WooCommerce tracks stock, what happens at zero (hide, show as out of stock, or allow backorders), and who gets low-stock notifications.
• Images are consistent and light. Same aspect ratio across a category, compressed, and with descriptive alt text. Product photos are often the heaviest thing on the page.
• Categories make sense. A shopper should be able to find any product in two or three clicks from the menu, and category pages should have a short introduction rather than just a grid.
• Search and filters work. Try searching for products by name, by SKU and by common misspellings.
• Legal and policy pages exist. Terms and conditions, a returns and refunds policy, delivery information and a privacy policy, linked from the footer and the checkout.

Memberships, subscriptions and bundles need extra care, because they change what happens after the order. When we built the WooCommerce store for DROBE Stogies, it sold cigars, humidors and cutters alongside memberships, and the membership products had to connect to the lounge’s app and its Apple and Google Wallet passes. Test the whole journey for products like these, not only the purchase.

Payments, tax and shipping

These three settings decide whether an order can be completed, and whether the total is right. They are also where small mistakes are most expensive.

Payments

• Use a hosted or tokenized gateway, such as Stripe or PayPal, so card details never touch your server. It keeps your security obligations much lighter.
• Finish the gateway’s account checks before launch day. Approval can take days.
• Switch from test mode to live mode and confirm the live keys are in place.
• Turn on the payment methods your customers expect, such as cards, digital wallets and local options for each country you sell to.
• Decide what happens on failure: a declined card should leave a clear message and keep the cart intact.

Tax

• Set the store’s base location and whether prices are entered with or without tax.
• Add the tax rates for every region you sell to, or connect an automated tax service.
• Check how prices are displayed in the shop, the cart and the checkout, and that they match what customers in each region expect to see.

Tax rules differ by country and state; confirm your settings with your accountant before launch.

Shipping

• Set up shipping zones for every region you deliver to, and decide what happens to orders from anywhere else.
• Add methods and rates for each zone: flat rate, free shipping thresholds, local pickup or live carrier rates.
• Check weights and dimensions on every product if rates depend on them.
• Test addresses at the edges: remote postcodes, international addresses and PO boxes if you do not deliver to them.

Emails and notifications

Order emails are part of the product. A missing confirmation email is one of the most common reasons customers contact a new store, and a confirmation in spam looks like a scam.

• Review every WooCommerce email: new order, processing, completed, refunded, failed, on hold, customer note, password reset and new account. Add your logo and colors, and check the wording.
• Send from your own domain, such as orders@yourdomain.com, through a proper email sending service rather than the web server.
• Set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC records for that domain, so inboxes trust the messages.
• Check the admin notifications go to someone who will act on them, including new orders and low stock.
• Send test emails to several providers, such as Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail, and check they land in the inbox, not in spam or promotions.

Speed and mobile

A slow checkout loses sales. Most shoppers will see your store on a phone, so test on one.

• Measure the key templates in PageSpeed Insights: the homepage, a category page, a product page and the cart. Our Core Web Vitals guide explains what to look for.
• Use page caching, but exclude the cart, checkout and account pages, which must always be live.
• Compress and size product images, and do not lazy-load the main product image.
• Cut plugins and scripts that load on every page but are only needed on one, such as sliders, review widgets and extra tracking tags.
• Check the mobile checkout from start to finish: tap targets large enough, the right keyboard for each field (numbers for card and phone), address autocomplete working, and no fields hidden off screen.
• Remove friction: ask only for the details you need, allow guest checkout, and show the total including shipping before the final step.

Security and backups

A store holds customer details and takes payments, so its security and backups need to be in place before the first order, not after.

• HTTPS on every page, with HTTP redirecting to HTTPS in one hop.
• Strong passwords and two-factor authentication for every administrator and shop manager account.
• Limit access: give staff the shop manager role, not administrator, unless they need it.
• Update everything before launch: WordPress, WooCommerce, the theme and every plugin.
• Back up off the server, at least daily and more often on a busy store, because orders arrive continuously. Test a restore before launch.
• Monitor uptime and security from day one, with alerts for downtime, file changes and new administrator accounts.
• Plan how updates will be tested. A plugin update that breaks the checkout costs money every hour it goes unnoticed.

That last point is why we run the stores we look after on WPCentrify, our own WordPress management platform. Before an update ships, it is tested on staging, including functional tests of forms, cart, checkout and login, and it is rolled back automatically if a check fails. Updates, backups, uptime and security for stores are covered by our WordPress management service.

Tracking and analytics

If you cannot see where sales come from, you cannot improve them. Set up tracking before launch so day one is in the data.

• Install analytics with ecommerce tracking, so product views, add-to-cart, checkout steps and purchases are recorded with their values.
• Check purchase events fire once, with the right order value and currency, not twice when the thank-you page reloads.
• Set up conversion tracking for any ad platforms you will use.
• Respect consent: in the UK and EU in particular, non-essential tracking needs the visitor’s consent before it runs. Check your cookie banner actually blocks tags until consent is given.
• Verify the store in Google Search Console and submit the XML sitemap.
• Check product structured data with the Rich Results Test, so product pages can show price and availability in search.
• Consider a product feed for Google Merchant Center if you plan to appear in Shopping results.

The test order

The test order is the final check that everything above works together. Do it twice: first in the gateway’s test mode on staging, then once for real on the live site.

1. Browse as a customer. Find a product from the homepage, through a category, and through search.
2. Add to cart a mix of products: a simple product, a variation and, if you sell them, a membership or subscription.
3. Apply a coupon, if you will run promotions, and check the discount is right.
4. Check out as a guest with a shipping address in your main region, and confirm tax and shipping are correct.
5. Pay with a real card on the live site.
6. Check the emails: the customer confirmation and the admin new-order notification both arrive, from the right address, in the inbox.
7. Check the back end: the order appears with the right status, stock has gone down, and analytics recorded the purchase once.
8. Fulfil it: mark it completed and check the completion email.
9. Refund it and check the refund email and the payment provider.
10. Repeat with a customer account, a different region and a declined card.

If every step passes, you are ready to launch.

Checklist

Products and catalogue

• Every product has a title, price, description, images, SKU, weight and dimensions.
• Variations have prices, stock and images.
• Stock management and low-stock notifications are set up.
• Categories, search and filters work.
• Terms, returns, delivery and privacy pages are live and linked.

Payments, tax and shipping

• The payment gateway is approved and in live mode.
• Tax rates are set for every region and confirmed with your accountant.
• Shipping zones, methods and rates cover every region you deliver to.

Emails

• Every WooCommerce email is branded and reviewed.
• Emails send from your domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC in place.
• Test emails land in the inbox on several providers.

Speed and mobile

• Key templates pass Core Web Vitals on mobile.
• Cart, checkout and account pages are excluded from caching.
• The mobile checkout works start to finish.

Security and backups

• HTTPS everywhere; two-factor authentication for every admin.
• Everything is updated; off-site backups are running and a restore has been tested.
• Uptime and security monitoring are on.

Tracking

• Ecommerce events fire once with the right values.
• Consent blocks non-essential tracking until accepted.
• Search Console is verified and the sitemap submitted.

The test order

• Test-mode orders pass on staging.
• One real order is placed, fulfilled and refunded on the live site.

Building a store from scratch, or not sure your current one is ready? Our web design and development team builds WooCommerce stores that are tested this way before launch, and our WordPress management plans keep them running afterwards.