Most stores do not fail because the product was wrong. They fail because the store was quietly broken on day one — and paid traffic found every crack. This is the checklist we run before any store we build goes live. Steal it.
Foundation (the boring five minutes that save you)
1. Domain connected with HTTPS forced on every URL. 2. Favicon and site title set — a missing favicon whispers “amateur” in every tab. 3. Legal pages published: privacy, terms, shipping, returns. 4. A real contact method a human answers. 5. 404 page that points somewhere useful.
Catalog
6. Every product has at least three images. 7. Titles follow one consistent pattern. 8. Descriptions answer the three buyer questions: what is it, why this one, what if it is wrong for me. 9. Variants tested — wrong-variant orders are a refund machine. 10. Prices sanity-checked against shipping cost so no order loses money. 11. Out-of-stock behavior decided (hide, backorder, or notify). 12. Collections structured the way customers browse, not the way your supplier organizes.
Checkout & money
13. A real test order placed and refunded on every payment method. 14. Shipping zones cover exactly where you actually ship. 15. Taxes configured for where you owe them. 16. Order confirmation email reads like your brand, not a robot. 17. Cart works logged-out, on mobile, in a private window. 18. Discount code logic tested — including that codes cannot stack into a free order.
Tracking (do this before ads, not after)
19. GA4 installed with purchase events carrying real values. 20. A test purchase visible in analytics with correct amount and currency. 21. Ad pixels installed only for platforms you will actually use. 22. Search Console verified and sitemap submitted. 23. UTM naming convention written down — future you will be grateful.
Speed & mobile
24. Homepage tested on a real phone on mobile data, not office wifi. 25. Images compressed — the single most common speed killer we find. 26. App/plugin count justified: each one earns its place or leaves. 27. No layout shift while the page loads. 28. Menus usable with a thumb.
Trust
29. About page with a real story — buyers check. 30. Shipping times stated honestly on product pages, not hidden in a policy. 31. No fake countdown timers or invented “23 people are viewing this”. 32. Reviews only if they are real; an empty review section beats a fake one. 33. Consistent grammar and pricing formats — small sloppiness reads as risk.
Email (your margin lives here)
34. Capture form with an honest incentive. 35. Welcome flow live. 36. Abandoned-cart flow live and test-fired. 37. Sending domain authenticated so mail lands in inboxes.
The final three
38. Someone who is not you completes a purchase without help while you watch silently. 39. Every page proofread out loud once. 40. Backups confirmed working — tested by restoring, not by trusting the checkbox.
Work through all forty honestly and you are ahead of most stores that ever go live. If you would rather have this list executed for you, that is precisely what our launch packages are — every item above is inside them.