Pre-Launch Commerce Checklist

Summary

Commerce launches fail because of unvalidated assumptions, untested edge cases, and operational gaps that surface under real traffic, not missed bugs. This checklist targets the questions that actually derail go-lives, not the obvious ones your QA process already covers.

This Is a Forcing Function, Not a Test Plan

Work through each section with the relevant stakeholders. If you can't answer a question clearly, that's a signal, either the decision hasn't been made, the system hasn't been validated, or someone's assuming something that isn't true.

Don't treat these as checkboxes. Treat them as prompts for verification.

Order Lifecycle Breaks Under Real Conditions

State Management

What happens to an order if payment captures successfully but inventory reservation fails?
How does the system handle partial shipments when one item is backordered and another is in stock?
If a customer modifies their shipping address after order placement but before fulfillment, what's the process and where does it break?
What's the maximum order processing latency under expected peak load, and has this been validated?
How are orders routed when multiple fulfillment locations have inventory? Is the logic correct, or just configured?

When Systems Fail Mid-Transaction

What happens if the OMS goes down mid-checkout? Does the storefront degrade gracefully or error out?
If a fulfillment integration times out, does the order retry, fail silently, or require manual intervention?
Has anyone tested what happens when a warehouse rejects an order after it's been captured?

Payment Edge Cases That Lock Up Revenue

Gateway Behavior

What's the fallback if the primary payment gateway is unavailable at checkout?
How does the system behave when a saved payment method returns a soft decline vs. a hard decline?
Are authorization holds releasing correctly on abandoned carts, or are customers getting locked up?
Has 3DS been tested across all major card networks and issuing banks in your target markets?
What happens if a refund is initiated on a partially captured order?

Fraud Rules Create Their Own Problems

What fraud rules are active, and has anyone reviewed them for false positive rates?
If a fraud review delays fulfillment, does the customer get notified, or do they assume you've disappeared?
How long are pre-auth holds in place, and does that align with your fulfillment SLA?

Inventory Sync Fails at the Worst Time

Latency Kills Accuracy

What's the actual latency between a sale and inventory decrement across all channels?
If two customers purchase the last unit simultaneously, what happens? Is this race condition handled?
How does the system behave when inventory sync fails mid-flash sale?
Are backorder and preorder states clearly distinguished in the catalog, cart, and checkout?

Multi-Location Logic Rarely Matches Reality

If inventory is split across warehouses, does the storefront show aggregated availability or location-specific?
Has anyone validated that inventory allocation rules match actual fulfillment routing?
What happens when a store location shows availability but the inventory is already allocated to a ship-from-store order?

Load Testing Lies Without the Right Scenarios

Capacity Validation

Has the platform been load tested at 2x your projected peak, not just expected average?
What's the observed degradation curve when traffic exceeds capacity? Graceful slowdown or hard failures?
Are CDN cache invalidation rules correct, or will customers see stale prices post-promotion?
What's the database connection pool limit, and has it been validated under concurrent checkout load?

Monitoring That Actually Catches Revenue Loss

Are alerts configured for checkout abandonment spikes, not just system errors?
If the homepage loads but checkout is broken, will anyone know within five minutes?
Are synthetic transactions running against production, and who's watching them over the launch window?
What's the rollback plan, and how long does it take to execute?

Integration Failures Cascade Silently

Dependency Behavior

Which integrations are synchronous vs. asynchronous, and has someone validated the failure handling for each?
If your ERP is slow to respond, does checkout wait, timeout, or queue?
Are all API rate limits documented, and what happens when you hit them during peak?
Has the tax calculation service been tested with edge-case addresses (PO boxes, APO/FPO, territories)?

Data Discrepancies Surface Too Late

What's the reconciliation process between commerce platform orders and ERP/WMS orders, and how quickly do discrepancies surface?
If customer data fails to sync to the CRM, does anyone know?
Are product data feeds to marketplaces and ads current, or are you about to advertise out-of-stock items?

The Checkout Paths Nobody Tested

Flow Interruptions

What happens if a customer applies a discount code that conflicts with an active promotion?
Has guest checkout been tested end-to-end, including order history access and returns?
If a customer's session expires mid-checkout, is their cart recoverable?
Are shipping estimates accurate for all fulfillment methods, or are you promising timelines you can't hit?

Post-Purchase Actually Works

Do order confirmation emails fire reliably, or are they queued behind other transactional messages?
Has someone validated that returns and exchanges work in the actual system, not just in documentation?
If a customer contacts support, can the support team see real-time order status, or are they working off stale data?

Operations Isn't Ready Until It's Been Tested

Team Preparedness

Does the customer support team have runbooks for the most likely post-launch issues?
Who has production access, and is there a clear escalation path for different failure types?
Has the marketing team validated that launch promotions are configured correctly and won't stack unexpectedly?
Is there a war room or communication channel designated for launch day, with clear ownership?

When You Need to Pull the Plug

What's the plan if you need to take the site down within the first hour of launch?
If a critical bug is found post-launch, what's the decision framework for fix-forward vs. rollback?
Has finance validated that revenue recognition and tax remittance are configured correctly in the new system?

What to Do With the Gaps

If every answer was confident and verifiable, you're ready.

More likely, you found gaps. Some are acceptable risks. Others are launch blockers. The value here isn't perfection, it's knowing which is which before customers tell you.

Document the known risks. Assign owners to the gaps. Make explicit decisions about what you're accepting.

How DigitalStack Handles This

DigitalStack connects requirements to architecture to validation in a single workspace. The questions in this checklist get answered as decisions are made, when fulfillment logic is defined, when payment flows are mapped, when integration dependencies are documented, not the night before launch.

Teams using DigitalStack generate go-live readiness reports directly from their project structure: which requirements have validated acceptance criteria, which integrations have documented failure modes, which edge cases have test coverage.

Next Step

If your discovery process doesn't surface these issues until the final sprint, the problem is upstream.

[See how DigitalStack structures discovery →]