An online shop has more ways to lose money silently than any other site: a coupon that applies twice, a shipping rule that charges zero, a payment that succeeds but sends no confirmation. Test the buying path first, on a phone, with real payment methods in test mode. Download the checklist as a spreadsheet.
Catalogue and search
- Categories show the right products and counts — compare with the back office
- Empty categories are hidden or say so — no blank grids
- Filters combine correctly and can be cleared — price, size, brand together
- Sorting by price, newest and popularity works — check the first and last items
- Search finds products by name, SKU and common misspellings — and handles no results
- Pagination or infinite scroll reaches every product — and works without JavaScript for crawlers
- Out-of-stock products are shown or hidden as intended — consistently
Product pages
- Price, sale price and currency are correct — including tax display
- Variants (size, colour) change the price, image and stock — and the URL if variants have their own
- Images zoom and swipe on phones — and are sharp
- Stock status and delivery estimate are correct — for in-stock and out-of-stock items
- Add to cart works from the product page and from listings — with and without a variant chosen
- Reviews, size guides and tabs open — on phones too
- Long product names do not break the layout — the longest one you sell
Cart
- Quantities update totals immediately — and cannot go below one or above stock
- Removing items works — including the last item
- Coupons apply once, respect their rules and show clear errors — expired, minimum order, wrong code
- Shipping costs match the rules for each zone — test a cheap and an expensive order
- Taxes are calculated for each region you sell to — including tax-exempt cases
- The cart survives a page reload and logging in — guest cart merges with account cart
Checkout
- Guest checkout and account checkout both work — if both are offered
- Address fields fit the countries you ship to — postcode formats, states
- Autofill works for name, e-mail, phone and address — autocomplete attributes
- Validation errors are clear and keep entered data — submit with mistakes
- Every payment method works in test mode — cards, wallets, bank transfer
- Declined and cancelled payments are handled — the order is not marked paid
- Double-clicking “Pay” does not charge twice — check the payment provider
- The order confirmation page shows the right details — and is not indexable
After the order
- Order confirmation e-mail arrives and is correct — check the spam folder too
- Shipping and refund e-mails work — trigger them from the back office
- The order appears correctly in the back office and connected systems — stock, accounting, fulfilment
- Refunds and cancellations update stock and totals — full and partial
Accounts
- Sign-up, log-in, log-out and password reset work — with a new e-mail
- Order history and saved addresses are correct — after an order
- Wishlist and saved items persist — across devices if promised
Mobile and speed
- The full buying path works on an iPhone and an Android phone — real devices
- Buttons are easy to tap and not hidden by banners or chat widgets — at 320 to 430 px
- Product and category pages load fast on mobile — LCP under 2.5 s
SEO and tracking
- Product and category pages have unique titles and descriptions — not the template default
- Product structured data has price, availability and reviews — Rich Results Test
- Filter and sort URLs do not create endless indexable pages — noindex or canonical
- Purchase tracking fires once with the right value — analytics and ad platforms