What a WooCommerce shop needs before launch
Guide. Published 14 October 2026.
A WooCommerce shop is ready to launch when a stranger can find a product, pay for it and receive a confirmation email, and when you know who will look after the shop afterwards. Most launch problems are small: a payment gateway still in test mode, a delivery area that matches no addresses, or order emails that land in spam.
In short
- Load products carefully: attributes, variations and SKUs are where mistakes hide.
- Set tax, payments, shipping and checkout, then test the whole journey on a phone and a desktop.
- Make sure order emails arrive and your policy pages are in place.
- Decide who looks after the shop once it is live.
Products, variations and how prices are shown
Every product should have a clear name, a customer-facing description, a price, a category and a good image, plus a SKU, your own unique stock code, if you track stock or match products to a supplier list (WooCommerce will not accept the same SKU twice). If you track stock, enter real quantities, or decide on purpose to allow backorders.
For options such as size or colour, use variable products. Each option you sell is a variation that can have its own SKU, price, stock level and image. Settle your attributes before loading anything, because inconsistent names can create duplicate filter options.
For a large catalogue, use the CSV importer that WooCommerce includes. Import a handful of rows first, check them on the shop, then import the rest. Variations are the hard part, because each is its own row linked to its parent product. That is why variations and attributes shape the work more than the number of products.
Tax and price display
If you are VAT-registered, switch on tax and decide how prices are shown.
| Setting | What it decides |
|---|---|
| Prices entered with tax | Whether the prices you type in already include VAT. |
| Display prices in the shop | What customers see on product and category pages. |
| Display prices during cart and checkout | What customers see in the cart and at checkout. Showing prices excluding VAT here mainly suits shops that sell to other businesses. If you sell to the public, ask your accountant what the displayed price must include. |
Check the cart totals against a hand calculation.
Payments, shipping and checkout
Payments. Apply for your payment gateway account early: approval can take a while, and the shop cannot take online card payments without it. Once approved, connect it and make a test payment in the gateway's test mode. Then switch to live and place one small real order, and refund it if the gateway allows.
Shipping. Two common options are flat-rate zones, where you set the areas you deliver to and a rate for each, and a courier-platform integration, where the courier platform supplies the rates and, depending on the platform, can book the delivery. Either way, test an address in every zone and one outside all of them. A customer whose address matches no zone usually sees no shipping option and cannot finish the order. A zone for locations not covered by your other zones fixes this, if you want to deliver there.
Checkout. Decide whether customers can check out as guests, must create an account, or can do either. Guest checkout removes a step, and accounts let customers see past orders. If new customers must be approved before they can buy, that needs extra set-up.
Coupons. A coupon can be set to leave out sale items. Automatic coupons, which apply without a typed code, are not a standard WooCommerce setting and are usually added with a plugin or custom code, so test that sale items really are left out.
Policy pages and order emails
Policies. Most shops need terms and conditions, a returns and refunds policy and a privacy policy, and some of these may be required by law. Have them written for your business, because they describe what you actually do. We do not give legal advice, so ask someone qualified to write or check them. Publish them, link them in the footer, and set the terms page in WooCommerce so checkout asks customers to accept it.
Order emails. Customers judge a shop by its confirmation email, yet a WordPress site may send mail in a way that receiving servers distrust, so confirmations can land in spam. The usual fix is to send through SMTP from a proper mailbox on your own domain, and to publish SPF and DKIM records for that domain so receiving servers can check the mail is yours. We set up and troubleshoot this: see domains, DNS, SSL and email.
Place test orders with mailboxes at more than one provider, check the spam folders, and confirm that the new-order email reaches a person who will act on it.
Test it like a customer, then tighten speed and security
Place complete test orders on a real phone and on a desktop, in more than one browser, as a guest and as a logged-in customer. Between them, cover:
- a product with variations
- a coupon, with and without a sale item in the cart
- each shipping option and each payment method
- a payment that is declined
Check that each order shows the right totals in WooCommerce, that stock went down and that the customer confirmation and the new-order email both arrived. Then cancel or refund the test orders and correct the stock.
Speed. Compress images, turn on caching and choose hosting that suits the shop. Keep the cart, checkout and account pages out of the cache, because they must show each person their own content.
Security. Use HTTPS throughout, give each person their own login with a strong password, add two-factor sign-in or a limit on login attempts for admins, remove users who no longer need access, and keep WordPress, WooCommerce and plugins updated.
Backups, handover and who looks after the shop
A shop takes orders at any hour, so backups must include the database, not only the files. Ask your host how often backups run, how long they are kept and whether a copy is stored away from the server, and take a fresh one just before launch.
After launch someone has to apply updates, fix problems, watch orders and keep stock right: you, a member of staff or a developer. Decide who, and keep one record of your logins, paid plugin licences, payment and courier accounts, and hosting and domain details. Licences should be in your name so they stay with you.
Ask what handover includes: editing instructions and a walkthrough of loading products at least, and ideally of processing orders, so the people who run the shop have done it once with someone watching. For what looking after a shop involves, see how we look after shops.
The launch checklist
Print this list or copy it, and tick each line when it is done.
Products
- Every product has a name, description, price, category and image, and a SKU where you track stock or match a supplier list.
- Each variation has its own SKU, price and stock level.
- Stock quantities are real, and test products are deleted.
Money and delivery
- Tax is set, and prices show as you want in the shop and at checkout.
- The gateway account is approved and live, a test payment worked and a small live payment was refunded, or the gateway's refund rules were checked.
- Shipping covers every delivery area, and an address outside them was tested.
- Coupons work as intended, and do not apply to sale items where that is the rule.
Customers
- Guest or account checkout is set the way you want.
- Terms, returns and privacy pages are written for your business, published and linked.
- Order emails reach the inbox (SMTP, SPF and DKIM), and new-order emails reach a person.
Testing, speed and security
- A full test checkout was done on a phone and a desktop, in more than one browser.
- Images are compressed, and caching leaves out the cart, checkout and account pages.
- HTTPS is on, admin logins are protected and everything is updated.
- In WordPress, Settings > Reading, "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" is unticked, so the live shop can appear in Google.
After launch
- A fresh backup exists, and you know where backups are kept.
- One named person looks after updates, orders and stock.
- Logins, licences and account details are in one safe place.
- Handover is done: editing instructions and a walkthrough of loading products, and ideally of processing orders.
How we can help
We build WooCommerce shops, and improve or take over shops that are already running, from bulk CSV product import and payment gateway integration to shipping, checkout settings, cross-browser testing and a full test checkout. At launch you get editing instructions and a walkthrough of loading products. We work remotely with clients across South Africa and quote from your brief, itemised by task, with no fixed packages. See our ecommerce website development page, or send us your brief and tell us what is already in place.
If your products come from suppliers, read keeping supplier stock updates separate from product content. More practical advice is in our guides.
Have a project in mind?
A new website, a shop, a design refresh or a feature your site is missing: tell us a little about what you need and we will talk through the options.