Launching an eCommerce MVP in six weeks sounds aggressive until you realize the alternative: spending six months building features your customers never asked for while your competitors capture the market. The trick isn't speed at any cost — it's knowing exactly what to build, what to skip, and what infrastructure to get right from day one so you never have to rewrite it.
This checklist is built from dozens of MVP launches Bemeir has executed for growth-stage retailers. Every item exists because skipping it caused a real problem on a real project. Use it as your pre-flight checklist before, during, and after launch.
Phase 1: Pre-Build Decisions (Week 0)
These decisions happen before a single line of code is written. Get them wrong and no amount of engineering talent saves you.
Platform & Architecture
- Commerce platform selected based on 3-year business requirements, not launch speed alone (Magento, Shopify Plus, Shopware, BigCommerce)
- Hosting architecture defined — cloud-native with auto-scaling (AWS, Google Cloud, or platform-managed)
- Frontend approach decided — traditional server-rendered, Hyva theme, or headless (React/Vue/Next.js)
- Integration architecture documented — which systems connect, via what protocols, with what data flows
- Performance budgets set — page load under 2 seconds, Core Web Vitals passing, server response under 200ms at p95
Scope Definition
- MVP feature list finalized and signed off by business stakeholders
- Phase 2 and Phase 3 feature lists drafted (so MVP architecture doesn't block future features)
- "What we are NOT building" document created and shared with entire team
- Launch date committed with buffer for load testing and bug fixes (minimum 5 business days)
- Success metrics defined — conversion rate target, uptime target, traffic capacity target
Team & Process
- Development team roles assigned — backend, frontend, DevOps, QA, project management
- Sprint cadence established (1-week sprints recommended for MVP speed)
- Daily standup format decided (15 minutes max, blockers only)
- Deployment pipeline setup as Sprint 0 task (before feature development begins)
- Communication channels established — Slack channel, JIRA/Linear board, stakeholder update cadence
Phase 2: Infrastructure Setup (Week 1)
Infrastructure before features. Always. This is the single biggest differentiator between MVPs that scale and MVPs that crumble.
Environment Architecture
- Production environment provisioned with auto-scaling policies
- Staging environment provisioned as a mirror of production (same architecture, smaller instance sizes)
- Development environment provisioned for each developer or shared dev environment with branch deploys
- Environment parity verified — same OS, same PHP/Node version, same database version, same caching layer
- Environment variables and secrets managed via vault (AWS Secrets Manager, HashiCorp Vault) — no hardcoded credentials
Caching & Performance
- Full-page cache configured (Varnish for Magento, CDN caching for Shopify/BigCommerce)
- Object cache configured (Redis for session storage and application cache)
- CDN provisioned and configured (Fastly, CloudFlare, or platform CDN)
- Image optimization pipeline configured — WebP conversion, responsive image sizes, lazy loading
- Database query logging enabled for identifying slow queries during development
CI/CD Pipeline
- Source control repository created with branch protection rules (no direct pushes to main)
- Automated build triggered on every pull request
- Automated test suite runs on every build (unit tests minimum, integration tests preferred)
- Staging deployment automated — merge to develop branch deploys to staging
- Production deployment automated — merge to main branch deploys to production with manual approval gate
- Rollback procedure documented and tested — ability to revert production to previous version within 5 minutes
Monitoring & Alerting
- Application performance monitoring installed (New Relic, Datadog, or equivalent)
- Error tracking configured (Sentry, Bugsnag, or equivalent)
- Uptime monitoring configured with 1-minute check intervals
- Alert routing established — critical alerts to on-call engineer via PagerDuty/Opsgenie, warnings to Slack
- Log aggregation configured (CloudWatch, ELK stack, or equivalent) with 30-day retention minimum
Phase 3: Core Commerce Build (Weeks 2-4)
Build features in dependency order. Checkout depends on cart. Cart depends on catalog. Start from the bottom.
Catalog & Product Pages
- Product data model finalized — attributes, variants, pricing structure
- Category structure created and tested with real product data
- Product detail pages rendering correctly with images, pricing, variants, and add-to-cart
- Search configured and tested with representative queries
- Category filtering (layered navigation) working with key attributes
- Product images optimized and served via CDN
- Mobile responsiveness verified on actual devices (not just browser dev tools)
Cart & Checkout
- Add-to-cart flow tested end-to-end
- Cart page displays correct product information, quantities, and pricing
- Shipping calculation working with real carrier rates (or flat-rate placeholder if carrier integration is phase 2)
- Tax calculation configured for applicable jurisdictions
- Payment gateway integrated and tested with real test transactions
- PCI compliance verified — no credit card data touches your servers
- Guest checkout flow working (customer registration can be phase 2)
- Order confirmation page displaying correct order details
- Checkout tested on mobile at every breakpoint
Order Processing
- Orders flowing to fulfillment system (ERP, OMS, WMS, or manual dashboard)
- Order status updates reflecting in customer-facing order confirmation
- Inventory deduction on order placement (not on add-to-cart)
- Order confirmation email sending reliably (check spam folders)
- Shipping confirmation email configured (triggered manually or via fulfillment integration)
- Refund/cancellation process documented (even if manual for MVP)
Essential Integrations
- Payment gateway live and processing real transactions in test mode
- Shipping carrier integration returning accurate rates and generating labels
- ERP/inventory sync operational — products and stock levels flowing correctly
- Analytics tracking implemented — Google Analytics 4 with enhanced eCommerce events
- Transactional email service configured (Magento native, Klaviyo, or Mailgun)
Phase 4: Quality Assurance (Week 5)
QA isn't a phase you skip when you're behind schedule. It's the phase that prevents your launch from becoming a PR crisis.
Functional Testing
- Complete purchase flow tested — browse, search, add to cart, checkout, payment, confirmation
- Tested with multiple payment methods (credit card, PayPal if applicable)
- Tested with multiple shipping addresses (domestic, international if applicable)
- Tested with discount codes and promotions (if applicable for MVP)
- Tested with edge cases — empty cart checkout attempt, out-of-stock product, expired session
- Tested across browsers — Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge (current versions)
- Tested on actual mobile devices — iPhone (Safari), Android (Chrome), tablet
Performance Testing
- Page load time verified under 2 seconds on 4G mobile connection
- Core Web Vitals passing — LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1
- Load test executed simulating expected peak traffic (minimum 2x expected daily peak)
- Database query performance verified — no queries exceeding 500ms under load
- Memory and CPU utilization profiled under load — auto-scaling triggers verified
- CDN cache hit ratio above 85 percent for static assets
Security Testing
- SSL certificate installed and all pages served over HTTPS
- Payment gateway PCI compliance documentation reviewed
- Admin panel access restricted by IP or VPN
- Default admin credentials changed (this sounds obvious but you'd be surprised)
- SQL injection and XSS vulnerability scan completed
- CSP headers configured appropriately
- Rate limiting configured on login, checkout, and API endpoints
Phase 5: Launch (Week 6)
Launch day should be boring. If your infrastructure is solid and your QA is thorough, launch is just flipping a DNS switch.
Pre-Launch (24 Hours Before)
- Final staging review with business stakeholders — sign-off received
- Production database seeded with final product catalog, pricing, and category data
- Payment gateway switched from test mode to production mode
- DNS TTL lowered to 300 seconds (5 minutes) for fast cutover
- Monitoring dashboards open and visible to entire team
- Rollback procedure reviewed with on-call engineer
- Launch communication drafted for customers/stakeholders
Launch Day
- DNS updated to point to production environment
- SSL certificate verified working on production domain
- Complete purchase flow tested on production with real payment (then refunded)
- Monitoring confirmed — all alerts green, no error spikes
- Analytics verified — events firing correctly in GA4
- Team available for rapid response for first 4 hours post-launch
Post-Launch (First 48 Hours)
- Error rates monitored — any spike above 0.5 percent investigated immediately
- Server response times monitored — any degradation investigated
- Customer support channels monitored for checkout or payment issues
- First 10 orders manually verified — correct products, pricing, tax, shipping charges
- Database performance monitored — slow query log reviewed
- CDN performance verified — cache hit ratios healthy
Phase 6: Post-Launch Optimization (Weeks 7-8)
The MVP is live. Now the real work begins — measuring, learning, and prioritizing phase two features based on actual customer behavior.
Data Collection
- Conversion funnel analysis — where are customers dropping off?
- Search query analysis — what are customers searching for that returns zero results?
- Page performance by template — which pages are slowest?
- Mobile vs desktop conversion rate comparison
- Customer support ticket categorization — what features are customers asking for?
Technical Health
- Error log review — recurring errors identified and prioritized
- Performance regression check — have load times increased since launch?
- Security scan repeated — any new vulnerabilities from launch configuration?
- Backup and disaster recovery tested — can you restore from backup within 30 minutes?
- Technical debt inventory created — what shortcuts were taken that need remediation?
Phase 2 Planning
- Feature prioritization based on data (not opinions)
- Architecture review — does anything in phase 2 require foundational changes?
- Capacity planning — at current growth rate, when do you need to scale infrastructure?
- Team assessment — do you have the right skills for phase 2, or do you need to hire/partner?
Why This Checklist Exists
Bemeir built this checklist because "launch fast" without a framework produces chaos, and "do it right" without time constraints produces twelve-month projects that should have taken three. The sweet spot is disciplined speed — knowing exactly what to build, exactly what to skip, and exactly what infrastructure to invest in so your MVP becomes your product, not a throwaway prototype.
Every item on this list maps to a real failure mode we've witnessed or prevented. Use it aggressively, check items off honestly, and your six-week MVP will handle ten times the traffic without flinching. That's not optimism — that's engineering.
