Foundations
Ecommerce conversion market entry checklist: project gates
An ecommerce conversion market entry checklist for test gates, covering measurement, journeys, experiments, accessibility and recovery—not market selection.
Start an online-store conversion initiative only with one evidenced merchant problem and authority to examine it. A broad promise to improve conversion is not a scope.
This ecommerce conversion market entry checklist is a pre-entry gate review for an online-store conversion initiative, not a guide to choosing a country, marketplace or sales channel. Complete every gate below in the order shown, record the named owner and retain the source evidence. One pass cannot compensate for a failure elsewhere.
What to take away
- Begin a conversion initiative only with one evidenced online-store problem and authority to examine it.
- Complete every gate and record the named owner and source evidence.
- Separate order placement, payment authorisation, capture, settlement, cancellation, return and refund.
- Predeclare experiment population, allocation, outcome, stopping rule and uncertainty method.
- Treat product safety as its own approval even for presentation or ordering changes.
Measurement charter
- Name the seller, store, channel, eligible journey and completion event.
- Define numerator, denominator, unit, period, timezone and identity rule.
- State treatment of duplicates, staff, tests, known bots, late events and missing records.
- Separate order placement, payment authorisation, capture, settlement, cancellation, return and refund.
- Label an observed rate, attribution output, modelled estimate, forecast and causal effect differently.
If a supplier metric is used, save its definition and version. Google's global key-event documentation says an operator chooses which collected event becomes a key event. That flexibility makes the merchant's event dictionary necessary; it does not establish a UK standard.
Worked example for this gate: name the completion event 'order_confirmed'. The numerator is the count of order_confirmed events from eligible sessions. The denominator is eligible sessions that reach the checkout step. The period is, for example, 1 to 30 June and the timezone is Europe/London. Record the owner and source evidence. This is a template, not a live result.
Customer and commercial journey
- Trace product evidence, price, delivery, payment action, confirmation and correction.
- Test cancellation, return and refund states with synthetic or specifically authorised cases.
- Keep complaints and observed journey failures linked to the relevant order and date.
- Reject tactics that hide material information, preselect extras or obstruct exit.
The current GOV.UK online-selling record, 'Online and distance selling for businesses', sets out information and order steps that affect an online seller's journey. The CMA's price-transparency page, 'Price transparency (CMA209)', covers mandatory charges, taxes and ways prices may be split or added.
For example, a checkout that adds a mandatory delivery charge only at the payment step is a journey failure under that CMA page. A cancellation route that requires a phone call during limited hours before a refund can start is another journey failure.
A qualified consumer lawyer must review the actual goods and journey.
Experiment gate
- Predeclare the eligible population, allocation unit and primary outcome.
- Preserve an appropriate control or comparison and record exposure.
- Set sample or exposure logic, stopping rule and uncertainty method before launch.
- Define guardrails for refunds, complaints, errors, accessibility and security.
- Give one owner power to pause and a tested route to restore the previous version.
HM Treasury's quality guidance for impact evaluation explains why outcome monitoring alone does not prove attribution. Statistical review remains necessary for a commercial experiment.
Data, access and resilience
- Map every cookie, pixel, script and tag to purpose, legal route, owner and retention.
- Use least privilege and separate production access from analysis access.
- Keep an immutable configuration record and monitor failed or duplicated events.
- Rehearse incident containment, credential recovery, rollback and evidence export.
The ICO's final storage and access guidance, 'Guidance on the use of storage and access technologies', is the current PECR starting point for tracking. NCSC guidance on secure online services, 'Building and operating a secure online service', addresses identity, monitoring, bots and incident management. Neither source certifies a proposed setup.
Accessibility, safety and exit
- Include disabled participants and inspect the whole task, not an automated score alone.
- Keep product claims tied to approved evidence and current safety records.
- Record subcontractors, rights, data locations, support, liability and termination.
- Prove export readability, deletion instructions and operational continuity before signing.
Government service-provider guidance describes the anticipatory reasonable-adjustment duty in Great Britain. OPSS product-safety guidance for businesses provides a separate safety boundary.
Treat product safety as its own approval, even when a proposed change affects only presentation or ordering.
The final verdict is go, hold or stop. Use hold when evidence can be completed without customer exposure. Use stop when the proposal depends on manipulative design, unapproved tracking, unsafe claims, an irreproducible outcome or an untested recovery route.
Common questions
What must a measurement charter define?
It must name the seller, store, channel, eligible journey and completion event. It must define numerator, denominator, unit, period, timezone and identity rule. It must state treatment of duplicates, staff, tests, known bots, late events and missing records. It must separate order placement, payment authorisation, capture, settlement, cancellation, return and refund.
When should a market entry be stopped?
Use stop when the proposal depends on manipulative design, unapproved tracking, unsafe claims, an irreproducible outcome or an untested recovery route. Use hold when evidence can be completed without customer exposure. The final verdict is go, hold or stop.
