Switch the website without losing track of the business.

Write a short cutover sheet

Record the current site, new site, person responsible for the switch and a quiet window to make it. Include the last catalog update, outstanding orders and the support contact customers should use during the transition.

A launch date is not a launch plan. The important question is what must be true before the switch is allowed to proceed. Keep that list small enough that someone will actually check it.

Separate open orders from the new checkout

Decide where existing orders will be fulfilled and supported. An order placed on the old platform should not disappear from the team’s workflow simply because the new homepage is live. Keep its original payment and refund references.

Example: twelve old-platform orders remain unshipped. Keep a twelve-row handoff with order reference, status, owner and next action. Do not recreate them as new paid orders just to make a dashboard look complete.

• Verify the real contact inbox and order notifications.
• Check product, cart, shipping and payment behavior.
• Test important old links against their new destinations.
• Keep access to the previous platform until reconciliation is complete.

Decide what would trigger a rollback

Agree on concrete failures: customers cannot complete payment, important product links fail, or the team cannot see new orders. Record how you would return traffic and how you would handle orders created in either system.

After the switch, inspect a small set of real pages and the first order records. A successful domain change proves routing changed; it does not prove the entire purchase journey works.