E-commerce Website Checklist Tehran: 15 Steps Before You Pay

TL;DR — An online store sells when seven things line up: a clear product, visible trust, a frictionless cart and checkout, shipping shown upfront, real content, technical SEO, and data you actually read. Tehran's e-commerce market is crowded — Digikala set expectations high, Yet many stores launch with lorem ipsum products, slow templates, and no plan to rank for product searches.

Use this 15-step checklist before you pay for an online store in 2026 (1405). It turns a vague "e-commerce website" quote into a store that can sell from day one.

Our full scope for Tehran stores is here: e-commerce website in Tehran.

Strategy First: What Are You Really Building?

Are you moving Instagram sales to a proper store, replacing a slow WooCommerce shop, or launching a marketplace? Each needs a different platform and checkout. Define: product count today and in 12 months, payment methods (ZarinPal, SnapPay, COD), shipping zones, and must-have integrations.

Align this with the service scope on our Tehran e-commerce service before comparing quotes.

The 15-Step Checklist

A. Foundation

1. Platform decision in writing — WooCommerce, Shopify, or headless Next.js? Why that choice for your catalogue? Avoid a stack chosen only because the agency knows it.

2. Custom Figma first — demand a Figma preview before code. Templates are heavy on mobile and look dated quickly.

3. One-page mobile checkout — guest checkout, sticky cart, address autocomplete. Every extra step loses 10–20% of buyers.

B. Catalogue & Operations

4. Product limits and variants — how many SKUs, variants (size/color), and images per product without extra fees?

5. Payments spelled out — ZarinPal/SnapPay, installment, COD, and refund flow with per-transaction fees listed.

6. Shipping logic itemised — zones, weight tables, courier options, free-shipping rules, and returns.

7. Inventory and orders — stock sync, low-stock alerts, order statuses, SMS/email notifications.

8. Admin your team can use — can a non-developer add a product and process a refund from a phone in 3 minutes?

C. Performance & Trust

9. Speed is contractual — LCP < 2.5s on product pages for mobile (PageSpeed Insights), not a promise.

10. Trust signals — real photos, Enamad, reviews, warranty, return policy, and secure checkout badges.

D. SEO That Actually Sells

11. Product and category SEO — unique titles, Product/Breadcrumb/FAQ schema, sitemaps, internal linking.

12. Faceted navigation done right — filters crawlable without creating infinite duplicate URLs.

13. Blog that answers buyer questions — comparisons and buying guides that bring Tehran search traffic.

E. Ownership & Growth

14. Ownership and portability — you own code, domain, content, and data and can move hosting freely.

15. Yearly costs and support in writing — hosting, domain, SSL, licenses, SMS, gateway fees, plus SLA.

Quick-Score Table

| # | Area | Ask This | Red Flag | |---|------|----------|----------| | 1 | Platform | Why this stack for my SKUs? | "We only do WooCommerce" | | 2 | Design | Figma before code? | Only demo links | | 3 | Checkout | 1-page guest checkout? | Forced signup | | 4 | Payments | Gateways + COD + refunds? | "Payment later" | | 5 | Shipping | Zones + tables + returns? | Flat rate only | | 6 | Speed | LCP < 2.5s contract? | "Fast enough" | | 7 | SEO | Product schema + sitemap? | "SEO is separate" | | 8 | Admin | Add product in 3 min? | Developer-only | | 9 | Ownership | Own code & data? | Locked hosting | | 10 | Support | SLA in writing? | Pay-per-ticket only |

Printable Checklist: Score Your Quote

• [ ] Platform chosen for your SKU count, not agency habit
• [ ] Custom Figma before code, not a demo template
• [ ] One-page guest checkout with sticky cart
• [ ] Payments (ZarinPal/SnapPay/COD) + refund flow included
• [ ] Shipping zones, weight tables, and returns defined
• [ ] Stock sync, order status, SMS/email notifications
• [ ] Admin: add product and coupon from phone in 3 minutes
• [ ] Speed guarantee LCP < 2.5s on mobile (contract)
• [ ] Trust: real photos, reviews, warranty, return policy
• [ ] SEO: product schema, sitemap, internal linking
• [ ] Faceted navigation without duplicate URL explosion
• [ ] Blog plan for buyer questions in Tehran
• [ ] You own code, data, and domain; free to move
• [ ] Yearly costs itemised (hosting, licenses, SMS, gateway %)
• [ ] Support SLA: duration, response time, bug vs. feature

Score every proposal 0/1 on each of the 15. The highest score — not the lowest price — is the cheapest year-one cost. A 70M quote scoring 14/15 beats a 35M quote scoring 6/15.

Ready for a second pair of eyes? Send us your quotes and product list — we will score them line by line, even if you do not choose us.

FAQ

Q: Why do people abandon the cart?

Baymard's research, compiled across dozens of studies, puts the average online cart abandonment rate at roughly 70%, and a large share of the reasons people give are things design can fix: unexpected costs, slow delivery, distrust of the payment step, being forced to create an account, a checkout that is too long or complicated, and not seeing the total cost up front. Those are exactly the items on your own site you can remove.

Q: Should I just delete the discount-code field?

No — hide it. Baymard's usability testing found that an empty promo-code box makes shoppers stop to hunt for a code, and some leave the site entirely to go find one, which makes coming back much less likely. The fix is not removing discounts; it is putting the field behind a "Have a promo code?" link and applying any valid discount to the cart automatically.

Q: Should I let Google index my product filters?

Usually not in full. Filters generate a near-infinite set of URLs and waste crawl budget. The practical approach is to build clean, indexable URLs for the popular, commercially meaningful filter combinations and canonicalise or block the rest. For genuine category pages, add Product structured data so price and availability can surface in results.

Sources

• Baymard Institute — 50 Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics (average 70.22% and reasons for abandonment)
• Baymard Institute — Checkout Optimization: 5 Ways to Minimize Form Fields in Checkout
• Baymard Institute — E-Commerce Cart & Checkout Usability Research
• Google Search Central — Introduction to Product structured data
• Google Business Profile Help — Guidelines for representing your business on Google