Finally, the big moment is there: your site goes live! It took a lot of preparations, but you're there. Before you flip the switch, it's a good idea to make sure your affairs are really sorted. You should have an overview of any and all modifications to your website, and you should know all the login credentials to the systems you use. It's also essential to properly test and maintain your store. These subjects will be discussed in this chapter.
Maintaining a store is a very different process from getting it live. After the initial development efforts are done, exhaustive testing should be done to make sure the store functions as expected. After you're live, you are not dealing with a completely clean slate anymore and you won't have to go through the prelaunch checklists again. However, you then have to carefully consider if the things you want to do really add to your store's success, and in which way you are going to add functionalities to your site. In this chapter, the following will be discussed:
- Collecting all relevant information about your Magento store
- A launch checklist as well as a collection of common gotchas
- Managing your ever-growing list of wishes and requirements for your online store
- Working with development partners
- Dealing with Magento upgrades