If you allow visitors to make purchases on your website, we recommend to test your setup and checkout process before you set your website live. This helps to verify if your payment and shipping methods are set up correctly and to ensure that customers can run through the checkout without any issues. You can do so by placing a test order.
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How to place a test order
To place a test order, you need to complete a purchase in the preview mode of your website. To do so, select Preview your website in the top bar of your cockpit, for example on the Order overview or the Dashboard, as long as your website is not live.
Note
You can only place test orders in the preview mode of your website. The preview mode is only accessible as long as your website is not live. If your website is live and visible to visitors, you will be forwarded to the live version of your website when selecting View your website. In that case, you can only place real orders that will also affect the stock level of the products included in your order.You are now forwarded to your website preview. The area at the top of the website clearly indicates that you are currently in the preview mode:
Now, act as if you are a customer who would like to buy a product. Select a product, add it to the cart, go through each of the checkout steps, and complete your purchase.
Note
Choose a manual payment method, such as invoice or cash. Online payment providers, such as PayPal, will not be informed that you are running a test purchase.Note
If you want to test the customer registration during checkout, you need to enter a different email address in the Personal details section than the one you're using to log in to your cockpit.The email address should still be one of your personal email addresses as you'll then receive all order-related emails that will be usually sent to your customers. This has the nice side effect of getting a good overview of your order-related emails.
Note
The stock level of the products that are included in your test order will not be changed.What it looks like in the cockpit
Test orders can be managed just as every other order in your cockpit. If you select Orders in the sidebar of your cockpit, your test order will thus also appear in the order overview. But it is clearly marked with an orange dot right next to the order number.
Once you select a test order, you can also find a Test order ribbon on the Order details card. This clearly indicates that an order is a test order and doesn't need to be processed further.