Ordering from your own live store is the fastest way to check that checkout, shipping prices, payment and your apps all work. Two things catch merchants out: keeping those orders out of real numbers, and the limit that stops them after a few tries. This article covers both.
Marking an order as a test
Type the word test in one of the checkout fields below, and the order is flagged as a test the moment it is placed. There is nothing to switch on first.
The word can sit anywhere in the field, alone or with other words, so test, Test order, my test and test 1 all work. Capitals do not matter. It must be a separate word: contest or testimony do not count. These words work too: testing, teste, prueba, essai, تجربة, تجريبي, اختبار and تست.
Fields that are checked on the storefront checkout:
- Full name, first name, last name, company
- Address, second address, national ID
- Neighborhood, district, apartment, floor
- State or region, city, commune, province, postal code
- Order note
Phone number and email address are not checked. Use a field your checkout form actually shows. For an order you add by hand from the dashboard, use the name, company, address, state or region, city or note field.
A test order carries a Test tag on the orders list and inside the order, so nobody on your team ships it by mistake.
Be careful: a real customer who writes one of these words in their address or note (for example essai in a French note) also gets a test order. If you see a real order with a Test tag, treat it as a normal order.
Testing from a preview link
Open your store with the eye button (Go to the preview) on a product's edit page in your dashboard. For up to 24 hours, every order you place from that browser is a test order on its own, with no word to type, and the order limits do not apply to it: the limit described below, and Shield's Minimum time between orders, Order burst blocker and Duplicate orders blocker. The other Shield checks, such as the captcha and the WhatsApp validator, still run, so you see your checkout exactly as your customers do.
Keep the preview link to yourself. Anyone who opens it gets the same pass on your store until it expires.
What a test order skips
- It costs nothing: no order fee is added and it does not use an order from your plan, even when you change its status later.
- It is left out of the Excel export.
What a test order still does
A test order is a real order in your store, so until you delete it:
- It counts toward the order limit described below, like any other order, unless you placed it from a preview link.
- It counts in the order and revenue totals on your Dashboard and Statistics.
- It is sent to your connected apps like any other order: courier and COD fulfillment apps, Google Sheets, WhatsApp notifications, webhooks and conversion APIs. If you use a courier app, cancel the test parcel in your courier's account too. The Conversion API apps have their own test mode you can turn on first. Browser pixels on your thank you page fire as for any purchase.
- Status changes on it are also sent to those apps.
- You still get the new order notification. See How do I get notified when I receive a new order?.
Delete your test orders when you are done and your totals go back to normal. Deleting a test order is immediate and permanent: unlike a real order, it never shows in the recovery panel. Deleting a real order never gives back its fee.
A test order also ticks the Place a test order task in the Dashboard setup list.
Sending a test order to your courier
Many courier and COD fulfillment apps have a Send test order button in their settings. It sends one order straight to your courier account, using a Product ID or SKU that exists in that account and a market you saved keys for, so you can check the connection without placing an order on your store. It creates a real order in the courier's system, so delete it there after the test. See COD fulfillment networks.
Why you cannot place more orders
To stop bots and fake cash on delivery orders, a store accepts only a few orders from the same buyer in a short time. When you go over the limit, checkout shows:
"You have placed several orders recently. Please wait a few hours before trying again"
The limit is 3 orders in 24 hours by default. If you installed the Shield app and set Max orders per customer, your value is used instead. That field accepts 1 to 3, so 3 is the highest possible.
The limit is checked for the same browser, the same visitor, the same device (even after clearing cookies), the same internet connection (several different visits on one connection), and the same phone number or email address. Abandoned and deleted orders never count. Test orders count like any other order, but the limit is not checked at all for orders you place from a preview link.
You saw a thank you page but no order arrived
If Shield's Decoy mode is on, a blocked order does not show an error. The visitor sees a normal thank you page, but no order is saved. This keeps attackers busy. If you test your own store with Decoy mode on and the order never shows in your list, you most likely hit the limit above.
How to get unblocked
- Order from a preview link. Open your store as described in Testing from a preview link above, and the limit no longer applies to your orders.
- Test with as few orders as you can. Test orders count toward the limit too, so delete each one once you have checked it. This prevents the next block but does not lift the current one.
- Delete the orders you placed while testing. Open Orders, select them and delete them. Deleted orders stop counting right away.
- Wait. Each order stops counting 24 hours after it was placed.
- Change device and network together, for example another phone on mobile data instead of your office Wi-Fi.
Does this affect my customers?
The rule applies to every buyer, but real shoppers almost never reach it. In practice only merchants testing their own store and bots do. If your customers really reorder several times a day, review Max orders per customer in How do I block fraud and bots with the Shield app?.