Launch Checklist

SKILL.md

---
name: launch-checklist
description: Create comprehensive pre-launch, launch day, and post-launch checklists for new TikTok Shop products to avoid costly missed steps during the critical first 72 hours.
---

# Launch Checklist

Missing a single step at product launch can cost you your ranking window, suppress your first batch of reviews, or trigger a policy flag that freezes your listing at the worst possible time. This skill generates detailed, phase-by-phase checklists for launching new products on TikTok Shop — covering listing setup, affiliate activation, inventory staging, and post-launch monitoring — so nothing slips through the cracks.

## Quick Reference

Use this table to judge whether a launch plan is ready. Score each row; a launch is "go" only when no row is Weak.

| Decision | Strong | Acceptable | Weak |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead time before live date | 7+ days of staged prep | 3–6 days | < 48 hours, rushed |
| Listing quality score | 90%+, all media approved | 70–89%, minor gaps | < 70% or pending review |
| Inventory cover | 30+ days at forecast peak | 14–29 days | < 14 days or unconfirmed |
| Affiliate activation | 10+ creators confirmed, samples shipped | 3–9 creators, samples in transit | 0–2 or none briefed |
| Pricing & promo setup | Anchor price + launch coupon live, tested | Coupon created, not tested | No promo, list price only |
| Post-launch monitoring | Dashboard + alert thresholds defined | Manual daily checks | No monitoring plan |
| Compliance review | Claims, category, restricted terms cleared | Spot-checked | Not reviewed |

## Solves

This skill addresses the recurring failure points sellers hit when launching:

1. **Forgotten setup steps** — listing fields, variants, or shipping templates left incomplete that block the buy button on launch day.
2. **Review suppression** — launching before the review-generation flow (samples, follow-up, request timing) is in place, wasting the early-momentum window.
3. **Ranking-window waste** — TikTok rewards early velocity; an unprepared launch squanders the algorithmic boost new SKUs receive.
4. **Inventory stockouts** — going viral with two days of stock, then losing rank when the listing goes out of stock.
5. **Affiliate cold start** — no creators briefed or sampled, so there is zero content volume in the first 72 hours.
6. **Policy freezes** — unreviewed claims, restricted keywords, or category mismatches that trigger a listing hold mid-launch.
7. **No measurement** — no baseline or alert thresholds, so problems are discovered days late from a revenue dip.

## Workflow

Follow these steps to produce a complete launch runbook.

**Step 1 — Gather launch context.** Collect the SKU details, target live date, category, price point, available inventory, fulfillment method, and the team members who own each area. If any of these are unknown, flag them as blockers at the top of the output.

**Step 2 — Build the pre-launch phase (T-7 to T-1).** Generate dated tasks for listing creation and QA, media approval, pricing and coupon setup, affiliate outreach and sampling, inventory staging, and compliance review. Assign each task an owner and a deadline relative to the live date.

**Step 3 — Build the launch-day phase (T-0).** Cover the go-live sequence: confirm buy button live, activate promo, publish/boost first creator content, monitor first orders, and verify checkout and shipping flow with a test or first real order.

**Step 4 — Build the post-launch phase (T+1 to T+7).** Cover review requests, restock triggers, daily metric checks, creator content cadence, and an escalation path for policy or fulfillment issues.

**Step 5 — Set monitoring thresholds.** Define the metrics to watch (units sold, conversion rate, listing quality score, inventory days remaining, review count) and the alert threshold for each that should trigger action.

**Step 6 — Risk pass.** Walk the Quick Reference table; mark any Weak rows and add a mitigation task for each before declaring the launch ready.

**Step 7 — Output.** Render the runbook using the output template, grouped by phase, with checkboxes, owners, and deadlines.

## Worked Examples

### Example 1 — Beauty SKU, solo seller, 5-day lead time

Input: A vitamin-C serum, $24.90, 600 units in stock, fulfilled by seller, going live in 5 days, one operator.

Output highlights: Pre-launch compresses listing QA and compliance into days T-5/T-4 (cosmetic claims flagged for review — "brightening" allowed, "treats hyperpigmentation" removed). Affiliate plan scaled to 4 creators given solo capacity, samples shipped T-5 to arrive T-2. Launch coupon set at 15% for first 100 orders. Monitoring: inventory cover is 600 units / ~40 forecast peak/day = ~15 days → flagged Acceptable, restock PO drafted at T+1. Result is a 22-item checklist with two Weak rows mitigated.

### Example 2 — Home-goods SKU, brand team, 10-day lead time

Input: A modular desk organizer, $39, 3,000 units in 3PL, going live in 10 days, team of four with named owners.

Output highlights: Full 7-day staged pre-launch with 12 affiliates and a tiered sampling wave. Listing quality reaches 95% by T-3. Anchor price $49 with $39 launch price and a stacked 10% coupon, tested in a sandbox order T-2. Inventory cover is 30+ days → Strong. Post-launch adds a creator content calendar (3 posts/day) and a review-request automation triggered at delivery + 3 days. All Quick Reference rows score Strong → clean "go".

## Common Mistakes

1. **Launching on the planned date regardless of readiness.** A Weak listing-quality or inventory row should move the date, not be ignored.
2. **No owner on tasks.** Unassigned checklist items are the ones that get missed; every task needs a name.
3. **Briefing affiliates too late.** Samples must arrive before the live date — ship 4–5 days out, not on launch day.
4. **Skipping the test order.** Checkout, coupon, and shipping bugs surface only when you actually transact.
5. **Ignoring compliance until the end.** Claim and keyword review must happen early enough to fix the listing before go-live.
6. **Treating launch day as the finish line.** The first 72 hours of monitoring and content cadence decide the ranking outcome.
7. **One-size inventory assumptions.** Cover must be computed against forecast peak demand, not average.
8. **No alert thresholds.** "Watch the numbers" is not a plan; define the trigger that forces action.
9. **Stacking unrelated promos.** Conflicting coupons can break pricing or cannibalize margin — test the final stack.
10. **No restock trigger.** Decide the inventory level that fires a PO before you launch, not after you stock out.

## Resources

- `references/output-template.md` — the structured runbook output format.
- `references/launch-phases-guide.md` — detailed task lists for each launch phase.
- `references/tiktok-shop-compliance.md` — claims, restricted terms, and category-fit guidance.
- `assets/launch-readiness-checklist.md` — a 40-item go/no-go quality checklist.