How it works, and what it can see.

Security and access

• No admin access. Nothing to install, no admin access, no staff account. The shopper sees your storefront, your cart and your checkout exactly as a customer does.
• Nothing is changed. It reads pages and fills the checkout forms with its own fake details. It never edits settings, products, orders or themes.
• It never pays. The walk ends when the payment form is on screen. No card number is ever typed, no order is ever placed, no discount code is ever applied.
• It is easy to recognize. Every visit shops as "Checkwalk Monitor" with the email checkout-monitor@checkwalk.com and a Chicago business address, so you can filter it out of abandoned-checkout flows and analytics.
• You can stop it any time. Every email carries a pause and remove link. Removing a store deletes its schedule immediately.

What we store

• Your email and your store address. That is the whole signup.
• The storefront password, if you give us one. Used only to open your store; removed when you remove the store.
• Results of each check: which step passed or failed, how long it took, and screenshots of what the shopper saw. Kept 90 days, then deleted.
• Nothing about your customers. The shopper never sees an order, a customer record or a payment.

Checks run on servers in the United States. Email is delivered through Resend. Everything between your browser and us is encrypted. Details are in the privacy policy.

How the shopper works

A real browser, the real path

Each check uses a real web browser and walks the same eight steps a customer takes: store, product, add to cart, cart, checkout, address, shipping rates, payment form. It uses the buttons and forms on the page, the way a customer does, so it fails where a customer would fail: a hidden button, a broken app, a form that rejects the address.

Picking a product

The shopper reads your public catalog and chooses an in-stock product that a normal visitor could buy, skipping gift cards, wholesale-only items and bundles that have no ordinary cart form. If the one it picked cannot be added, it tries the next before deciding anything is wrong.

Telling a break from a bad read

Every theme is different. When Checkwalk cannot find something the way it expects but a fallback still gets the shopper through, we note it and the check continues. Only failures that would stop a real customer count against your store. You are never alerted because of our own guesswork.

Two failures before one email

After a failed step, the shopper tries again about ten minutes later. One slow page or a passing glitch never reaches your inbox; the same failure twice in a row does. When a later check passes, you get one note saying it works again, with how long it was down.

Plain English, not error codes

Failures are sorted into a small set of causes a store owner can act on: no shipping options, payments unavailable, password page, everything sold out, address rejected, and so on. Each alert names the cause, attaches the screenshot and points to the first place to look in your Shopify admin.

Who the test shopper is

Every check uses the same made-up customer, so you can recognize it anywhere it shows up:

• Name: Checkwalk Monitor
• Email: checkout-monitor@checkwalk.com
• Shipping address: 233 S Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States. That is the Willis Tower, a real business address, chosen because Shopify's address check accepts it and no package could ever be ordered to it: the shopper stops before paying.
• Phone: a placeholder number, never a real line.
• Payment: none. No card number is ever typed. The check ends when the payment form is on screen.

Schedule and limits

Checks run every hour. For now the shopper only ships to the United States. If your store does not ship there, the check stops at the shipping step, we mark the store as "does not ship to our test address" and never alert you about it. Email us and we will tell you when your country is supported. Shopify stores only for now, including stores behind a storefront password. WooCommerce is next.

Keeping the shopper out of your numbers

• Abandoned-checkout emails: add a condition that skips customers whose email is checkout-monitor@checkwalk.com in Shopify Email, Klaviyo or whatever sends your marketing.
• Analytics: one visit per check, always under the same name. Filter the email or the "Checkwalk Monitor" name and it disappears.
• Inventory: adding to the cart does not reserve stock in Shopify. The abandoned checkout is cleaned up by Shopify like any other.

Questions about any of this: hello@checkwalk.com