# Find your constraint before the traffic arrives

> The 23-point pre-peak checklist from Bulletproof for the Golden Quarter. Not a list to complete: a way to find the one or two boxes you cannot honestly tick, because those are your binding constraint. Proposition, findability, checkout, capacity, technology, people, returns.

Source: https://barkingcat.ai/thinking/bulletproof-for-the-golden-quarter/checklist/

## Bulletproof for the Golden Quarter · The checklist

This is not a list to complete. It is a way to find the one or two boxes you cannot honestly tick, because those are your binding constraint, the point where your chain of promises breaks under load.

Download the full playbook as a PDF: [fifteen pages, no form, no email, no gate.](https://barkingcat.ai/assets/bulletproof-for-the-golden-quarter.pdf)

Fix what you can. For what you cannot fix in time, make the call Currys and The Works both made: decide whether the operation can carry the demand you are about to buy, and where it cannot, soften the promise or decline the sale rather than disappoint the customer.

## Proposition and range
- A cold visitor understands what we sell and why us within seconds
- Top landing pages show stock reality, not things we cannot ship
- The homepage earns the paid traffic we are about to send it

## Findability and merchandising
- Internal search handles plurals, synonyms, and misspellings
- Our twenty most-searched terms all return useful results
- Category pages push stocked bestsellers up, stock-outs down

## Conversion, checkout and trust

See also [checkout and payment](https://barkingcat.ai/thinking/bulletproof-for-the-golden-quarter/checkout-and-payment/), and [trust and reassurance](https://barkingcat.ai/thinking/bulletproof-for-the-golden-quarter/trust-and-reassurance/).
- Shipping cost is visible early, not sprung at the final step
- Guest checkout exists and works
- Checkout is tested on mobile, under load, on the right payment methods
- Reviews, returns policy and delivery info are findable before purchase

## Capacity, stock and fulfilment
- Our daily breaking-point order volume is documented
- Forecast peak day sits below that line, or the promise is softened
- Hero products behind campaigns are confirmed landed and sellable
- Dispatch velocity, not just storage volume, is measured

## Technology and traffic
- Every licence and third-party service is paid and provisioned for peak
- Peak concurrent load is estimated and load-tested at a multiple
- The code freeze date is agreed and in diaries

## People, support and the promise
- On-call cover named for the full peak weekend, with escalation path
- Out-of-hours system monitoring is in place and reachable from home
- Customer service staffed to peak volume, opening hours published
- Marketing plan and creative locked before the freeze
- Delivery cut-off dates clear, correct and consistent everywhere

## Post-purchase and returns
- Exchange offered as the easy default, not buried behind refund

## Before peak arrives

This playbook is the front-end read a house can run on itself. [The Barking Cat Review](https://barkingcat.ai/review/) takes the whole house apart, shop front and back office, finds the binding constraint, and puts commercial numbers against it before peak arrives.

## Contact

steve@barkingcat.ai

Barking Cat Advisory Limited. Registered in England and Wales, company number 17338003.