Most delivery problems do not announce themselves. They surface as a confused buyer email, a refund you cannot argue with, or a chargeback you have no evidence for. By then the setup that caused the problem has been quietly failing for months.
This audit turns that setup into a number. Ten questions, each scored 2, 1, or 0. Answer honestly — score what your store does today, not what your platform's feature page promises. It takes about 15 minutes, most of it spent actually testing things instead of guessing. You will need your store open in one tab and a test purchase (or your most recent real order) in another.
Scoring: 2 = yes, tested and working. 1 = partly, or set up but never tested. 0 = no, or you do not know.
The 10 questions
1. Do your download links expire?
Buy a test copy (or reuse a recent order) and open the delivery link. Then check the setting behind it. 2 points if links expire after a period you chose on purpose. 1 point if they expire at a default you never reviewed. 0 if links never expire — a link that lives forever will eventually be shared forever.
2. Is there a download limit per buyer?
Count how many times one buyer can download before the link stops working. 2 points for a sensible limit (enough for a lost file and a new computer, not enough for a group chat). 1 point if a limit exists but you could not say what it is. 0 if downloads are unlimited and untracked.
3. If the delivery email never arrives, can the buyer recover without you?
Delivery emails land in spam, get filtered, or go to an old address. 2 points if a buyer can get a fresh link on their own — a recovery page, an account, or a re-send button — at 2 a.m. without emailing you. 1 point if recovery exists but starts with "contact support." 0 if the only recovery path is you, manually, whenever you next check email.
4. If you sell software, fonts, or plugins: does each buyer get their own license key?
Skip nothing here — if keys do not apply to your products, score 2 and move on. Otherwise: 2 points if a unique key is issued per order, can be validated, and can be revoked on refund. 1 point if keys exist but revocation is manual or unclear. 0 if one shared key (or no key) protects a paid product.
5. If you sell PDFs: is each copy stamped or watermarked for its buyer?
Again, if PDFs are not your product, score 2. If they are: 2 points if each delivered copy carries the buyer's name or email, so a leaked copy names its source. 1 point for a generic watermark that does not identify the buyer. 0 if every buyer receives the identical clean file.
6. When you fix or improve a product, do past buyers get the new version?
Think of your last update. 2 points if past buyers were notified and could download the new version free, without re-buying or emailing you. 1 point if updates reach past buyers only when you remember to send them by hand. 0 if an update silently replaces the file and only future buyers ever see it.
7. Could you prove delivery in a dispute, right now?
Pick a recent order. 2 points if you can pull up a delivery log — what was sent, to which email, when, and whether it was downloaded — in under two minutes. 1 point if the evidence exists but is scattered across your inbox and dashboard. 0 if your whole case in a chargeback would be "I definitely sent it."
8. Have you tested a bundle or your largest file end to end?
Big files and bundles fail in ways small ones do not: timeouts, partial downloads, confusing multi-file emails. 2 points if you have personally bought and downloaded your largest product on an ordinary connection and it just worked. 1 point if you tested the files but never the full purchase flow. 0 if the largest thing you sell has never been test-bought.
9. If someone buys for a gift or a team, does the recipient get their own delivery?
2 points if the recipient receives their own link (and key, where relevant) under their own email, while the buyer keeps only a receipt. 1 point if it works, but only through a manual re-issue you handle yourself. 0 if the buyer's only option is forwarding their personal link — the pattern that burns download limits and tangles licenses.
10. If you take pre-orders, is delivery on release day automatic and honest?
Never sold a pre-order? Score 2. Otherwise: 2 points if release-day delivery goes out automatically to every pre-order buyer, and any delay triggers a note with a real refund option. 1 point if delivery is automatic but a delay would be handled "when it happens." 0 if pre-order delivery means you, a spreadsheet, and a long evening.
Reading your score
17–20 — Solid. Your delivery is doing its job quietly. Your remaining risk is drift: settings change and platforms change defaults. Re-run this audit twice a year, and after any platform migration or pricing-plan change, since those are the moments limits and expiries get reset without asking.
12–16 — Leaky in specific places. You are probably losing a little money and a little goodwill in one or two spots rather than everywhere. Fixes, in order: first, close the recovery gap (question 3) — a buyer who cannot get their file becomes a refund request within the hour. Second, build your dispute evidence habit (question 7) before you need it; logs cannot be created retroactively. Third, test-buy your largest product (question 8) this week.
7–11 — Delivery is costing you sales support time. Most of your score is likely lost on the unglamorous trio: links that never expire, no self-serve recovery, and updates that never reach past buyers. Pick the single lowest area and fix only that this week. One working fix beats a weekend of re-platforming, and each of these three is usually a settings change, not a migration.
0–6 — Rebuild the basics before you scale. Do not run ads into this setup yet; more orders will multiply the support load, not just the revenue. Start with expiring, limited links (questions 1–2), then self-serve recovery (question 3), then delivery logs (question 7). Those four turn most "where is my file" and "prove you sent it" pain off at the source. Everything else on the list can wait until they are done.
One closing note
This audit is deliberately tool-agnostic — every question can be answered, and most fixes made, inside whatever you already use. It was written alongside FileFreight, a new and small delivery-only tool, with the caveats stated plainly: it is not a merchant of record and does not handle sales tax or VAT, there is no automatic importer yet (the first 20 sellers get a free white-glove migration instead), and it is not a Shopify app. If your current setup scores well, keep it. The score matters more than the tool — a 17 on a boring setup beats a 7 on a shiny one, every time.
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