Best process to 301 ecommerce store?

[bjs2010]

Hi,

We have decided to segment our products and languages on to different country tlds.

I know how to 301, but I am curious as to how I should actually do this, in what order to do it. Let's call the existing site with all products on OLDsite, and the new tld, where the products will also appear NEWsite.

I am thinking of:

1. Setting up NEWsite, but no sitemap.
2. On launch of NEWsite, 301 all products on OLDsite to NEWsite (they will no longer appear on OLDsite)
3. After some time, add sitemap, google verification in GWT, etc... on NEWsite.

My thinking is that if I launch NEWsite and notify Google it will index the same products and content as OLDsite, and not necessarily check the 301 right? Which could lead to dupe content issues...

Any ideas? We are only redirecting part of the site, so not all of it.

Thanks!