WHY IS TESTING SO CRUCIAL FOR YOUR E-COMMERCE SUCCESS?
E-commerce channel of selling has become a norm for companies of any size, thanks to the increased use of smartphones to access everything on-line. The on-line only businesses have become so successful, and the most convenient buying pattern of customers is increasingly becoming mobile or web based. The global Retail Ecommerce Sales will be a whopping a $2.842trillion and will go over $4 trillion by 2020. You better get your Ecommerce site right to stay in the race
There are B2C, B2B, and B2B2C eCommerce sites that are used by Retail, Manufacturing, Financial, Insurance, Travel, Transport, Personal Services, and many other industries. Having a good quality eCommerce site is a must if you want to keep growing your business on-line. And, ensuring good quality comes from thorough testing. Many eCommerce sites have failed to give enough importance to testing; hence paid a huge price by losing customers and business.
Ecommerce testing is not easy, especially if you need to automate the testing using a tool. This requires deep domain expertise, and testing experience combined with the knowledge of specific tool. Let us see the various types of testing your eCommerce site should undergo. Once these tests are performed in the first few cycles, work on creating test scripts will begin and a fully automated testing will be achieved.
Functionality test
Though it is a fundamental test anyone can think of, still even-coverage of all sections of the site is essential so the site can complete the business a customer is willing to give.
After having a good understanding of the underlying application (i.e. what is being sold and how is it getting delivered) check the 4 pillars of ecommerce site:
Homepage (with special offers, privacy policy, Sitemap etc),
Product Category pages (with product information, comparison, search/sort, pricing etc),
Product description (with simple description, photo, video snaps, Add to Cart features, Product comparisons etc) and
Shopping Cart (with final view of products bought, ease of changing items, discounts, payment processing etc.)
Usability test
Apart from checking the ease of use (user-friendliness) aspect, conduct detailed checks on sorting, searching and listing accuracy, evaluate the ease of handling the cart and making changes to the products in the basket, and check on the correct price/item description for the product.
Payment test
Testing for VAT or any other tax inclusion, provisions for entering discount code, and calculation of all this and coming up with the correct sum for the products in basket.
Checking the payment gateway for support of Credit/Debit/Loyalty cards, Paypal etc.
Issuance of Invoice and firing of emails to Customer and various 3rd parties involved.
Browser compatibility test
As the customers are expected to visit from across the globe, it is quintessential to test the application on various versions of various browsers (Chrome, Safari, Explorer, Firefox, Opera etc) to ensure the look and feel are same across all the browsers.
Performance test
A slow or dead app is not only refusing to take the cash on the table, but also increases the chance of bad social advertisement. Due to the complexity of any Ecommerce site handling various webservices, it is essential to check how the application behaves when various scenarios of loads of users work from various devices at various times/occasions.
Mobile Responsiveness test
Mobile devices are increasingly becoming the main source of placing orders. Hence lot of testing is necessary to check if the eCommerce site works the same way across various devices running various versions and flavours of mobile operating systems. The responsiveness-check across various dimensions of same company’s product is also very important. Using a Device lab or Crowd testing are common practices to ensure quickly that the eCommerce site works alike across all devices.
Security test
Cyber threat is a menace to deal in the Net. Performing Vulnerability test, and Site level Penetration test are to be conducted. There are specialists to do ethical hacking, SQL injection and other methods to check this. Security test is furthermore important considering GDPR compliance, as Customer’s valuable information are taken, encrypted, and processed.
API test
API testing is popular because of these facts: Continuous testing is so common due to Agile software development and DevOps adaption in the industry, and Application Programming Interfaces are both consumed and created in any software. API test will determine if the APIs return the correct response in the expected format for various requests, and handle exceptions and security breaches.
You don’t get the second chance to get the first impression right. The attention span of the visiting customers keeps reducing. Unless your on-line shop caters to their needs without glitches, hang-ups, and stupid mistakes, the customers will switch to your competitors in a click. It is evident that a thorough professional testing will help you ensure the quality of your eCommerce site.