Do you know that there are between 12 million to 24 million e-commerce websites in the world? E-commerce websites have become incredibly popular as more and more people make purchases online. It implies that there is fierce rivalry. Comprehensive e-commerce testing that keeps up with evolving industry developments is necessary to guarantee that your e-commerce site is always up, functioning, and secure.
What is e-commerce testing?
E-commerce testing may be defined as the procedure of analysing and evaluating e-commerce websites and applications for their right operational capability free of performance or security concerns. E-commerce website testing takes into account and focuses on a variety of the site’s designs, specifications, functions, qualities, pages, and features that are thought to be prone to risks and concerns with site performance. By confirming adherence to client specifications, this test helps prevent errors and increase the value of your product.
Objective of Ecommerce testing
E-commerce website testing aims to provide system assurance, software stability and quality, and optimal performance and capacity optimisation. Previously, it was thought that e-commerce testing was solely focused on enhancing security measures. Effective e-commerce testing, however, focuses more on enhancing the security and functionality of each of the website’s elements. A thorough security audit of e-commerce applications will enable you to identify and address a number of difficulties beforehand, provide your services smoothly, lower financial risks, and adhere to international standards to lessen cyber threats.
Benefits of Ecommerce testing
These are e-commerce testing’s primary benefits:
Improve your online shop performance: An efficient e-commerce test can find issues even if your online business appears to be functioning well. A typical e-commerce business makes use of a variety of programmes, mobile applications, and unified, integrated systems. When you have established customised e-commerce solutions, it is essential to run a trial and test automation for your website. Automating tests will speed up marketing, while doing thorough tests will improve the efficiency of marketing. While creating a fantastic risk management strategy and useful applications, you can identify the necessary modifications and take the proper measures.
Ensure website availability: The accessibility of the website is essential for a business. Despite the fact that 98% uptime may seem like a high level of site availability, it is projected that it might result in a loss of approximately $200K in potential income. It is also said that 9% of visitors who encounter a down website won’t return. A high-quality software testing may reduce the danger of website downtime, especially for large loads during peak hours, and can also reduce the risk of lost sales, disgruntled customers, and tarnished brand reputation. You may also take a free WCAG and ADA compliance test to contribute to making the web more accessible. Since the DOJ’s most recent declaration, all websites connected to business are now considered to be public accommodations and are required to be accessible to those with disabilities. Therefore, it is essential to understand your site’s compliance status. This test will immediately reveal any inadequacies to you.
Ensure robust search functionality and fast loading speed: The majority of buyers look at the things on offer before making a purchase. According to statistics, 43% of visitors to ecommerce shopping websites jump right to the search box. Your clients will have a horrible experience on your site if it loads slowly and has poor search capability, which will lead to low conversion. According to statistics, 40% of visitors will leave a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load. E-commerce testing will guarantee reliable search functionality and quick page loads while also boosting consumer retention rates.
Prevent poor shopping cart functionality: Even if consumers find the products they’re looking for, they won’t be able to make an order if there is a problem with your shopping cart functionality. For instance, if a discount voucher is invalid, buyers will not be able to use it. By taking an e-commerce test, you may avoid this.
Prevent misleading analytics: Website analytics are necessary if you want to learn more about your site’s visitors, rate of sales conversion, revenue by traffic source, average order value, returning consumers, and other factors. You won’t be able to evaluate your overall business plan using credible data if your analytics are deceptive. Analytics that are accurate can prevent misleading data.
Ensure security: The products or programmes will be protected from intruders and cyber hackers when you test, verify, and validate them. E-commerce testing also makes sure that all of your website pages are thoroughly examined for any errors and that all transactions are verified and completed safely.
E-commerce testing checklist
The major goals of e-commerce testing are to ensure that your e-commerce website or app is bug-free, as well as to assess the app’s functionality and usability. Here are the critical components of an e-commerce website or application that you should test in order to do effective e-commerce testing:
- Hero Image in your Homepage
The large banner image at the top of your website is known as the Hero image. It gives a visitor their initial impression of your business and what you have to offer.
When testing your Hero image, consider these things:
- Will the image automatically scroll? If so, how frequently will it be updated?
- Will the image scroll to the next one when website visitors hover over it?
- Can you hover over it or click on it?
- If so, does it direct you to the appropriate page and deal?
- Does the Hero picture load after the previous page or does it load separately?
- Can you view the remaining content?
- Does performance remain consistent across browsers and screen resolutions?
- Product Description/Details page
A website visitor will be immediately sent to the product information page after finding the item they are looking for. Your target audiences will determine whether to continue to the checkout page after they get on this page. Therefore, it’s crucial to make sure that the product information page is efficient, interesting, and visually appealing enough to draw in visitors and persuade them to complete the purchasing process.
To begin with, the product photographs need to be excellent and present the products in the best possible way. If at all feasible, use videos to help viewers get a better sense of how your items appear and feel.
After that, pay attention to details like the product’s price, description, specifications, delivery information, available colour options, etc.
To encourage your visitors to complete the purchase, don’t forget to offer reviews and testimonials. They’ll also feel driven to tout the advantages when they read testimonials from previous and current clients who have found your items to be beneficial. Last but not least, be sure to include crucial information like delivery alternatives, check-out options, in-stock/out-of-stock status, and more.
- Shopping Cart
The next to final step of the entire purchasing process is your shopping cart. Simply said, it’s the phase immediately after the buyer’s commitment to the purchase.
It’s crucial to check that adding items to the cart and continuing your shopping go properly while you’re testing the shopping cart. Additionally, the item count in the shopping cart should be increased each time a customer adds the same item, and the products and their totals must also be displayed there.
Even after items have been added to the shopping cart, your e-commerce website should still permit customers to add or remove items. Additionally, the total price should to increase when customers add additional things to their carts.
The likelihood is now that the visitor will ultimately navigate from this point to the checkout/payment page. Make sure to provide delivery charges with a variety of shipping alternatives, as well as taxes based on your audience’s region, to make things easier for them.
In addition, users should be able to remove items from their shopping carts even before proceeding to the payment page, leaving the site without making a purchase and returning at a later time. However, the products in the cart should remain on the website. Last but not least, make sure that the “Proceed to checkout” procedure functions properly and that users may “Apply Coupons” without any difficulty.
- Make Sure Search Algorithms Functions Smoothly
The success of every e-commerce firm depends on search algorithms. It’s because you can’t always present the users with the content they want to view.
While testing for search, consider these things:
- Use the category, brand, or product name as the search criteria to guarantee relevant search results.
- See that there are multiple options based on Brand, Price, Reviews/Ratings, and so on.
- The number of results to be displayed per page.
- Check to see whether there are any navigation options for multi-page results.
- When authenticating this capability, take the search drilling down into multiple levels since search occurs in many areas.
- Final Checkout page
This is the point at which your target audiences will really make the purchase. One of the most important parts of an e-commerce site that has to be tested is the final checkout or payment page. If the users get stuck on this step, they could leave their carts and all your efforts will be for nothing. To begin with, make sure you offer a variety of payment methods so that your customers may always finish the transaction. If you allow “Guest check out,” be sure the purchase is being made. And don’t forget to provide a registration option at the end.
Other than this, make sure to test this list:
- Returning customers may easily log in and complete their purchases.
- User signup.
- Perform a security test on any data you are holding on customers that might be vulnerable, such as credit card numbers. You have to abide with PCI requirements.
- Examine whether the sessions have run out when users have been signed up for a long time. Email/text confirmation test. An order number should be generated by them.
- Related or Recommended Products
Usually, recommended or related items let you provide your audience more options, which might lead to an upsell or cross-sell.
While browsing, your visitors could change their minds and buy the other goods you “recommended” to them if they see something else, they like.
Additionally, it helps to persuade returning customers to complete the transaction.
Customers may opt to make a purchase if they see the suggested items on the home page or in their shopping basket when they return.
Therefore, confirm that the code or algorithm displaying “Recommended Items” is in good functioning order. Making ensuring that the appropriate product is recommended to the right person at the right time is also crucial.
- Featured products
Another key factor that you must evaluate is featured items. The “Featured Products” section typically changes almost daily to highlight specific products for a given period of time.
This area belongs to the category of dynamic features much as the suggested products section. As a result, you may evaluate these components by examining the algorithm upon which they are filled.
You can examine the queries that appear in these sections from the backend using your data mining and business intelligence technologies.
- After-order Tests
You may test components like Changing the Order Date or Address, Cancelling the Order, Tracking the Order, and Return when carrying out an after-order test. You should also check the Login, FAQs, Contact Us, Customer Service, and other pages.
- Web Browser Compatibility
Testing the app’s compatibility with several web browsers, such as Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, and others, is essential. You must make sure that no technological issues prevent your customers from using your e-commerce site.
- App Workflow
If you want to provide clients with a fantastic online shopping experience, you should be testing your web or mobile application’s whole process. The login, signup, search, sorting, shopping cart addition and removal, checkout, payment gateway, and payment processing processes will all be tested.
- Mobile Responsiveness
Daily growth is seen in the number of mobile device users. So it’s essential to evaluate mobile responsiveness and design your e-commerce apps with mobile users in mind first. Pay close attention to testing the app’s responsive design on mobile devices with various screen sizes.
- Social Media Integration
The success of your e-commerce app or website depends on a number of important factors, including social media. Therefore, it has to be tested to make sure that the workflow and site architecture are perfectly matched with social media integration. To enhance the operation and process of social media, you can also conduct a test.
- SEO related Features
To rank better in search engines, you must evaluate your e-commerce website’s or app’s SEO-related elements in addition to its general functionality. Check to see that the requirements are satisfied and the title tags, URL structure, and other elements have been applied correctly. Don’t forget to test e-commerce applications’ features as well, such as the format of the website, accessibility, cookies, social media buttons, editing shipping preferences, deleting and adding connections, and analytics.
- Security
To test for security and vulnerability issues, e-commerce testing would be inadequate without security testing. It is important to evaluate security vulnerabilities since your e-commerce apps handle sensitive data, including financial information about customers. You can put tests like SQL Injection and moral login hacks into practise.
Conclusion
A successful e-commerce test can guarantee pleased and delighted consumers while boosting your revenue. Unhappy consumers can result from a variety of problems, including website outages, sluggish website loading times, poor shopping cart functionality, unsafe transactions, unresponsive web or app, and more. Additionally, losing potential consumers will eventually cost you sales and marketing possibilities.
Because of this, it’s crucial to carry out thorough e-commerce testing in order to minimise website faults and expand your business. Don’t forget to test even the smallest components of your e-commerce website to prevent user frustration and guarantee a seamless purchasing experience.
How can Tecnolynx be a help to you?
Our team of seasoned E-commerce testing experts has a wealth of knowledge in test optimization, including the creation of thorough test frameworks, test automation, and the crucial non-functional requirements validation that is essential for high-quality E-commerce deployments. We also use a variety of test accelerators, which allow us to expedite test completion while contributing to a shorter test life cycle.
In order to offer a flawless shopping experience for customers, we also place a strong emphasis on the implementation of robust security systems to avoid vulnerabilities in solutions like identity theft.
