People are adopting online shopping like never before, and global eCommerce market size is expected to grow very high in the coming years. Current technology trends and accessibility have made it possible for every business to create an eCommerce platform in no time and start selling. It is important to test eCommerce websites and mobile applications, so that it enhances users experience, customer data security, quick load time, safe and secure transaction. All these factors help in maintaining the website stability and enjoyable customers experience.
Why testing is important for your eCommerce success:
eCommerce applications have lots of users world- wide as they deal with finance, marketing retail and wholesale, manufacturing and auctions. Better testing techniques will safeguards the website from failure. The main reasons for testing your eCommerce application is to check the usability of the application, its user friendliness and to make your eCommerce website/ application bugs free.
Following are the important factors where testing of eCommerce websites would be helpful :
1. Ensuring the readiness of transactions :
Testing an eCommerce website will help you make sure that every single webpage on your website is tested well enough and is validated to complete all the eCommerce transactions. It will also confirm whether it is ready for the customer use or not.
2. Enhancing the usability :
The success of online buying website depends upon the increased and smooth usability, along with reduced risk factors. Testing process for eCommerce website deals with both of these aspects.
3. Reducing the risk of changes :
The changes in your eCommerce website should enhance customers experience and a hassle free transaction. Testing makes sure that the incorporated new changes doesn’t affect the website and it is bugs free.
4. Evaluating the functionality and compatibility against load :
In order to serve customers requirements and needs perfectly, every organization needs to ensure that the function provided in their websites are working properly at different amounts of load conditions and whether the website is able to support different browsers and platforms or not. Testing is a must for eCommerce website to ensure the compatibility and good working conditions of the website during heavy loads i.e. during holiday season as well.
Important segments of eCommerce testing :
Testing eCommerce website will help you to identify and rectify errors, that affect your website’s performance and a good customer experience.
#1. Home Page:
Home page is the first page to appear when a user opens the website. On an eCommerce website the homepage consists of a very rich and useful source of information. It is important to test the interoperability and functionality of the homepage of the e-commerce website.
#2. Category pages :
It is one of the major areas in terms of testing. The range and breadth of the products should be tested by checking that the products are grouped as per category or not. Also check, how quickly the user is able to find the correct product category on the website.
#3. Product detail page :
The product detail page is the heart of the eCommerce system. Hence it is really important to make sure that the product detail pages are tested thoroughly and how the functionality of these pages work. It involves checking elements like,
- Product code and title
- Product image
- Enlarging the image
- Product description
- Full body view of the product….and many more.
#4. Shopping cart :
Separate resources and efforts should be dedicated towards the functionality of the shopping cart. They should also test that the quantities, shopping cart items and display option are shown accordingly. Whether the transactions taking place on the website or not ? The functionality of removing and changing items in a shopping cart should also be tested.
#5. Payment Gateways :
This factor is very important for both the businesses and the customers because it involves money. The payment gateway allows a merchant to accept credit, debit card and other forms of electronic payments. So payment modes should be safe and secure as these are important targets for hackers and scammers. The checkout and payment gateway should also be tested with different payment options such as PayPal, online banking, cash, etc..,
#6. Search :
Most of the customers come to the website and search for a specific product that they have in mind. Hence the website should make it easier for customers to locate the product without much difficulty. This is a crucial segment which should be tested thoroughly. This factor helps in determining the success of the eCommerce website, because customers often have only a few features of a certain product in mind. Search algorithm of your website helps the visitor to find the best product, they are looking for.
#7. After order tests:
Whenever a customer places an order there are many things that will happen afterwards, such as showing the shipping status, there is an option to cancel the order in case the customer doesn’t want it. Sometimes the customer wants to return their product in case of a defect or a complaint. So there should be a feature relating to the returns as well. The things to be tested here are that these features are working properly and are easy to use or not, because this can affect the customer.
#8. Browser compatibility:
It is important for eCommerce applications to work on all types of web browsers such as Google chrome, Firefox, opera etc.., you need to test the browser compatibility of the application to make sure that your customers are able to use your e-commerce website without any hassle.
Testing eCommerce application work flow :
- Search functionality, sign up and login options
- Features for posting product reviews so that other customers can see them and make their decision.
- Sorting features, to filter different product types
- Adding or removing products from the shopping cart.
- Checking out process, invoice generation and order number, payment processing and payment gateway for buying the product
So, to offer a hassle free e-commerce experience to customers, it is important to test the complete workflow of your website and mobile application. Before planning and performing the functional testing, specialists should understand and familiarize themselves with the e-commerce website very well, so that they can plan tests accordingly.
Pull up :
By conducting thorough eCommerce website application testing, you can significantly reduce the number of errors that crop up when the website is made live to your customers.