Software needs testing. No one in their sane mind would think otherwise. However, there are specific types of testing for specific, special kinds of activity. Ecommerce is one of those activities, and what’s more, it is an activity that comprises many –concurrent– activities, which means it is also an activity that implies the existence and use of a whole ecosystem of software applications/tools. Ecommerce platforms are complex and are often squeezed to the very limit of their possibilities in terms of processes and functions, hence, assuring that our online store has a smooth performance independent of the conditions and doesn’t present major bugs is critical for our business.
From the front end of an Ecommerce website to its checkout and payment page, there are multiple actors in play and each one must perform in perfect coordination with the rest.
Let’s enumerate and define them briefly:
Bugs in the front end of our website can seriously hinder user experience, meaning the difference between a visitor staying in our store, shopping, or leaving it and losing that customer. Images, descriptions, prices, and stock levels should all display correctly.
Data should be collected and stored correctly and forms should lead to the appropriate pages (such as those connecting to accounts).
Same as with the front end, if problems arise with the shopping cart, both a sale and a potential customer can be lost. It’s what’s known as cart abandonment.
Payment methods must be secure and reliable. Data like bank account or credit card numbers are highly sensitive and imply a responsibility for both customers and business owners, so, security breaches at the payment level should be approached with priority.
Checking the consistency and correct request/response messages from our Ecommerce platform APIs when performing the different transaction operations is central to the proper functioning of our order and customer management systems.
According to Amazon, circa 2009, every 100 milliseconds of latency would cost 1% loss in sales, while a 2017 Akamai study showed that every 100ms delay in page load time could hinder conversion rates by 7%. This leaves the importance of page load speed and benchmarking out of discussion.
Forms should correctly store the entered data and redirect to the relevant pages e.g.: accounts, search results, etc.
Payment processes require serious testing. All calculations of costs should be exact (tax, shipping, etc.).
Databases should smoothly and correctly perform transactions. Inconsistencies should be thoroughly checked.
Inventory, stock, product variant, customer email, billing/shipping address, product upload, server configuration, plugins, themes, 404 and 505 errors, etc, are some of the errors we might have to deal with when testing an Ecommerce platform.
Ecommerce platforms offer a great range of possibilities in terms of what modern business requires, however, thorough and high-coverage is required, since such platforms are truly an integration of very heterogeneous software applications which must run smoothly and in perfect attunement. User experience and security should be at the top of concerns, since first impressions and a rewarding use experience are basically everything.