ECommerce Website Testing: The Complete Guide
This year, 2.14 billion people purchased goods online. While the high purchasing power of consumers can be a positive factor, it also poses risks to existing eCommerce websites. They will have more competition in their respective industries. That’s why they need to up their game to succeed.
As we all know, a satisfying customer experience is one of the most effective ways to succeed in any industry. And as far as eCommerce websites are concerned, a good customer experience can be affected by how smoothly they can access your online wares.
Website testing ensures that eCommerce websites run smoothly and provides hassle-free transactions. It checks for bugs and the website’s performance as it appears to users. After all, some sources show that 58% of clients can ditch a service because their shopping experience is flawed.
Additionally, a thoroughly tested website can generate high levels of user engagement. Moreover, it can also increase traffic and revenue. This article will discuss everything you need to know about examining an eCommerce website. But first, you need to understand what this process is about and why it’s essential.
What is eCommerce Website Testing?
We begin by reviewing and assessing websites and applications. This process ensures proper operational capability, free from performance and security concerns.
eCommerce website testing examines and targets different aspects of the site. This procedure includes its design, specifications, functionalities, attributes, pages, and features. These aspects are prone to site performance risks and concerns, so by checking that it meets customer requirements, this test helps you avoid mistakes. Moreover, it also provides value to your product.
eCommerce website testing can be done manually or automated. With manual testing, the process is solely handled by web testers without the help of automation tools. The tester verifies if the website works as it should. They will, then, carry out the test cases and generate the test results manually.
On the other hand, there are automated web testing platforms that help streamline the whole process. Additionally, they provide a more accurate report. Because of technological advancement, you can now use test automation tools for more advanced testing and test results.
While manual checks can be time-consuming, automated web testing still needs some manual tasks. During the implementation stage, the baseline scripts are created manually.
There are free test automation tools that you can get your hands on. Some even provide free trial periods. These are ideal to do a comprehensive try-out before you decide to put money on it.
With the right website testing software, your eCommerce testing process can verify:
- Software quality and dependability
- System assurance
- Optimal performance, and
- Capacity utilization
What Tests Are Good for ECommerce Website Testing?
Only after several tests does guarantee arrive that the website supports the best customer experience. But what do these tests seek to find? Here are some of the answers to that question for eCommerce:
Functional Testing
Functional testing determines whether the website meets its base requirements. These include basic link functionality and whether data fields accept all relevant variables. It also identifies whether suitable pop-ups appear at the right moment. Unit tests, smoke tests, regression tests, and integration tests are some examples of functional tests.
Because eCommerce websites have so many functions, functional testing is detrimental. By using it, you can ensure that each part of the whole performs appropriately. Although, running functional tests has its disadvantages. It can be difficult, time-consuming, and error-prone. These drawbacks originate from the very links and fields that every modern-day website contains. In such cases, automated web testing is the ideal method. Testers can use test automation tools to design and run automated functional tests on websites. This test aims to validate site efficacy without compromising time or resources.
Accessibility Testing
Accessibility tests ensure that a website is usable by different people. It aims to make websites more accessible to those with disabilities. This feature covers impaired vision or hearing, reading difficulties, or physical or cognitive limitations.
Accessibility testing not only expands an eCommerce website’s potential user base. It also helps the site comply with standards, such as the ADA Website Accessibility Standards. Although this method complies mostly with guidelines and recommendations or legal obligations, they improve the browsing experience even to those who need no audio or visual aid.
Both automated and manual testing is valid for accessibility checks. Automated web testing can detect issues across the website’s pages, while the manual version can detect errors on a subset of pages.
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Performance Testing
This method assesses how well a website works under various scenarios. In this situation, performance refers to several factors. These include stability, scalability, speed, and responsiveness. We can measure all of these at different levels of traffic and load.
This method is required to ensure that the website meets the highest standards of quality at all times. It checks different aspects of the website’s performance, such as:
- Application output
- Data transmission speed
- Data processing speed
- Network bandwidth usage
- Load-bearing capability
- Memory usage, and
- Command reaction times
If the performance method can be automated, it will ensure that the website can withstand high traffic days. Using load testing software helps you get enough users to exceed your highest traffic expectations, and it generates essential details about the website’s ability to handle real-world scenarios.
Cross-Browser Compatibility Testing
Every eCommerce website should be accessible from different browsers. The website needs to render error-free on every browser and browser version. It needs to take into account the numerous technical differences and eccentricities.
To do this, you need to conduct a thorough cross-browser examination on browsers and devices. Testers need to examine how the website looks and functions in real-world scenarios. Websites should be tested on different combinations of browsers, devices, and operating systems.
Cross-browser testing is an essential component of any eCommerce examination. Users are immediately alienated if an eCommerce site does not work correctly on all major browsers. And this can result in a loss of traffic and revenue.
With the cross-browser method, it is more difficult and time-consuming to do it manually. That’s why we recommend automation. Automated cross-browser testing tools create automated test scripts and execute them. After that, they compare the actual results to the predicted results.
Though the procedure is automated, you still need to create the initial test script manually. You can use these scripts to run many tests in different browsers. The goal of automated cross-browser testing is to shorten the process.
Mobile Compatibility Testing
Mobile phone traffic accounts for half of the total web traffic this year. Because of this, it is beyond essential to design and optimize eCommerce sites for mobile browsing.
There are hundreds of devices with varying screen sizes and resolutions around the globe. Because of this, your site may not render correctly on some screens. And if your feedback channel with your customers is not ideal, you may never learn about this flaw. Web developers should utilize a responsive design and test its efficacy on various devices to avoid such discrepancies by looking through customers’ eyes.
While mobile testing is repeatable, there needs to be some variation in the tests you run. We need manual work for looking up use cases. On the other hand, automated testing is suitable for performing several time-consuming tests.
Speed Testing
A one-second delay in page response results in a 7% decrease in conversion rate. Similarly, when it comes to ranking search results, Google also takes site speed into account.
ECommerce websites must load as quickly as possible and do it consistently on every device-browser combination. Not an easy task, but free test automation tools can examine your website speed and look on multiple browsers and devices.
Checklist for ECommerce Website Testing
To write good test cases for eCommerce websites, you need to understand how a specific site works. Here are the main pages and functionalities that you best test for:
Conclusion
The eCommerce industry is highly susceptible to change and is ever-evolving. Because of this, businesses should test their websites regularly. If they don’t, they will have a slim chance of getting ahead of their competitors.
That’s why before designing and launching an eCommerce store, it’s good to plan out the best strategies and run the necessary tests.
By focusing on your eCommerce website, you can limit the number of problems that can occur. Websites never stay the same with the pass of time. Errors and bugs appear periodically, even after meticulous tests. By testing regularly, you can provide your customers with the best quality of service you can consistently offer.
