Introduction
As we delve deeper into the tech age, e-commerce is taking the front seat as a majorly booming market. According to Forbes, the global e-commerce market is expected to be valued at $6.3 trillion, growing at an 8.8% CAGR. Hyper-digitization is further adding to retail success with 22.6% of e-commerce sales expected to go digital.
Consequently, there has been an upward trend in e-commerce software development to assist retailers with their operational efficiency. Consumer experience (CX), convenience, and satisfaction have become top priorities for companies looking to thrive in the new business landscape. E-commerce websites help bridge the gap between traditional market operations and digital ones, especially by offering online retail solutions to ensure enhanced CX.
This article explores the digital offerings, primarily websites, taking the retail market by storm and how e-commerce websites and application testing become a critical factor in determining the success of retail businesses.
Why is there a Need for E-Commerce Testing?
The digitization of e-commerce has enabled widespread competition for the same or similar products. When consumers have hundreds of options to choose from, how will you ensure that your product is chosen? Multiple factors drive the final decision.
Apart from building an exceptional product, a major factor contributing to a positive consumer response lies within their interaction with your website. Is your website easy to navigate? Is it loading slowly? Is the payment gateway functioning properly? Most importantly, does your website visually appeal to consumers? To optimize all these functionalities of an e-commerce website, testing becomes increasingly critical.
Benefits of E-Commerce Testing
Let’s explore some ways in which e-commerce testing is adding value to your online retail operations:
- Cyber Security: One of the biggest threats to the digital landscape is easy accessibility. Due to the interconnectedness of all online networks, it becomes easier to access company systems through the web. Hence, it becomes critical to ensure end-to-end security of company software and user interfaces. Security testing mitigates this risk by enforcing compliance with security guidelines and fortifying your websites.
- Optimized Performance: Website testing allows developers to ensure the proper functioning of the user interface, mitigate load time issues, and improve responsive servers during visitor loads. Real-world test cases or comprehensive simulation tests are useful to cover all possible shortcomings after the website goes live. This prepares testing teams for any unintended performance issues and resolves them promptly.
- Ensures Interoperability: It is vital for retailers to ensure efficient interoperability and compatibility of their websites across multiple browsers, devices, and operating systems. This kind of diversity can only be ensured by testing your software appropriately with extensive test cases. If your website is functional for some devices and faulty for others, you lose a major chunk of potential customers.
- Enhanced Customer Experience: Today, user interfaces play a major role in enhancing customer retention rates. An overall high-performing website is bound to attract and retain more traffic as compared to faulty websites offering substandard user experience. Conducting comprehensive and exhaustive website testing assists with early bug detection, exposing hidden issues, and building a foolproof user interface.
- Accessibility: In recent years, digital markets have witnessed a rise in accessibility awareness. This essentially means that businesses must find ways to empower inclusion in their software solutions. Digital offerings like websites are built keeping in mind the ability of users to perfectly interact with their interfaces. However, most potential users cannot utilize these online offerings due to accessibility gaps. Hence, WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) has underscored the urgency for digital accessibility, making accessibility testing for websites a big upcoming trend.
How to Test E-Commerce Websites?
Which Components to Test?
While testing an e-commerce site, there are specific website characteristics that need to be tested to ensure the proper functioning of the interface:
- Home Page: Home Pages build the first user impressions. Ensure that the website’s interlinks (navigation bar, shopping cart, account, etc.) are properly functional and that all the images and texts on the home page appear as intended.
- Navigation System: Test the search bar to check if the exact or similar name showcases the appropriate product. What happens when an incoherent word or an unavailable item is typed into the search? Is there a redirection gateway? Are the instructions clear for how to reach certain settings on your webpage? All these features need to be thoroughly tested for seamless navigation.
- Product Catalogue: Product catalogue testing includes testing the visibility of the correct image against the right product description, changing image views, “Add to Cart” buttons, etc. It is crucial to ensure that your customers can conveniently interact with your products without performance issues hindering their experience.
- Order Processing System: Testing must be carried out to ensure that order processing systems appropriately match the back-end products with what consumers have purchased. Other functionalities before the purchase is made like shipping details, mode of payment, delivery address, etc. must be tested thoroughly.
- Point of Sale System: Payment is one of the major functionalities of any e-commerce website. A lot of factors come into account while testing the payment gateway – currency conversion, tax inclusion, reverse payments in case of order cancellations, pay-on-delivery option, redirection to payments apps, and so on. There is an added security concern in this step, as well, since the user data is directly linked with their primary financial accounts.
Which Tests to Run?
- Functional and Performance Testing: These tests are critical for any software. Functional testing enables testing teams to recognize unintended issues in the website’s functionality while performance testing takes care of page load issues, responsive time, scalability, and stability of the website.
- Security Testing: Needless to say, security testing is increasingly important as the business world progresses into the digital age. Keeping malware at bay to protect the users and the companies from any information leak is a priority.
- Accessibility Testing: As briefly discussed above, web accessibility awareness is on the rise. Businesses must focus on the majority of potential consumers they are missing out on due to their tendency to build software inaccessible to users with disabilities.
- Cross-Browser Testing: Testing the compatibility of e-commerce websites across various browsers and devices is crucial to ensure customer satisfaction. If your website’s HTML doesn’t run as expected on all potential devices and browsers the buyers must be using, it can lead to a decline in user interaction with your website.
Conclusion
To conclude, effective e-commerce testing is essential for achieving success in today’s digital retail landscape. Adhering to best practices, resolving common issues, and implementing thorough comprehensive testing are crucial steps to guarantee that your e-commerce websites provide customers with a seamless, secure, and enjoyable shopping experience. It’s important to understand that testing goes beyond bug detection; it’s about creating an exceptional user journey.
