How to Test an eCommerce Website
Published: 2023-06-26 17:04:45

It helps establish an online presence for your business to succeed. Owning a small offline store will be much easier for you to attract new customers, increase your income and create your brand if you create an eCommerce platform. For this to work correctly, comprehensive testing is required. Today we will tell you what eCommerce testing is and what types of tests you should use.

#What is eCommerce Testing?

eCommerce website testing checks the software’s interface, specification, and functionality for errors. It allows you to ensure that your platform works correctly and can perform the necessary functions for which it was created. With proper and systematic testing, you can be sure that your software product is liked by users and can compete with it.

Thanks to eCommerce testing, you will be able to:

 - Increase user engagement;
 - Create marketing strategies;
 - Reduce risks;
 - Increase your conversion rate;
 - Improve your understanding of customer behavior.

You can test eCommerce application to ensure that your product can perform the necessary functions and, most importantly, will be liked by potential customers.

#Types of Testing for eCommerce Systems

There are various tests available, but not all of them are used for eCommerce platforms. Today, we want to tell you about the tests you should use for your online store.

#Functional testing

When you run an eCommerce test, you most likely want to ensure that your product can perform the functions it was created for. It includes several categories:

 - unit tests,
 - smoke tests,
 - performance tests,
 - regression tests,
 - integration tests,
 - usability tests and much more.

Each of the above tests allows you to evaluate different aspects of your software’s work, from links to how well pop-ups appear.

#User Interface Testing

Testing allows you to understand how convenient and pleasant it is for users to use your product.

**Navigation Testing**

It is essential that users can quickly find the page they are looking for. Any product or information should be available at a distance of 3 clicks. This testing type allows you to identify errors in navigation and suggests how this can be used to improve the quality of service.

**Form-Based Testing**

This type involves testing the design, text, and length of forms to improve their conversion rate. At this point, you should focus not on the pages but on the forms (subscription, advertising, registration, etc.).

**Browser Testing**

Clients will be using different browsers to use your platform, so you need to ensure that your site will work correctly in Opera, Google Chrome, Mozilla, and other browsers.

**Security Testing**

The eCommerce testing checklist includes a security level check — your platform stores information about customers, their payment details, shopping habits, and more. You must ensure that your platform has a good level of security so that this data does not fall into third parties.

**Performance testing**

These tests enable you to comprehend how your software functions in various scenarios. It includes checking parameters such as scalability, stability, and so on. Using such tests, you can determine the carrying capacity, memory consumption, response time to commands, and more.

**Load testing**

It allows you to determine how much load your software can handle. In the first stages, your online store will serve a few customers, but gradually their number will grow, increasing the load. You may have seen online stores hang during sales days, and you should keep this from happening to your platform too.

**Stress testing**

You need to understand how your software will behave in a stressful situation. The stress here means many customers who simultaneously use your services, power outages, hacking attempts by hackers, and much more.

Users mustn’t notice that the software is under stress.

**Database Testing**

Your software must store large amounts of information. Your databases must work correctly. Your eCommerce platform needs a lot of storage, but the responses to requests must be instantaneous. Testing allows you to check the integrity and consistency of the data.

**What to test on eCommerce websites?**

Next, let’s talk about what components should be tested in an eCommerce app to maximize the result and ensure flawless work. 

**Home Page**

The home page is one of the most important pages for any website, as it is your brand’s face. Even if it’s not the whole left of your page, you need to ensure that the main page’s functions work correctly. Only up-to-date information must be included here. For example, you should not post outdated promotions or winter products on the main page if it is summer outside.

**Search and navigation**

It is essential that potential customers can quickly and easily find the products they need. Search and navigation are the 2 main elements of your platform, no matter what kind of products you sell (garden products, toys, cosmetics, etc.).

It’s not only how well the search works, how you suggest users search, and what icon or form you use. Practice shows that if you use a separate form and not just a search icon, you can increase profit by 0.01%, which can be significant with large sales volumes.

**Product/service pages**

The product page should contain complete information about the product and the motivation for the purchase. You can use testing to test how your product will perform if you include information about promotions, stock, and other items that may influence a buyer’s decision.

It is also necessary to test the page’s content – text, video, image, recommended products, social proof, etc. Any changes can increase the conversion rate to the cart and to the payment gateway.

**Order process**

Nearly 70% of users will abandon the purchase of goods if they have problems placing an order. There are several reasons why people leave an item after they put it in their cart; some of the most important are:

 - the site requires you to create an account;
 - excessive shipping, taxes, or other charges;
 - the page in the shopping cart is too difficult to load;
 - no calculation of the exact cost of the purchase.

Even a slight change in the shopping cart’s design can positively impact decision-making.

**Payments**

It is important that your customers can immediately pay for their order. The more you use payment systems (bank cards, e-wallets, etc.), the better. Payment should be quick and easy without requiring customers to provide unnecessary information. So, you need to check the following:

 - confidentiality;
 - currency conversion;
 - whether it is possible to cancel the payment within the specified time;
 - whether it is possible to pay for the goods in installments.

You can accept orders from customers from important countries, so you need to select several international payment systems and popular currencies.

#Post-Order Tests

Once someone has placed an order, their collaboration with your platform continues. So, you need to test whether a person can cancel an order, view the recent order history, or change information (for example, about the delivery of a product). 

Making your eCommerce website or app user-friendly and ready to face high loads or security threats allows you to plan for a successful launch and efficient operation that follows.