.png){kind=icon}
With more people electing to shop online than ever before, the digital storefront is undoubtedly one of the most important resources a retail business has for capturing and maintaining customers. According to eMarketer’s Worldwide Retail ECommerce Forecast for 2024 (as shared by Backlinko,) retail e-commerce sales are expected to grow to $6.86 trillion in 2025. The top e-commerce sites (Amazon, Ebay, Walmart, etc.) continue to generate billions of dollars in retail sales each year with no sign of slowing down any time soon.
An e-commerce website is also so much more than just a way for customers to buy a product or service - it may very well be the first impression someone has of a business and within a competitive market, you can’t afford to have that be a negative experience.
The way customers interact with e-commerce storefronts is also changing. New consumer trends and policies like augmented reality shopping experiences, customized loyalty programs, personalized subscription models, and more are creating new ways for customers to engage with an e-commerce business and as a result, adding complexity that must be accounted for.
This is where e-commerce testing can help — acting as the first line of defense and giving businesses an opportunity to validate their e-commerce website is ready for the masses. In this post, we will take a deep dive into what e-commerce testing is, what types of testing are used as part of it, and how you can go about testing an e-commerce website for yourself!
What is E-Commerce Testing?
E-commerce testing is an all-encompassing process which evaluates the functionality, performance, user experience, and more of an e-commerce website or application.
The experience of navigating and shopping on an e-commerce storefront should be as seamless and frictionless as possible; every moment a potential customer spends wrestling with a poor user experience is a chance that they’ll be lost forever.
E-commerce storefronts are also susceptible to high amounts of user traffic - especially during peak holiday sales events like Black Friday or Cyber Monday. When this happens, website performance must remain stable and error-free or customers will be frustrated, and worse, may not be able to successfully purchase a product. These are just a few of the reasons why testing and addressing underlying flaws prior to launch is fundamental to a successful e-commerce.
When Should You Start Testing an E-Commerce Product?
The short answer is as early as possible but it’s also not quite that simple. Just how early testing can begin on an e-commerce will ultimately depend on the types of testing that are planned to be executed, what kind of components will make up the experience, and what kind of test scenarios are looking to be validated.
For example, if an e-commerce company is building a website from scratch and looking to confirm that the process of locating and adding an item to a user’s shopping cart is as easy as possible, usability testing might be conducted against design wireframes (i.e before any code is written) to learn more about user preferences, get feedback, and test for user experience issues in key user flows. This saves valuable time and money on resources since the website has not yet been developed and can more easily be iterated on.
Early testing (also known as shift left testing) also comes with benefits for achieving a set project timeline. This is critical for an e-commerce since it might be launching in alignment with a sales holiday and a missed deadline could mean a potential loss in sales.
Types of E-Commerce Testing
E-commerce testing covers many different testing types; each contributing to a building a functional, performant, and usable experience. Here are some examples of testing types that should be considered for an e-commerce website or application.
Functionality Testing
This testing type is fundamental and likely will be the highest priority when testing an e-commerce. Functionality testing will help validate that a website or application’s functional components are behaving as expected and will not impact a customer’s shopping experience.
Compatibility Testing
Customers don’t just shop from their desktop devices — in fact, 57% of e-commerce sales globally come from mobile devices and is projected to grow even more in the coming years. An e-commerce website or application that is able to elegantly adapt to different screen sizes and browser or device configurations will guarantee that customers are able to shop regardless of their chosen platform. This is why compatibility testing is essential and should be included as part of a test strategy.
Performance Testing
As we covered earlier, e-commerce storefronts are no stranger to high-volumes of online shoppers, and when peak shopping seasons are in effect, this can escalate even further. Errors, slow or unresponsive pages, crashes, and more are all ways that the performance of an e-commerce can impact the customer experience. By conducting thorough stress or performance testing prior to launch, a business can validate that their back-end infrastructure is prepared for the crowds and won’t get trampled.
Security Testing
When dealing with sensitive user information like payment methods, personal details, home addresses, and more, the risk of security threats becomes significant. Security testing aims to address this by checking for vulnerabilities that could be exploited and helping to protect customer’s data and the integrity of systems from devastating security breaches.
Usability Testing
For an e-commerce to be successful, it must be usable, and usability testing is an invaluable way to accomplish this. By allowing businesses to get critical feedback from users and validate that user scenarios like locating a product, making a purchase, creating a profile, and more are all as easy as possible, they can avoid critical user experience flaws that will cost their business sales and customer loyalty.
Payment Testing
Without thorough payment testing, customers may experience severe issues during checkout that prevent them from being able to complete a purchase. For an e-commerce, this is a make or break scenario which is why it should be prioritized from the beginning. Whether a business is using an e-commerce integration or creating their own payment acceptance system from scratch, they must test for any errors or issues with each supported payment method type.
Database Testing
This testing type validates that customer data is properly stored and is consistent across their entire experience with an e-commerce platform. This means that purchases, account history, saved items, and more all move with a customer’s account across devices to ensure a seamless experience.
Localization Testing
Many e-commerce storefronts cater to a global audience which means that regardless of a customer’s local language, they should still be able to shop and have a positive user experience. Localization testing is a powerful tool for achieving this and one that is often overlooked in the software testing process.
How to Test an E-Commerce Website
So now that we know about some of the ways that an e-commerce platform can be tested, how do we actually go about it? What features and workflows should be prioritized?
While each storefront may be unique, there are several components and user flows that are generally consistent and aid with the experience of guiding online shoppers from the landing page all the way to checkout. These include the home page, navigation, product search, account login & registration, product listing/detail pages, shopping cart, checkout flow, and more.
When testing an e-commerce site, each of these components and the ways they interact with another should be targeted through test scenarios so they can be evaluated effectively. There’s a lot of possible test scenarios to cover but one of the most common is the flow of locating a product, adding it to a user’s shopping cart, and completing the checkout process so that is what we’ll focus on for this overview.
Landing Page
The customer journey starts on the landing page and it’s here that we’ll want to test for any functionality, compatibility, and usability issues with page elements. Page content should display without formatting bugs, layout issues or broken images, links and buttons redirect correctly when clicked, page navigation makes sense and is functional, and any components or sections related to product offerings are accurate and relevant.
Account Login/Sign-Up
From here, we’ll want to start testing the account login/sign-up experience. Depending on what type of account integration is being used, you may need to test several different login methods like Google or a supported social platform. Through this process, validate that the various form inputs function and handle errors/invalid entries correctly, there are no issues with login experience, customers can manage different aspects of their account, and any purchase history can be viewed and managed afterwards. Later on, we’ll also want to check that a customer can checkout as a guest user.
Product Search/Listing Page
After that is complete, we can begin the process of browsing through available products using a combination of search/filter methods as well as navigation categories. As we work through this, we must pay attention to the product results that are displayed with each unique search and validate that they are not only accurate but also represent all available products that match that search. We should also check that each product listing preview displays without formatting bugs, layout issues, missing content or broken images and that they redirect to the correct detail page when selected.
Product Detail Page
With a product selected, we can now test the product detail page for any issues. While not all product detail pages are created equal, there are some common components that we’ll want to spend time evaluating. On the product detail page, we should check that there are no missing or broken product images, the product description content is complete and without formatting/spelling errors, the pricing information and product customization options (if applicable) are accurate, and a user can add an available product to their shopping cart successfully.
Checkout/Order Confirmation
And finally, now that we’ve got a product (or few) in our shopping cart, it’s time to go through the checkout process. This is arguably the most important step since a customer is ready to make a purchase and any error or inconvenience that the remainder of the flow presents has a risk of quickly discouraging them from doing so.
During this stage, we want to test that a customer is able to complete checkout using both their platform account and as a guest user (since not all customers will want to create an account.) We should also test that there are no issues with the shipping/billing address forms or payment method input, the order total is accurate based on which items are in their cart, and any other remaining steps a customer must complete before submitting their order are functioning as expected.
Once checkout is complete, a customer should then land on some type of order confirmation screen with details about their order, shipping details that were provided during checkout, and any other relevant information about how to manage their order afterwards. In most cases, they will also receive an email.
At this stage, we should test that the content of both the confirmation screen and email are accurate, neither are affected by any layout or formatting issues, and any additional features like order tracking or purchase management function as expected. In some cases, an e-commerce platform will give customers who completed their order as a ‘guest’ an opportunity to create an account so they can save their purchase and more, so we’ll want to test this if it is available.
Conclusion & Next Steps
So there you have it — an overview of what e-commerce testing is and how it can be done. The success of an e-commerce platform ultimately depends on what kind of user experience a potential customer has when they shop which is why testing should be prioritized from the get-go.
There are many different ways to test an e-commerce platform, and the more methods that can be supported as part of a test plan the greater chance it has of being ready to launch to a global audience.
PLUS QA has been testing e-commerce platforms for almost two decades across a broad range of devices and with that comes a wealth of experience and technical knowledge that’s helped us continue to be successful. If you’d like to learn more about e-commerce testing, check out our free 2022 E-Commerce Testing Guide, visit our service page, or stay tuned to our blog for more e-commerce testing content soon!