E-commerce/Retail is a business that depends on customers who shop online. There are many benefits to shopping in person instead of online. Convenience, saving time, easy access to products from all over the world, and so on. The key to its success is a good E-commerce/Retail site. It needs to be a good match for the storefront. Because when a customer goes to a store in person, they’ve already decided to go and might give the brand a chance.
There are many options online. So, if the user isn’t interested from the start, they might just leave. But here is the thing – The business will do better if the website is better. Since the application is so important, it needs to be tested thoroughly. E-commerce apps and sites can be used on the web or on mobile devices. So, they go through all the usual tests such as:
- Checking for Function
- Usability Testing
- A/B testing, performance testing, database testing, testing of mobile apps, and security testing.
Here is a little about them in brief:
Functional testing: Functionality is when testers check only a portion of a website to determine its functionality. For example, if the tester is only interested in whether payment works, that’s a function test.
Usability testing: When a user wants to buy something, the entire process of searching, adding to cart, and checking should be easy. This is where usability testing comes into play.
Security Assessment: It checks for DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACKS, user account security, privacy, content security, and credit card security, and disables non-essential services to ensure customer data safety.
SSL Certificate Verification: When an e-commerce website contains sensitive information about a customer, such as their credit card number, this must be strictly checked to prevent information leakage.
Performance testing: When someone tries to access an ecommerce website, they must react quickly. Performance tests ensure that the website will continue to function while being used by millions of users at the same time.
Mobile App Testing: Due to high mobile penetration, many people access ecommerce websites through their mobile devices. The prerequisite for this is that the website offers a positive user experience across all mobile devices. This type of testing is called mobile app testing.
Retail and ecommerce sites change. There are new deals, new products, new best-sellers, Sales, etc. This means that the site is always changing. So, it could be too much for a lot of people. The trick is to split them up and win. So, if you want to know how to, let’s look at how to test an eCommerce site with some examples in this article.
Here are some important parts and test cases for testing eCommerce websites.
1) Homepage – Hero Image
The homepages of sites for shopping are busy. There is a lot going on for them. Almost all of them, though, have a Hero Image.
Here are a few things you should check:
- Will it automatically scroll?
- If yes, how often will the picture be updated?
- Will it still move to the next one when the user hovers over it?
- Can you hover over it?
- Can you click on it?
- If you answered yes, does it take you to the right page and deal?
- Does it load at the same time as the rest of the page, or does it load after everything else?
- Can I see the rest of the content?
- Does it look the same on different browsers and screens with different resolutions?
2) Search Engine Optimization
Search algorithms are very important to the success of a retail website because we can’t always put what users want to see right in front of their eyes.
Typical SEO tests include:
- You can search by the name of the product, the name of the brand, or something more general, like the category. For example Camera, Canon EOS 700D, electronics, etc.
- The results of a search have to be useful.
- There should be different ways to sort, such as by Brand, Price, Reviews/Ratings, etc.
- How many results should each page show?
- Are there ways to get to results on more than one page?
- Also, people look for things in many places. When testing this functionality, please think about how the search can be narrowed down to more than one level.
3) Page With Product Details
Once a user finds a product through a search, by browsing, or by clicking on it from the homepage, they will be taken to the product information page.
Here are a few things you must check:
- Picture or pictures of the item
- Price of the item Specifications of the item
- Reviews
- Check out your choices
- Choices for delivery
- Details about shipping
- In stock/Sold out
- Choices of more than one colour or style
- Navigation by breadcrumbs for the categories (highlighted in Red below). If this kind of navigation is shown, make sure that every part of it works.
This is the second-to-last step before the user decides to buy.
4) Shopping Cart
For testing if it’s going right, please check these out:
- Put things in the cart and keep shopping.
- If the user keeps adding the same item to the cart while shopping, the number of items in the cart should go up.
- In the cart, all items and their prices should be shown.
- Taxes should be based on the location
- The total should stay the same even if a user adds more items to the cart.
- Change what’s in the cart, and the total should also change.
- Take things out of the cart
- Go to the checkout page.
- Find out how much shipping will cost for each option.
- Use coupons.
- Don’t close the site, check out, and then come back later. The site should keep the things in the shopping cart.
- Check out the different ways to pay.
If you let people check out as “Guest,” just finish the purchase and give them a chance to sign up at the end.
Customers who come back – Sign in to buy something
5) User sign up
If you store a customer’s credit card number or other financial information, make sure it is safe by testing it.
- (Compliance with PCI is a must.)
- If the user has been signed up for a long time, check to see if the session has ended. The limit is different for each site. Some people say it takes 10 minutes. It might be different for some.
- Confirmation emails or texts with the order number are sent.
6) Payments
- Test the security if the user’s credit card information needs to be saved.
- For returning customers, they should be sent to a page where they can log in to check out.
- After a user’s session ends, they should be logged out.
- When the order is confirmed, an email or test confirmation is sent.
As you can see, an eCommerce website has a lot more tests and features, and testing each of them takes a lot of time and work. Testing a website is made easier by the fact that there are a few tools and methods that can be used.
Conclusion
Consider the above sample eCommerce website test cases when creating test scenarios for online businesses. eCommerce testing is all about converting visitors into buyers. One can plan, write, and use such tools to test. To ensure accessibility for disabled users, it should test well on mobile and web. Ecommerce websites are constantly adding new features, so test plans must be updated. Increasing conversion rates requires website responsiveness. Hence, more types of tests may be needed depending on the suite.
So, here is hoping that you have liked this article. If you have any doubts, queries, or questions pertaining to this article. Please share it with us in the comments section below. Till then, happy reading.
