In December 2014, the world’s biggest online marketplace Amazon, came under fire for a software glitch. Thousands of products on the online store across categories were sold for just 1 pound. From toys, video games, clothing, and electronics to mattresses – a large number of products were mistakenly available for just one pound.
For customers, it was like Christmas come soon. But, for the third-party sellers on Amazon it was Nightmare before Christmas. This software glitch cost massive losses for independent sellers, most of whom were small, family run businesses. Some retailers stated that they lost over 20,000 pounds in a single night.
Though Amazon tried its best to salvage the situation by cancelling orders that hadn’t been shipped yet, there was no denying that the situations was pretty catastrophic. Cancelling orders meant that sellers had to lose their rating.
This incident is a grim reminder of how it’s highly critical that each and every component of an ecommerce store should be thoroughly tested. Comprehensive testing is essential to ensure the performance of the site as well as to provide customers with the best experience.
Testing must be integrated right into the steps of building your ecommerce website. It should never be an afterthought. Testing is as essential as the initial site design.
“The more thoroughly you test your site; the better is the business and higher are the sales made.”
Now, that we’ve convinced you of the benefits of testing, wondering how to go about it? Worry not, in this blog post we have compiled a detailed eCommerce website testing checklist that you can use
When it comes to ecommerce stores, your No.1 goal must be to provide users with an exemplary experience. If you don’t meet this goal, then your customers would leave with a sour taste and could never return to your store.
The adage, “You never get a second chance to make the right first impression,” holds very true for online stores. Hence, it’s essential that all the features on your site are implemented in the right way and are functioning perfectly as intended.
You have to test every component of the user journey. This includes everything – right from the moment a user lands on your homepage, login/signup, searching for a particular product, navigating user categories, adding products to the cart/wish-list, filling up payment details and finally proceeding to the payment gateways.
Every single aspect has to be thoroughly tested and modified to provide users with the best experience.
Here, you can find a list of all the major test cases and user segments that have to be tested on your ecommerce store.
This is the first page that the user sees, so you have to make sure that you get it bang on. There are plenty of styles when it comes to ecommerce store homepages. But, mostly all of them have the hero image.
This is the clickable image (very often a slideshow of a few images) that occupies the top half of the homepage.
Here are a few test cases for the hero image on the homepage:
Factors to consider while testing the Rest of the Homepage:
If you find the results of any of these test cases not up to your expectation, then don’t hesitate to get in touch with your ecommerce website design agency to redo it as early as possible. It’s better to spend extra time getting your site perfect rather than providing users with a less than optimal user experience
The search feature is one of the most used options in an ecommerce store. Though you may have an extensive and intuitive category design, it’s not always possible for customers to find the product they’re looking for. So, they are bound to use the search bar to locate products quickly without wasting time.
Here are a few test cases for the Search Feature:
Remember that the customer can search for a product right on the homepage or from any interior pages. So, the search has to be adapted according to it. For instance, if a user searches for “Game of Thrones” on the home page, the results can be extensive including various categories like merchandise, accessories, books, DVDs and more. On the other hand, if a user searches for “Game of Thrones” on the Books Category page, then the search results should include just the books in the series.
This is the page that the user is taken to from the search results or by browsing the various categories. Here are a few factors to check on the product details page:
Under this, you have to check the following elements:
If you’re wondering whether you have to check every category or product on your ecommerce store, rest assured the answer is NO. Just do random checks under each sub-category to find out whether all these elements are functioning the way they were intended.
Since most of these are dynamic elements, you can hire Magento programmers to check these elements using backend queries
This is the penultimate stage. If the user completes this stage successfully, he/she moves on to the final stage, making the payment.
Here are what you have to test on the Shopping Cart Page:
This is the final stage and a crucial one. Failed transactions are one of the big reasons why most customers exit an online store without completing the purchase. So, make sure that you thoroughly test this page. If you’re using Magento for your ecommerce store, then get your Magento 2 development services team to comprehensively test the payment page for all the following use case scenarios.
Once the customer has completed the purchase, he/she must be able to do the following:
Check each of these elements manually to ensure that it’s proceeding without a glitch.
Today, mobiles and other handheld devices have overtaken desktops and laptops when it comes to internet usage and online shopping. Hence, it’s essential that you check your online store for mobile responsiveness.
Test all these functionalities listed above from mobiles of varying screen sizes. Here are a few factors to look for:
Another important aspect to check on your ecommerce store is its performance. This is a bit technical, so get the help of Woocommerce specialists to help you out
Here are a few factors to test:
Apart from these, make sure to carry out tests on these miscellaneous use cases:
Make sure that you test every nook and corner of your online store to ensure that it functions optimally. While this list is in no way exhaustive, it covers all the major elements of testing. So, get started, iron out the glitches and boost customer conversion rates, thereby increasing your profits
Want to add anything on this website testing checklist? Please write in the comments section below
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