The e-commerce websites are the future of the world, growing at the fast rate and also massively, it requires a lot of investment, thus it requires and extensive testing. Testing an ecommerce website is a necessary step for maintaining the site in smooth operation. Testers generally tests the codes which they have written in the software for the bug but apart from that Merchants should test their website or application on different platforms, different browsers as well as on the mobile devices using high standard tools like BrowserStack, Perfecto Mobile, GoMoMeter, Screenfly, Opera Mini Simulator etc. for testing as this involves high risk and high performance business critical systems.
E- Commerce website generally faces the following challenges:
Security: Customers demands the security of the payment they are making against the product and then comes the need of security against the identity theft of the people registering on the website.
Usability: User friendly websites that enables the user to look for the desired product easily and help them choose are highly recommended and praised in the market.
Performance: The website should give good results during the traffic seasons like on the day of special discounts or on holidays when the people invests real time and money on these websites.
Apart from meeting the challenges there are some basic tests that need to be performed:
Data Import Testing:
Some of the pages that involves product description and registering of the users through their account should be handled with care. Special symbols, duplicate words or characters, mandatory fields and validation of the fields and adding new fields with time should be strictly watched.
Web Browser Compatibility:
Before any other testing the customer's freedom of using any browser should be satisfied by running the website in various environments which gives the idea about the key platform related issues.
For Desktop or laptop these should be the minimum criteria of testing:
For Mobiles these should be the minimum criteria of testing:
- Google Android
- Apple iOS
- Windows and Blackberry phones.
Payment Systems:
This the most important tests among all in which the testers generally check that whether the buyer is being able to add the product in the cart or not and then is he able to enter the details and get along the checkout process or not. But they may also consider that if the users are paying through a Valid card or not, whether the card payment is fast or not, are the buyers getting the notification for their received payment on time or not.
Prices and Discounts:
If any product on the website is on the discounted price or any offer is colluded with that particular article, care should be taken that the discounted price is calculated automatically through the website before the checkout process. Any issue related to this can hamper the usability and the reach of the website to a great extent.
Post Purchase Tests:
Testers should check that whether the customers are able to make the request for cancellation or returning of the order that they have placed. Users should be enabled to write the reviews regarding the product and the services to make the website more appealing and trust worth.
Search Bar:
If you provide a search bar on your website, note that it functions properly and displays the product relevant to the product which has been searched.
Internationalization:
If your e-commerce website is for the world and you provide multi language support for the website then the proper check relating to the Language support, Language display, Cultural sensitivity, Regional Accounting should be done to ensure the easy access to the customers of the products on the website.
Performance Testing:
A very small delay in the processing on the website can shift thousands of the users to other websites. Performance of any website is measured by the requests that have been made per second, transactions processed per second and the executions that are made per click.
Seconds taken after the click to load the page, duration of the task should also be checked for the smooth processing on the website.
Session Management:
Session expiration and session storage should also be checked and updated as per the time and the availability of the product on the website.
Shopping Cart Testing:
This is the most important test for any e-commerce website as now- a- days shopping carts are becoming "intelligent" as they remember the products which have been saved in them to look upon later. Add one item to the cart, Increase the quantity of item from the cart, Add the same item multiple times, Add multiple items of different types, Remove some items from the cart, Remove all items from the cart, Click on an item in the cart, Add item(s) to the cart, close the browser and reopen the same site etc. are the major tests in which the shopping cart should show good results.
Sorting and Filtering:
Sorting and filtering according to the user's demand among the options available should be done perfectly which gives the users pleasure to search for the product and care should be taken that it should not get clumsy with selection of many categories by customer during filtering.
Pagination:
Pagination should be updated from time to time. This involves the displaying of number of products on each page. How many ads each page should contain and what are the tools and links that are provided on every page as they differ from the home page to the other pages.
These are the general test which any e-commerce website must pass strictly in accordance with the other test that may widely vary from the type of businesses.