Why intensive online store testing pays off!

Online store testing pays off!

Testing online stores is not one of the favorite tasks of agencies, service providers and customers. From an agency’s point of view, it costs time and resources, can delay the milestones of an online project and the effort is often not rewarded accordingly by customers. Clients, on the other hand, often do not have the time or knowledge to test online stores properly. They rely on their service providers and are accordingly annoyed when errors occur in the projects. For this reason, intensive online store testing is an essential part of every scope01 project, both during development and later during live operation. This is because early testing and detection is a better way of eliminating errors than if they occur spontaneously and have to be rectified at short notice. Apart from that, customers and potential customers expect perfectly functioning online stores, otherwise they will be gone. So it’s worth it!

Online store testing in development and project management

For this reason, multi-stage test procedures are already standard in scope01 web development:

• Unit tests as testing of individual components, i.e. functional components
• Integration tests to check the interaction with other components or interfaces
• System tests of the overall system
• Acceptance tests before handover to project management

After completion by web development, scope01’s project managers carry out online store tests again before systems and functions are handed over to customers. The customer can then carry out their acceptance tests(UAT) in the test systems before the solutions are transferred to the live systems. There, too, scope01 carries out further tests. Tests are very often neglected in this system, which is actually the most important one. This is particularly fatal because the customers of your online store are then directly affected. And therefore also your business.

Testing of completed online stores

scope01 also offers tests for online stores that have already been completed. Both without knowledge of the underlying software and systems (black box tests) and with corresponding information and access to software and systems (white box tests). In both cases, we also carry out intensive security tests on request to ensure that your e-commerce platforms remain secure. And we use load tests to assess the speed and performance of your store. Because only fast platforms are successful in the long term. Testing on different devices such as desktop, tablet and smartphone is standard. We also use the standard browsers Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari and Microsoft Edge under the operating systems Windows, Apple macOS, Chrome OS, Android from Google, Apple iOS and Windows mobile. On request, we are also happy to test on older or less common versions of browsers (Opera) or operating systems (Linux). Of course, we document all test results in digital form. This gives you a concrete task plan that you can work through for further optimization.

Practical example of e-commerce in the furniture trade

We wanted to find out about furniture for our office on a well-known e-commerce platform for furniture. For this reason, we took a closer look at the online store. Within one day, we found so many errors that we seriously wondered whether this store had ever been tested. From our point of view, the result is miles away from the supposed “enterprise” claim. Here is an excerpt from our purely functional tests:

• Graphics are in the unprotected area. This provides visitors with warnings about the security of the store.
• A large number of links, for example in the news section on the homepage, do not work. In the event of a product recall, we believe that the corresponding news should work.
• Cryptic system messages in input fields on stores do not contribute to customer confidence.
• Configurators confuse visitors by being unavailable or displaying incomprehensible error messages.
• Layout errors prevent the navigation within the website from working properly.
• In the check-out process, i.e. in the shopping cart section, important delivery types cannot be selected, or they only appear according to incomprehensible logic.

Avoid such mistakes and talk to us about the possibilities of professional online store testing. We would be happy to show you the possibilities in a personal meeting.