Testing Methods to Evaluate Different Segments of E-commerce Apps

Introduction

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the global economy, a large number of people were involved in online shopping through their smartphones. In 2022, retail e-commerce sales amounted to approximately USD 5.7 trillion worldwide. This figure is expected to increase by 56% over the next few years, reaching about USD 8.1 trillion by 2026. Moreover, e-commerce traffic and sales are growing rapidly through both retailers’ apps and mobile websites. With the rise in sales through e-commerce apps and websites, it has become imperative for enterprises to perfect digital experiences and increase user engagement through effective e-commerce software testing processes. The testing of e-commerce apps and websites is a complex process, as many functions are involved in these apps or websites. With the rise in the number of online shoppers, the stakes are high for enterprises to offer better online shopping experiences for their customers. 

In this article, we will discuss important segments of e-commerce apps and testing methods used to test online shopping apps and websites to enhance the user experience.

Different Types of E-commerce App & Website Testing

Software testing in the retail domain supports enterprises in validating and testing e-commerce apps and websites. The main focus of the e-commerce software testing process is to evaluate the functionality, usability, security, compatibility, and performance of e-commerce apps or websites. With retail app or website testing, organizations can ensure that all their apps comply with the standards, procedures, and regulations required for secure transactions. To complete the full check of e-commerce apps or websites, enterprises have to perform a range of tests that can evaluate all functions of these applications. Here are some of the major testing types used to test e-commerce apps or websites.

Perform mobile app testing on real devices remotely. Learn more.

1. Functional Testing

As quality is important for customer satisfaction and retention, enterprises rely on functional testing to detect glitches and identify critical bugs in e-commerce apps or websites that can degrade the customer experience. Functional testing helps the testing teams to ensure that all features work according to requirements.

Functional testing with the HeadSpin Platform helps organizations dive deep into issues and fix them proactively. With data insights and root cause analysis offered by HeadSpin’s AI-driven Platform, enterprises can enhance their e-commerce apps or website performance.

2. Usability Testing

As most e-commerce organizations use websites or apps as touchpoints to reach customers, online customer experience is significant for these organizations. Poor usability can reduce website/app conversion leads and throws potential customers of an enterprise away from their products. Usability testing helps enterprises verify whether visitors are satisfied with the overall user experience or if their website design needs improvement. With effective usability testing, e-commerce organizations can increase customer satisfaction, customer retention, churn rates, and sales.

With the HeadSpin Platform, e-commerce companies can perform usability tests at any stage of the DevOps process. Enterprises can also execute remote usability testing of their e-commerce apps or websites with the help of HeadSpin’s global device infrastructure. Using global device infrastructure, e-commerce companies can analyze the user experience of their application worldwide.

3. Security Testing

With a large number of enterprises and customers using e-commerce websites and apps to sell and buy products, there are a lot of security vulnerabilities found on these apps and websites. In order to avoid data breaches and other security-related errors, e-commerce enterprises are required to perform complete security testing. E-commerce security testing is designed to identify security vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in e-commerce applications or websites. In this type of testing, testers perform tests on components, such as shopping carts, payment gateways, etc., which hackers and malicious users generally target.

HeadSpin enables end-to-end security testing for e-commerce enterprises. With the HeadSpin Platform, the testing teams can create test scenarios involving third-party services/applications, like payment, inventory, etc., to replicate real-world situations. E-commerce enterprises can also perform test cases involving biometric and face-recognition features to evaluate their apps' security features.

Check out: A Comprehensive Guide to Mobile App Security Testing

4. Performance Testing

As customers demand top-notch user experience for e-commerce apps and websites, development teams need to build websites and applications that offer frictionless and consistent user experiences. In the current competitive e-commerce environment, performance testing is crucial for e-commerce companies to optimize their websites and applications. Performance testing is a non-functional testing method used to evaluate the stability, scalability, and speed of an app or website. By executing performance testing on e-commerce apps or websites, testing teams can detect issues like slow-loading pages, unresponsive functionalities, website outages, and application crashes. 

E-commerce enterprises can execute performance testing on their using the HeadSpin Platform. In addition, the HeadSpin Platform can help e-commerce companies compare the performance of their applications or websites with competitors concerning various KPIs and CUJs. With HeadSpin’s API usage monitoring, e-commerce enterprises can track how their APIs are used by applications or track the impact of third-party APIs on their application’s performance.

E-commerce Software Testing: Important Segments and HeadSpin Capabilities to Test Them

Offering a flawless user experience has become significant for e-commerce enterprises. In order to execute this, they must take the proper steps to evaluate their websites and applications to provide a consistent and stable online experience even during peak sales periods. For performing effective e-commerce testing, it is very important to understand the main segments of e-commerce apps or websites that add value to customers. Let’s check some of the main segments of e-commerce apps and also understand how HeadSpin can help e-commerce enterprises test these segments effectively.

1. Home Page

The home page of an app or website is the first page a customer checks. So, the home page needs to be well-optimized and capable of bearing a heavy traffic load. E-commerce enterprises focus on building user-friendly home pages to increase the flow of new and return customers. To ensure a well-performing home page, testing teams of e-commerce companies should scrutinize and test the features of the home page effectively.

With the HeadSpin Platform, testers can evaluate the home page like any other web page. However, HeadSpin can provide deep insights into customer journeys and user interactions happening on the home page. Moreover, testers can automate user journeys and find all possible challenges faced by users. With this feature, e-commerce companies can fix issues proactively before they get persuasive.

Also read: Best Practices for Application Performance Testing

2. Search and Navigation

Search & navigation is a key feature of the e-commerce app, and customers use it to explore e-commerce apps or websites and make buying decisions. As this feature is part of the customer purchase decision, it is important for e-commerce enterprises to ensure they are free of bugs and offer a frictionless user experience for customers. 

HeadSpin’s performance & ML module enables e-commerce software testing by helping enterprises get insights into e-commerce applications’ performance and user experience. With this data, e-commerce enterprises can identify bugs and challenges faced by users while using the application. With the HeadSpin Platform, e-commerce companies can measure packet-level network data and device KPIs and analyze them through ML models to provide actionable insights. Using these insights, e-commerce enterprises can enhance the performance of the search & navigation feature of e-commerce apps.

Also check: Improving mobile user experience through SDK abstraction

3. Product Category and Filters

Wrong product mapping is a major reason for the high bounce rate of e-commerce websites or apps. So, when performing the testing of e-commerce applications, it is crucial for testing teams to verify the product against the detailed category.

Using HeadSpin's custom KPI feature, e-commerce organizations can set KPIs related to product mapping and update the list accurately. Testers can also automate the user journeys of e-commerce apps to identify wrong product mapping and fix it before it becomes persuasive.

4. Shopping Cart and Payment

Shopping cart and payment are two important features of e-commerce apps, as they involve customers' sensitive data. With frauds and scams prevalent in the online market, e-commerce companies have to ensure these features are highly secure to gain confidence in their customers.

HeadSpin offers a SOC 2-compliant testing platform, which makes sure all customer data is protected during the testing process. HeadSpin also enables e-commerce companies to execute and automate test cases involving biometrics, single sign-on, one-time password, two-factor authentication, etc., to improve the overall security of the e-commerce apps.

Conclusion

With the spike in online shopping, many enterprises are focusing on meeting the demand of exceedingly digital-savvy consumers. Online shoppers expect high-quality e-commerce mobile apps and websites with flawless shopping experiences. So, software testing plays a crucial role in the retail or e-commerce industry to deliver great customer experiences. 

Leverage the best software testing solution for e-commerce apps and websites, HeadSpin, to:

• Enhance application performance
• Check compatibility across browsers
• Build secured e-commerce applications 
• Ensure the superior user experiences

Connect Now

FAQs

Q1. What is spike testing?

Ans: Spike testing is a testing method used in software testing in the retail domain to check an app’s performance during a sudden increase in the app’s workload.

Q2. What is volume testing?

Ans: Volume testing is a type of e-commerce testing used to measure the app’s throughput using a large amount of data in search workflows. 

Q3. What is hallway testing?

Ans: Hallway testing is a type of usability testing set up in a high foot traffic area, utilizing bystanders to test a product. Participants in this type of testing will be people who happen to be walking down the hall and are able to afford 5-10 minutes of their day.

Q4. What is database testing?

Ans: Database testing is a testing method used to evaluate some of the common attributes essential for e-commerce applications, such as database performance, database synchronization, functionality, database security, and data migration ability.