30 Days of Ecommerce Testing Day 13: Testing Ideas

📆 30 Days of Testing
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Day 13 of 30 days of ecommerce testing 6 is:

Share 3 testing ideas of an ecommerce website

Here are some ideas I found on Twitter. Do you have any others to add?

https://twitter.com/testinsideout/status/995732201475108865

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In my opinion this is covered with day 12, but not so detailed. The details should be clarified in a specification or interaction with the team-members. For example it’s necessary to test the new requirements relating to the european “General Data Protection Regulation” - must i really transfer all customer data (e.g. age, sex) to a third party (like in my mindmap to the distributor)?

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At first I thought this challenge was a little vague, so I reformed the question in my mind “What would drive people away from an eCommerce site?” “What makes a site so annoying that I have to leave?”

So, I asked Mrs. Google that exact question, and got this as an answer: https://medium.com/swlh/this-is-what-drives-your-customers-away-at-checkout-2add3a4ece2f

Now, a lot of this falls under design. As a tester, I can’t tell you how to make your website. But I can turn these ideas into tests:

Cost Surprises: “One really annoying factor is surprising customers with unexpected costs at checkout. An unexpected shipping cost is one that comes up time and time again.”

Tests:

Does it add up? If I purchase 3 Items for $10.00, I should pay $30 + applicable tax and shipping at checkout. There are obvious permutations on this test.

Shipping: If shipping says free, it should be free at checkout. If the rate claims to be flat, it should be flat. If the rate depends on area, then a little research should be able to tell us what the reasonable rates are for that area.

Discount Codes: “Discount codes can be a major distraction to customers during the checkout stage…”

Tests:

Does the discount field code appear in the proper place? Does it obscure any other fields?

Does it work? The merchant should provide a list of discount codes for testing. These should work, and again, we should be doing some math here to make sure that cost + taxes + shipping - discount = expected amount.

No Guest Checkout: “Forcing users to sign up for an account adds friction to the process, which ultimately results in some users abandoning. First time users especially may be uncomfortable with signing up for an account. Consumers value their personal information and email address when transacting online.”

Test ideas: Test guest checkout functionality along with that which requires a profile. Guest checkout should still require an email address, so make sure email delivery works in both cases. You don’t want the customer losing their order information!

Test sign in and “forgot password” functionality for returning customers.

Test social login options: PayPal, Google, Facebook, etc…

-Dave K

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Most of the tests ideas came up in the day 12, but I will be more specific here:

  • Complete flow of a transaction: Just as a normal customer, go to the page, search for your product, select it and add it to a cart. In this step then it would be necessary to create an account or to sign in. Do whatever is needed to continue with the transaction flow, checkout, and assure that the page is redirected to the payment page. Complete all the required fields and assure that when you submit the checkout then the page will inform you that the product has been purchased correctly. Depending on the website, but I think that all of them have a notification center, assure that you receive an email with the detail of the product.

  • Security Testing: The most critical zones to be tested are either the login and the payment process page. Go to the login page and assure that either changing the url or adding a cross-sites scripting, no wrong data is displayed. This is kind of testing a possible security breach.

  • Accessibility Testing: Assure that for all kind of users is possible to have access to the platform. Test the translations, clickability and so on.

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  1. I would also use existing websites to find out flaws, or for comparison purposes.
  2. More concentration on product search and categorisation
  3. Whether cart can remember items added through different tabs, session time out etc.
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Here’s my Day 13 https://wp.me/p9EXXo-47
I spoke about the GDPR, Google Duplex, and previewed an Accessibility blog I’ll publish on Thursday.
This was a really fun and thought provoking task in the 30 days challenge

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More from Twitter:

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@heather_reid @sumanbala

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