Retain customers and increase sales with QA testing in e-commerce

The proportion of online transactions in retail is growing all the time. According to the Federal Statistical Office, 49 million people in Germany alone order goods and services online - four out of five 16 to 80-year-olds are customers of local online retailers.However, as online shopping becomes a habit, the demands of potential customers also increase. No wonder, after all, the nearest retailer with a similar product range is only a few clicks away. Effective quality management and efficient processes are therefore needed to ensure the long-term success of your e-commerce business.

In this article, we would therefore like to look at the role of quality assurance in e-commerce and tell you how you can proceed with QA tests.

The basics: What does the abbreviation QA mean?

QA stands for Quality Assurance. Generally speaking, the term refers to processes and measures to ensure product quality. These can vary greatly depending on the type and nature of the product.

Quality assurance for online stores

With quality assurance in e-commerce, testing is geared towards your online store. You or your QA testers put yourself in the role of the user and go through all the processes that your customers may encounter when using your store.

E-commerce quality assurance should take place before the software is released. In this way, potential sources of error can be identified even before visitors to your online store are confronted with them.

However, the key to continuous improvement of your online store is continuous QA testing. QA should take place at regular intervals, as your customer requirements, and therefore the basis of your quality controls, can change.

60-70 percent abandonment rate: why you shouldn't underestimate QA in e-commerce

Have you ever failed to complete an online purchase? Then you're in good company. There are a lot of statistics on shopping cart abandonment in e-commerce (source: baymard.com). Most of them assume abandonment rates of around 60-70 percent, some of them even up to 80 percent.

With figures like these, the importance of QA in e-commerce becomes clear. Your online store has a lot of influence on the user experience: in the case of a positive shopping experience, the likelihood that customers will shop with you again increases considerably. A negative experience, on the other hand, usually means a potential customer is irretrievably lost.

With QA in e-commerce, you can improve your user experience and react to potential problem areas at an early stage. This saves you time and money, as undetected errors in your online store can result in a loss of sales or increased support costs. In the worst case scenario, your company could suffer a loss of trust, which could cause lasting damage to your business.

Quality assurance in e-commerce: how to proceed

The duration and components of your QA tests are highly dependent on the size and complexity of your store and can vary greatly from online store to online store. The first step in your quality assurance process therefore requires a certain amount of advance planning: What requirements does your store need to meet and what are suitable measures to check these? To ensure that your results are comparable with subsequent follow-up tests, you should define a standardized pattern. To do this, it is advisable to create a checklist according to which you can work through the individual test points and document your results. This also ensures that no aspect of quality assurance in e-commerce is forgotten.

"QA testing follows a systematic approach, starting with understanding the project requirements. Continuous feedback from the testing phases is important for both the software and the testing process. The key is an ongoing process for continuous improvement."

Tina Lajqi, QA tester at Latori

Examples for your QA testing

How you set up your QA testing and which areas you consider relevant depends very much on the individual case. Nevertheless, we would like to provide you with some examples for your e-commerce testing below.

Usability

Successful user guidance is the be-all and end-all when conducting usability tests. Your online store should be easy to use and respond to input without noticeable delays. Easily understandable and consistent design aspects as well as a logical structure from the user's point of view are particularly important.Order process

Login, order, checkout and payment processing: With a corresponding order volume, your customers go through these processes several hundred times a day. If errors occur in any of these processes, this will most likely have a direct impact on your store's sales. At the same time, an intuitive checkout, for example, can significantly increase the conversion rate.

Compatibility with various web browsers

The WebP image format is recommended by Google to improve loading times. But did you know that the format is not supported by Apple's Safari browser and is therefore not displayed? Examples like these make it clear that it is important not to rely on just one browser for quality assurance in e-commerce. Instead, you should always test your store with several browsers.

Responsive design

In 2022, around 21% of Germans made a purchase via their cell phone every week - in many other countries, the smartphone is even more popular as a shopping gadget (source: statista.com). Your store should therefore definitely be optimized for mobile devices so that you don't lose these customers. As the smartphone market is very fast-moving and new devices are constantly coming onto the market, these tests should also be carried out regularly.

Data security

Customers who order an item in your store enter sensitive data such as addresses and payment information. If this data falls into the wrong hands due to security breaches, you could face horrendous penalties and lose your customers' trust.

Automated tests in QA testing

Test automation can play a crucial role in the Quality Assurance (QA) strategy for e-commerce as it helps to ensure the quality, efficiency and reliability of online stores.

Efficiency and speed

Automated tests speed up the QA process considerably. While manual testing can be time-consuming and error-prone, automated tests can be executed quickly and repeatedly, drastically reducing testing time. This is particularly important in e-commerce, where fast releases and regular updates are necessary to remain competitive.

Continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD)

Automated tests are an essential part of CI/CD pipelines. They make it possible to provide immediate feedback on every code change to determine whether the new code causes errors. This means that problems can be identified early and fixed before they reach production, resulting in more stable and reliable releases.

Scalability

Automated tests can be easily scaled to cover large test cases and different scenarios. In e-commerce, where there are often complex systems with many products, categories and user interactions, the ability to scale tests quickly is crucial.

Error prevention

Automated tests enable comprehensive test coverage, including unit tests, integration tests, end-to-end tests and UI tests. They help to test critical functions that may be overlooked in manual tests. This helps avoid errors that impact the user experience, increasing customer satisfaction.

Repeatability and consistency

A major benefit of automation is repeatability. Automated tests can be run over and over again under the same conditions, allowing for consistent and objective quality checks. This is particularly useful in e-commerce, where changes to code or content occur frequently.

Cost savings

Although the initial implementation of automated tests requires resources, they lead to cost savings in the long term. Automated tests reduce the need for manual testing, thus lowering labor costs. They also reduce the risk of errors in live operation, which can often have expensive consequences.

Rapid adaptation to market changes

In e-commerce, you have to react quickly to market changes and customer feedback. Automated tests make it possible to quickly introduce new functions or changes without jeopardizing quality. This helps companies to adapt to new requirements with agility.

Improved user experience

By using automated tests, the quality of the e-commerce store is continuously monitored and improved. This results in more stable performance, fewer failures and a better user experience, which ultimately leads to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Automated testing with Shopify

Although there are no apps for automated testing in Shopify that are directly available in the Shopify App Store and have been explicitly developed for this purpose, there are various tools and integrations that can be used in combination with Shopify to implement automated testing.

Ghost Inspector

Ghost Inspector is a tool for automated browser tests that can be easily integrated into Shopify. It allows you to create end-to-end tests for user interfaces and workflows that you can run on a regular basis. In Ghost Inspector, you can add your Shopify URL and then define the test scenarios (e.g. checkout process, product search). With the Chrome extension or API, you can create and run tests directly. The results can be integrated into CI/CD tools to run tests automatically with every change.

Rainforest QA

Rainforest QA offers a no-code tool for automated testing that integrates well with Shopify. It enables the creation of test scenarios for various e-commerce processes such as checkout, login and product displays. Create tests via the Rainforest QA platform that require no coding knowledge.

You can automate tests via the Rainforest API or trigger actions through an integration with CI/CD tools such as GitHub, which then execute tests after updates or pushes.

Qase

Qase is a test management tool that can be used for automated and manual tests. It integrates well with CI/CD pipelines and supports the management of test plans and cases for Shopify. The tool can be linked to the Quase API to define and execute automated tests for Shopify resources. Qase can be integrated into CI/CD pipelines to execute the tests continuously by calling Qase API endpoints that start test runs.

Conclusion

Quality assurance is an elementary component of software development and should also play a key role in setting up an online store. QA in e-commerce helps to identify and eliminate potential hurdles within the customer journey at an early stage. This is why QA is firmly integrated into our processes and will continue to be in the future.

Latori, your expert for Shopify Plus

As Germany's first Shopify Plus agency, we have been working for more than a decade to make the online stores of international players even better. Only what meets the highest quality standards is good enough. For this commitment, we were named "Agency of the Year" at the Shop Usability Award 2023. We would be happy to use our knowledge for your project too.