Testing Plan For An Ecommerce Site

These are the main aspects that ourcompany run through when testing an ecommerce website that uses one of the common online shops or ecommerce software tools.

Ecommerce sites can get very complicated but this list is a starting point when carrying out testing before a site launch.

Functionality

First of all, we’ll run through the main functionality of an ecommerce website that needs to be tested. Your website may not have all these items, or indeed may have some not included here.

Main pages

• Home page
• Featured products
• Special offers
• Information pages
• About page
• Shipping information
• Returns policy
• Terms page

·         

• Privacy policy

Product category pages

• Any filters such as product filters, colours, sizes, types of product, etc.
• Any ability to sort products by name, price, size, etc.
• Add to shortlist or wish list facility.
• Add to basket.

Product detail pages

• Product title
• Product description
• Product images
• Enlarge image
• 360 degree view of products
• Related products
• Any further product information, colors, sizes, options, extras.
• Add to shopping basket

Product search

• Keyword search

Shopping basket

• Add products to basket
• Remove product from basket
• Change quantities
• Select delivery option
• Check VAT and delivery costs add up correctly

Pay now

• Move into checkout process

Ecommerce Testing Checklist

Download PDF

Download a PDF version of the ecommerce testing checklist so you can print it out to run through whilst testing.

Checkout and Payment Systems

As this is a testing plan for an ecommerce site then a specific section of the plan should be devoted to the checkout and payment area of the website.

Test the checkout process including the following aspects:

Final amount to pay – make sure that this value is correct, after the price of the products, VAT, delivery and any other charges. Test making changes to the products being ordered, changing delivery options, etc. and make sure that this final amount updates correctly.

Next is payments.

Carry out a test payment using each payment method that you are offering such as debit cards, credit cards, Paypal, Google Checkout, etc. Your payment system will most likely still be in test mode before you launch so all test payments will be carried out using the test payment details.

An example list of payment types is as follows:

• Place Paypal payment
• Place Visa payment
• Place Visa Debit payment
• Place Visa Electron payment
• Place Mastercard payment
• Place Amex payment
• Place false payment
• Test cancelling order

Check that confirmation emails are sent correctly when a payment is made, whether those confirmation emails are being sent by your website or by the payment provider.

Make sure that you can refund a payment and that any confirmation emails are sent to the recipient of the refund successfully.

You will probably want to carry out several payments again once the site is live so you can use real debit and credit cards to check the system works correctly.

This is the central aspect of your ecommerce website and so if time is short then make sure you thoroughly test the checkout and payment area.

Browser Compatibility

Extremely important, especially for ecommerce sites, as if the site doesn’t work in a particular browser then nobody using that browser can buy anything from you.

This list of browsers will change, as new browsers are released and older browsers aren’t used as much (here’s hoping that IE7 goes away soon).

Currently, we are testing all of the functionality listed above in each of the following web browsers:

• Internet Explorer 7
• Internet Explorer 8
• Internet Explorer 9
• Mozilla Firefox (latest version)
• Google Chrome (latest version)
• Safari

Browser compatibility tools that can help you

My personal favourites are Multi-Browser Viewer, which I use most days and Cross Browser Testing, which I use when I don’t have access to my desktop PC.

Mobile Device Compatibility

If you wish your website to be used by visitors viewing it on their smartphone or tablet then you also need to test all of the functionality on each of the following mobile devices:

• Apple iPhone – 5, 5S/5C, 6 and 6 Plus
• Apple iPad – iPad 2, 3, 4, iPad Air and iPad Air 2)
• Apple iPad Mini – 1, 2 and 3
• Android Smartphone – such as Samsung Galaxy S5
• Android Tablet – such as Google Nexus 7
• Windows Phone – such as Nokia Lumia 635

Mobile testing tools that can help you

Many of the browser testing tools can help with mobile websites but there are some more specialised tools as well. Have a look at the Mobile Testing Tools category in our testing tools directory.

Performance

Your ecommerce website needs to load quickly in order for potential customers to not get frustrated and head elsewhere.

Carry out a performance test using an online tool such as Webpagetest and pay attention to what it tells you.

Performance testing tools that can help you

I regularly use Webpagetest but there are some other good ones listed in the directory.

Check Your Links

Running a link check helps to weed out any broken links ahead of launch and is generally well worth doing, as there is always something not linking correctly.

Link checking tools that can help you

There are a wide range of tools available and my preferred options are Google Webmaster Tools and  crawl test tool.

Proof Reading

It goes without saying but proof reading every page, including all product pages, product descriptions, search results pages and the checkout process will make sure that people are not put off by any shoddy spelling or grammar.

Product Pricing

Along with proof reading, checking your products pricing is obviously very important to make sure you are not selling something too cheap or putting people off because the price is way too high. There have been many high profile pricing errors in the past with retailers offering Sony TVs for £1 by accident, etc.

Web Standards

Often overlooked, a few checks on how your website complies with HTML and CSS standards can greatly help your website’s accessibility, aid SEO, usability and other general site quality problems.

Web standards tools that can help you

W3C’s own tools are fine for checking individual pages at a time but if you want to check an entire site in one go.

Accessibility

Whilst we touched on this subject above, it is important to make sure that your ecommerce website is accessible. Therefore, check for the following:

• Test your website against WCAG 2.0 guidelines
• Try browsing your website with a screen reader and/or text browser
• Try browsing your website without a mouse, I.e. with just your keyboard

You’ll undoubtedly pick up some problems you wouldn’t have guessed at but it is a good idea to fix them.

Accessibility tools that can help you

Audit Your Cookies

Since the EU ePrivacy Directive came into force in May we also need to audit the cookies that your website uses, provide information to users on what those cookies are and how they are used, and provide an opt in or opt out mechanism for visitors if they do not want their information to be used by the website.

Cookie audit tools that can help you

Check Your Analytics

Make sure your analytics is installed and collecting statistics properly. Set up any goals that you need to and configure other aspects such as site search tracking, which is very useful for an ecommerce website.

SEO

An ecommerce website greatly benefits from making sure website visitors can easily find it and, if there are a lot of products, then long-tail search terms can account for a large number of visitors and customers.

I would recommend checking the following aspects:

• Structure of URLs
• Unique title tags for each page and product page
• Title tags should include product name and category

• Meta description tag for each page and product page
• Robots.txt in place
• Check that alt text has been added to images
• Internal linking
• XML sitemap

Social

Check that social buttons, icons or links are in place and work correctly.

Any sharing buttons should also be configured correctly.

So that’s our ecommerce website testing plan, at least one that I use as a basis when I am testing an ecommerce site. Please let me know what you think of it and if you think I’ve missed anything out.