eCommerce Testing: The Definitive Guide to Retail Software Testing

We encounter software multiple times every day, but there are few software types as ubiquitous as eCommerce. What seemed like a brilliant and exciting novelty only a few decades ago is now part of our reality. Online retail is everywhere around us, and with plenty of players in every eCommerce field imaginable, users are never left without options when it comes to shopping on the internet.

This is why the critical task in front of an eCommerce business owner is to make their store indispensable to customers, and the range of merchandise and the attractive prices are not the only conditions for a successful retail business. Users are also looking for an impeccable quality of the software that does not interrupt the shopping process or make them worry about the security of their personal data. The only way to ensure all that is eCommerce software testing, and that is exactly what we’ll talk about in today’s article.

What Is eCommerce Testing?

Retail software testing is the systematic process of evaluating and validating software applications used in eCommerce and retail environments to ensure they function correctly, efficiently, and securely. Retail domain testing focuses on various aspects, including functionality, usability, performance, and security, to guarantee that online stores provide a seamless shopping experience for customers.

By simulating real-world scenarios, such as product searches, payment processing, and inventory management, retail software testing helps identify potential issues that could hinder operations or negatively impact user experience.

Why Test an eCommerce Website or App?

Retail application testing is not exactly optional, as the importance of retail testing seems to be clear to anyone with an experience of not just operating in the eCommerce segment, but also of being a customer. Still, before embarking on the process of launching eCommerce QA, it’s important to understand exactly why you are doing it. Here is why investing in software testing for retail solutions is so imperative for success.

Ensuring Spotless Functionality

Software testing of an eCommerce platform verifies that the entire online shopping experience, from the search through the cart functionality to the checkout process, works exactly as intended, making shopping an easy and enjoyable event for the user. A well-tested, fully functional website prevents potential revenue loss due to broken or malfunctioning features.

Performance Optimization

Timely testing helps identify performance bottlenecks that threaten the stability of the buying and payment process. This can be especially integral during peak shopping seasons, when the number of visitors and transactions grows exponentially. The team will test the website’s speed and ability to handle high-traffic loads in a variety of conditions and test environments. As a result, a fast-loading site with high uptime will enhance user experience and reduce bounce rates, directly impacting sales.

Cross-Platform Compatibility

Through cross-browser testing and cross-platform testing, companies can ensure that the website functions seamlessly across different browsers, devices, and screen sizes. This is critical given the increasing number of devices and operating system versions people are using to shop online. Consequently, comprehensive testing of compatibility helps businesses expand their reach by providing a consistent shopping experience to all users, regardless of their device or browser.

Improved User Experience

A well-designed, user-friendly website creates positive first impressions, encourages exploration, and significantly reduces cart abandonment. By streamlining navigation, simplifying the checkout process, and ensuring mobile optimization, businesses can build trust and confidence among customers, leading to increased loyalty and repeat purchases. This is why the importance of retail testing cannot be overstated, as UX is one of the first things it focuses on throughout the process.

Establishing Regulatory Compliance

eCommerce testing ensures that the final product complies with applicable legal requirements, including accessibility, privacy laws, and consumer protection laws, which can differ from region to region. This reduces the risk of lawsuits or fines due to non-compliance, protecting the business from legal repercussions. A comprehensive testing approach also helps create a trail for future audits, simplifying compliance in the long run and making the business better prepared for any kind of government checks.

Implementing Better Analytics

An in-depth approach to testing an eCommerce platform helps ensure that analytics and tracking tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel are properly integrated and functioning. Well-functioning tracking tools provide accurate data, helping businesses make informed decisions on marketing strategies, user behavior, and sales funnels.

Support of Globalization

Testing across different geographic regions, languages, and currencies helps ensure the website caters to international customers. Testing for localization ensures accurate translation, proper currency formatting, and culturally appropriate content. Optimized localization encourages a smooth shopping experience for international customers, making global expansion easier and more profitable.

Types of eCommerce Stores That Need to Be Tested

eCommerce software comes in all shapes and sizes: there are retail solutions for all kinds of platforms, including Smart TVs and wearables. When designing an eCommerce testing strategy, it’s important to take every possible platform and solution into account. These are the most common product types in software testing for retail.

eCommerce Websites

eCommerce websites are platforms where customers browse and buy products. Testing ensures smooth navigation, secure transactions, and flawless functionality. It covers areas like checkout, payment processing, and user authentication while ensuring that the site performs well under high traffic and remains secure from potential threats.

Mobile eCommerce Apps

Mobile eCommerce apps offer users a convenient shopping experience on mobile devices. This type of testing involves validating app functionality, ensuring responsive design across devices, and securing payment methods. Moreover, performance and usability tests focus on ensuring a smooth experience for users, especially under varying network conditions or high traffic.

Payment Gateways

Payment gateways process customer transactions securely. Payment gateway testing ensures reliable and secure payment processing, covering various payment methods, currency handling, and encryption protocols. It also includes testing for edge cases, like failed transactions or interrupted payments, to avoid customer frustration and ensure a seamless purchase experience.

Inventory Management Systems

Inventory management systems track stock levels and product availability. Testing these systems ensures that inventory is accurately updated after purchases or returns. It also checks the reliability of the integration with third-party suppliers, handling large transaction volumes, and preventing issues like overselling during peak shopping periods.

Customer Relationship Management Systems

CRM systems store and manage customer data and interactions. This testing activity focuses on ensuring data accuracy, smooth integration with other platforms, including marketing tools, and secure handling of customer information. Security tests ensure the platform protects sensitive data from unauthorized access or breaches.

Analytics and Reporting Tools

Analytics tools track customer behavior and sales performance. Here, testing focuses on verifying data accuracy, ensuring that reports and dashboards provide relevant insights. It also includes checking integration with other systems, ensuring real-time data collection, and confirming that critical business metrics are displayed correctly for decision-making.

Benefits of eCommerce Testing

eCommerce testing efforts are all about creating an engaging eCommerce experience for different types of users, even ones with little technical proficiency. Still, in addition to that goal, in-depth testing of eCommerce products has several sizable benefits, and here are the most important ones.

1. Better Understanding of User Behavior

The functionalities of an eCommerce solution imagined by the team during the development stage can be very different from the features of the website or application that particularly appeal to the users or, on the contrary, cause them to abandon their shopping intent. That way, you will be able to create a more streamlined UX that results in an increase of customer loyalty.

2. More Effective Marketing Strategies

With a better understanding of what customers actually want and what matters to them in a shopping solution, every eCommerce business can use the generated insights to finely tune their marketing campaigns. Reach out to both prospective and existing clients and offer them a shopping opportunity that is so finely tuned to their needs that they won’t be able to resist the offer.

3. Higher Customer Retention

According to statistics, 43% of users visiting an eCommerce website end up bouncing before they even progress to the second page. And the number of abandoned carts, something every eCommerce store experiences regularly, can be even more depressing: by one estimate, 69.99% of carts are abandoned at some point. And while some of the bounces and cart abandonment occasions happen because of the lack of the necessary products, a disappointing UI and other usability issues are definitely part of the problem, and testing is the main solution.

4. Improved Conversion Rates and Revenue

When users are happy with their shopping experience and are less likely to abandon the process at any stage, and when more customers complete the purchase, it means that the website works well to convert one-time visitors into returning customers. In turn, loyal customers generate higher revenue for the business, which means testing helps you make sure your eCommerce solution meets the goals set by the stakeholders early on.

5. Reduced Financial and Security Risks

By their nature, eCommerce solutions deal with a variety of high-risk areas, from handling sensitive customer data to organizing large sales that significantly increase the number of visitors and transactions over a certain period of time. Failure to account for that part of testing can result in financial or reputation losses that few eCommerce businesses can afford. Therefore, in-depth testing is essential for ensuring a risk-free eCommerce operation.

6. Early Detection of New Trends

eCommerce software testing can reveal subtle shifts in user behavior that indicate new trends, such as preferences for certain payment methods or device usage patterns. Understanding these trends allows businesses to adapt quickly and stay competitive. Businesses that anticipate and adapt to emerging trends can serve customers better, innovate faster, and outperform competitors.

7. Decreased Customer Support Load

Fewer bugs and a smoother user experience result in fewer customer complaints or requests for support. Thorough testing reduces the likelihood of issues that require customer support intervention. Lower customer support volume leads to cost savings, happier customers, and a more efficient support team that can focus on other aspects of ensuring a spotless UX besides communicating information about the bugs.

8. Improved Accessibility

Globally, up to 20% of the population experience disability in some form, and the collective spending power of that group is estimated at $13 trillion. Including accessibility checks in the retail app testing strategy ensures that users with disabilities like visual impairments and motor disabilities can fully navigate and use the website. Proper accessibility testing makes websites inclusive and legally compliant, as well as opens the site to a wider audience, including those with disabilities, boosting sales potential and reputation.

Testing Strategies and Types to Use in eCommerce Testing

Software testing in retail involves a whole range of activities that concern every single component of an eCommerce application, from the visual elements to the refund process. Retail software testing helps identify and fix even the most minor issues that can potentially harm the business in the long run. However, it all starts with a well-designed strategy that outlines all the activities that need to take place. These are the most common types of testing to include in your project.

Functional Testing

Functional testing focuses on verifying that all features of the eCommerce platform work as expected under normal conditions. The strategy ensures that every core feature — like product search, checkout, and user registration — functions smoothly, delivering a reliable experience for customers. Functional testing is essential for validating both individual components (like search bars or payment forms) and the interactions between them. This strategy includes:

• Unit testing — testing individual components like product search or the add-to-cart function.
• Integration testing — ensuring modules like payment gateways, inventory, and order processing work together.
• Smoke testing — verifying core functionalities like login, product search, and checkout process after new builds.
• Regression testing — ensuring recent changes do not break existing functionality.

Usability Testing

Usability testing is focused on enhancing the user experience (UX) by ensuring the site is intuitive, easy to navigate, and meets the needs of various user groups. The strategy revolves around real-world testing by simulating how different types of users interact with the platform, helping businesses identify potential pain points in the shopping process. UI testing verifies that the layout, design elements, and navigation are user-friendly, while accessibility testing ensures that users with disabilities can easily interact with the platform. Common testing types here include:

• User interface testing — testing usability through user interface testing, including checking layout, design elements, and ease of navigation across the site.
• Accessibility testing — ensuring the platform is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities (e.g., keyboard navigation, screen readers).
• A/B testing — comparing two versions of a page to see which performs better with users.

Performance Testing

Performance testing evaluates how the eCommerce platform behaves under different levels of user activity, including high traffic periods like sales events. The goal is to ensure that the site remains responsive and stable, providing users with a seamless experience even during peak usage. The strategy involves simulating real-world traffic to understand the system’s performance, scalability, and bottlenecks. This helps eCommerce businesses optimize their infrastructure for both daily use and unexpected traffic spikes. Performance testing is broken down into the following types:

• Load testing — simulating high traffic to assess performance under normal and peak loads.
• Stress testing — testing the site beyond its operational capacity to identify breaking points.
• Scalability testing — ensuring the site can scale as traffic increases without performance degradation.
• Latency testing — checking response times of key transactions like product searches or checkout.

Security Testing

Security testing aims to protect the eCommerce platform from potential vulnerabilities and threats, ensuring that customer data and financial transactions are secure. This strategy involves simulating attacks to identify weaknesses in the platform’s defenses, helping businesses stay ahead of malicious actors. By ensuring data encryption, security testing minimizes the risk of breaches, which could lead to financial loss and damage to brand reputation. Ongoing security testing is critical as cyber threats evolve. The activities here mainly include:

• Penetration testing — simulating cyberattacks to find exploitable vulnerabilities.
• Vulnerability scanning — using automated tools to detect security weaknesses (e.g., SQL injection, cross-site scripting).
• Data encryption testing — ensuring sensitive data is encrypted both in transit and at rest.

Compatibility Testing

Compatibility testing, which mostly includes cross-browser and cross-device testing, ensures that the eCommerce platform functions consistently across various web browsers and devices, including smartphones and tablets. The strategy focuses on providing a seamless user experience regardless of the device or browser being used by the customer. This helps businesses reach a broader audience and ensures a consistent experience across all customer touchpoints. Common testing activities include:

• Cross-browser testing — testing the site on browsers like Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge for UI and functionality consistency.
• Cross-device testing — testing the site on different devices (desktops, mobiles, tablets) and operating systems (iOS, Android).
• Retail POS testing — ensuring the optimal performance of POS hardware and software, as well as how well it integrates with the rest of the retail ecosystem.

API Testing

API testing ensures that all integrations with third-party systems, such as payment gateways, shipping providers, and inventory management tools, work seamlessly with the eCommerce platform. The strategy focuses on testing the functionality, performance, and security of these APIs to ensure they correctly process data and interactions. Because eCommerce platforms rely heavily on these external services, it’s crucial to ensure that APIs respond quickly and reliably under various conditions. This ensures that users experience uninterrupted services, such as accurate shipping calculations or real-time inventory updates. Widely used types of testing here include:

• Functional API testing — ensuring APIs are correctly integrated and functioning as expected.
• Performance API testing — measuring the response time and performance of APIs under different loads.
• Security API testing — ensuring APIs are secure and not vulnerable to attacks.
• Automated API testing — a technique that allows to automate the most critical tests to speed up testing, increase coverage, and achieve more consistent results.

Database Testing

Database testing ensures the integrity and security of the data stored within the eCommerce platform, including product information, customer details, and order histories. The strategy focuses on verifying that the database can handle large volumes of data efficiently, ensuring that data retrieval and storage processes run smoothly. Backup and recovery testing ensures the platform can recover from failures without losing critical data. Popular database testing activities include:

• Data integrity testing — verifying that data (e.g., product information, order details) is accurately stored and retrieved.
• Data migration testing — testing the accuracy and completeness of data migration when moving between databases.
• Backup and recovery testing — ensuring data can be properly backed up and recovered in case of failure.

Localization Testing

Localization and globalization testing ensures that the eCommerce platform is properly adapted for different markets, languages, and regions. The strategy involves checking the accuracy of translated content, currency displays, date formats, and cultural nuances to provide a tailored experience for international customers. Successful localization testing helps eCommerce businesses expand globally while maintaining relevance and usability for local markets. It often involves the following types of testing:

• Localization testing — testing content in different languages, currencies, and formats for regional markets.
• Globalization testing — ensuring the site can be adapted to various locales without affecting functionality.

Compliance Testing

Compliance testing ensures that the eCommerce platform meets legal, regulatory, and industry standards, such as GDPR for data protection and PCI DSS for payment security. This strategy focuses on validating the platform’s adherence to data privacy regulations and accessibility guidelines to avoid legal risks and ensure customer trust. By regularly performing compliance testing, businesses can ensure that they handle customer data responsibly and offer a secure shopping experience to all users. The following types of testing are usually included in the strategy:

• GDPR compliance testing — verifying the site’s handling of customer data meets privacy laws in the European Union.
• PCI DSS testing — ensuring payment security standards for storing and processing payment card information.
• Accessibility compliance testing — ensuring adherence to web accessibility standards like WCAG 2.1.

Automated Testing of an eCommerce Site: How and Why to Use Test Automation

Manual testing is a powerful tool when it comes to quality assurance of eCommerce solutions. Still, with so many test cases for eCommerce websites and applications, and so many aspects that require in-depth checks, test automation becomes something every owner of an eCommerce website must consider sooner or later.

How to know it’s time to implement eCommerce automation testing? TestFort’s AQA Lead, Taras Oleksyn, believes that, ideally, automation should be planned already at the discovery or development phase when it becomes clear how the product will operate and which modules it will consist of. Still, the more common approach is when there is already a certain manual testing suite that includes a share of regression testing. As soon as regression testing begins to require more and more time from the team, it’s time to launch automation testing. Automation is also essential when the product has to undergo performance and load testing, as manual testing is both too time-consuming and not effective enough for these types of testing.

The specific areas to focus on in automation largely depend on the product itself and the industry where it operates. For example, a popular B2C eCommerce store will likely want to make sure that the website or app can withstand peak load during holiday sales or other shopping events, while a store designed for B2B sales is unlikely to experience unexpected spikes in traffic and will focus more on security and compliance in automation QA.

When talking about launching an automation testing project for an eCommerce application and finding the ideal technical stack, Taras prefers to focus more on the available resources than on the specific domain. When there are already some specialists on the team who possess a specific tech stack, or if there are many AQA engineers available for hire with the knowledge of a specific technology, it’s possible to make any testing project work, regardless of the domain or the specific eCommerce testing challenges. The most popular eCommerce AQA technologies include Java, Python, and JavaScript, while common testing tools include Selenium WebDriver, Playwright, and Appium.

Step-by-Step Guide to Retail Software Testing Process

By now, it’s clear that timely testing plays a crucial role in the uninterrupted operation of an eCommerce solution. However, every successful eCommerce QA project starts with thorough planning and breaking down the work into manageable steps. These are the steps you need to take to test your retail solution.

1. Requirements Gathering and Analysis

The first step in testing an eCommerce application is gathering and analyzing all functional and non-functional requirements. Understanding what the application is supposed to do helps testers define what needs to be tested. All requirements can be divided into functional and non-functional ones:

• Functional requirements. These cover core features like product catalog, checkout process, user registration, etc.
• Non-functional requirements. These include performance, security, and usability.

This phase involves close collaboration with stakeholders, developers, and business analysts to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the application’s scope and goals.

2. Test Planning

In the test planning phase, a test strategy and comprehensive test plan that outlines key aspects of the process is developed. At this stage, the team decides how testing is going to be performed. This includes:

1. Defining scope. Determine what features and scenarios will be tested.
2. Prepare test environments. Decide on environments, including browsers, mobile devices, and operating systems, where testing will occur.
3. Choose tools and resources. Identify tools for manual and automation testing, performance testing, and bug tracking.

Test planning ensures clear communication about timelines, testing phases, and responsibilities among team members.

3. Test Case Creation

Testers create detailed test cases that map back to the requirements. Each test case should include:

• Preconditions — what setup is required before running the test.
• Test steps — step-by-step instructions to execute the test.
• Expected results — clearly define the expected outcome of the test.

Test cases cover various scenarios, including edge cases (unexpected user inputs) and business flows (shopping cart, checkout). This provides a roadmap for what will be tested.

4. Test Environment Setup

A test environment is prepared that mimics the production environment as closely as possible. This includes:

• Databases — ensure a copy of the live database for testing.
• Third-party integrations — set up integrations for payment gateways, shipping APIs, etc.
• Servers — configure servers and networks to reflect actual performance and load conditions.

The goal is to create an environment where testers can simulate real-world conditions and uncover potential issues before the application goes live.

5. Test Execution

Testers systematically run through all the test cases to confirm that every component operates correctly, logging any defects or issues found. The team will focus on the strategies and types of retail software testing chosen and outlined in the previous phases of the eCommerce testing process. Among other things, common focus areas of the retail testing include functional testing, performance testing, security testing, UX testing, and eCommerce mobile app testing, which focuses on the specific ways users interact with the mobile application.

6. Deployment Testing

Before going live, testers perform a final review and conduct deployment testing. This final step ensures a smooth transition from development to live production without impacting customer experience. Key activities here include:

• Smoke testing, which verifies that the core functionalities work as expected after deployment.
• Post-deployment testing, where the team monitors the system after it goes live to ensure no issues arise from the production environment.
• Customer feedback, which the team will incorporate to fix any usability issues that weren’t caught during testing.

7. Ongoing Maintenance

eCommerce software testing is never a one-and-done endeavor if you intend to stay in the market for many successful years. After the principal part of the project is over, a sensible business decision is to retain a scaled-down team of testers who will continue to perform routine checks and keep the application in a spotless condition. They will also contribute to the software development process by testing the application after any updates and help resolve bugs discovered after the solution goes live.

Testing eCommerce Websites & Apps During Peak Seasons

When preparing an eCommerce testing strategy, it’s important to plan your efforts in the long run and account for both normal and out-of-the-ordinary operation of your retail solution. One of the most vital scenarios to use in retail software testing is shopping during peak seasons.

What Are Peak Seasons in Ecommerce?

Peak seasons are times of increased shopping activity, usually tied to holidays, sales events, or other occasions that drive significant spikes in consumer spending. In the US, peak seasons include:

• Black Friday and Cyber Monday: November events marking the start of holiday shopping.
• Holiday shopping season: Typically from late November to December.
• Back-to-school sales: July through September.
• Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day: Special event-based spikes.
• Flash sales and exclusive launches: Company-driven promotions.

During these times, eCommerce platforms experience surges in traffic, sometimes up to several times the normal volume. According to a report by Adobe Analytics, U.S. online sales for Black Friday 2023 exceeded $9 billion, demonstrating how integral these events are for revenue generation.

Why It’s Important to Prepare for Peak Seasons in Online Retail

Timely peak season testing prevents a number of negative consequences that businesses can face when their solution is vulnerable against a spike in shopping numbers. Failing to prepare for peak shopping periods can result in:

• Lost revenue. Site crashes or slow performance can drive customers away, resulting in immediate revenue loss.
• Reputational damage. A poor experience during peak times can tarnish brand trust and loyalty in the long run.
• Cart abandonment. Frustrating shopping experiences, like failed payments or slow checkout, can lead to high abandonment rates.

Statistics show that 88% of consumers will not return to an eCommerce site after encountering performance issues. During peak seasons, this effect is magnified because customers expect seamless transactions under pressure and they often don’t have the time to wait the issue to be resolved. Failure to optimize can result in long-term losses in both revenue and customer retention.

Strategies for Peak Season eCommerce Testing

To prepare an eCommerce platform for peak season, a comprehensive testing strategy, focusing on performance, scalability, and reliability, must be implemented. Below are key strategies that online retail businesses should follow to come prepared to the peak shopping season.

1. Load testing and stress testing

Load and stress testing ensure that your platform can handle traffic spikes without any drops in productivity. The most important activities here include:

• Load testing, which simulates expected traffic levels to see how the system performs under typical peak loads.
• Stress testing, which pushes the system beyond expected limits to find breaking points and weaknesses.

2. Performance optimization

Optimizing site performance is crucial during peak periods when slow load times can turn away potential customers. A 1-second delay in page load times can reduce conversion rates by 7%, making optimization critical for maximizing sales during peak periods. Consider the following testing activities to verify your app’s optimal performance:

• Mobile optimization, which ensures your mobile site is just as fast as the desktop version since a significant portion of peak traffic comes from mobile users.
• Use of Content Delivery Networks (CDNs). CDNs store site data closer to users, ensuring faster load times, especially during high-traffic events.
• Minification, which intends to reduce the size of CSS, JavaScript, and image files to speed up page loading.

3. Payment gateway testing

Payment processing is often the most critical point during peak traffic. With the number of possible integrations and conditions required for the system to operate smoothly, payment gateway testing is crucial for maintaining the stability of the shopping process. These are the activities to focus on:

• Payment gateway testing, where teams test various payment methods and gateways to ensure they process transactions without errors.
• Simulating high transaction volumes, which helps ensure that simultaneous payment requests do not cause system slowdowns.
• Edge case testing, which equips you to better handle scenarios like declined cards, failed payments, or cart abandonment during payment processing.

4. Automation testing

Automation testing can be a game-changer during peak seasons due to its speed and consistency in handling repetitive tasks. Key approaches in test automation for peak seasons include:

• Automated regression testing, which allows to quickly check that existing functionality is not broken after new updates or changes to the platform.
• Automated load testing, where the teams can continuously simulate peak traffic scenarios without the need for manual intervention.
• Automated script execution, which helps ensure that core processes like login, checkout, and payment run smoothly even with new features added.

5. User experience testing

User experience becomes even more critical during peak shopping periods: with lots of offers to choose from, users have no reason to tolerate persistent UX flaws. Key UX areas to test include:

• Navigation testing, which helps ensure users can easily search for products, filter results, and move through the site.
• Checkout process, allowing you to make sure the checkout is quick, intuitive, and without friction points.

6. Disaster recovery and backup testing

Disaster recovery is an integral component of ensuring the spotless operation of an eCommerce application, especially during peak shopping seasons. A disaster recovery strategy for an eCommerce business is a formal plan that outlines the processes and procedures to recover IT systems, data, and business operations in the event of an unexpected disaster. Disasters could include natural disasters, cyberattacks, server failures, or other disruptions. A well-crafted DR strategy ensures that an eCommerce business can minimize downtime, protect customer data, and continue operations after an outage.

A typical disaster recovery plan includes a variety of activities, the most common ones being:

• Preparation
  • Risk assessment and identification of key assets.
  • Assign roles and responsibilities to recovery team members.
  • Set up backup and failover systems.
• Detection and notification
  • Early detection of an outage or failure.
  • Notify stakeholders, team members, and customers based on a predefined communication plan.
• Initiate failover
  • Switch to backup systems (cloud servers, mirrored databases, etc.).
  • Ensure all business-critical systems are back online (website, payment systems, etc.).
• Data recovery
  • Restore data from backups if necessary (transaction records, customer data, etc.).
  • Ensure data integrity and test systems for accuracy.
• Resume operations
  • Confirm that all systems are fully functional.
  • Gradually restore normal operations if working from a temporary environment.
• Post-incident review
  • Analyze the incident and recovery process.
  • Update the disaster recovery plan based on the lessons learned.

Ideally, the team responsible for disaster recovery should include the following role:

• Disaster Recovery Manager (DR Lead) — a person who oversees the entire DR process and ensures all tasks are executed smoothly.
• IT department, whose responsibility is to manage technical recovery of systems and infrastructure.
• A Business Continuity Partner — a person whose job is to ensure that business processes can continue during and after a disaster.
• Data Protection Officer, who ensures compliance with data protection laws (e.g., GDPR).
• Communication Lead — a person who handles internal and external communications during the recovery process.
• Vendor Management Team, who establish cooperation with third-party vendors, including payment processors, cloud providers, etc.

Software testing also plays a crucial role in preparing an eCommerce store for an increased shopping activity. In peak season testing in retail, it’s important to create and execute test cases that account for worst-case scenarios with a robust disaster recovery and backup strategy, including:

• Backup testing, which ensures all customer and order data is regularly backed up and can be quickly restored if necessary.
• Failover systems, where teams set up backup servers or cloud-based failover mechanisms to handle traffic if the main server goes down.
• Simulate failures, which test how the system responds to unexpected crashes or database failures.

Real-Life Examples of Companies That Failed to Prepare

In the age where the importance of timely testing seems clear to every eCommerce business owner, companies still routinely skip these checks and start the peak shopping season completely unprepared. There are several cases of major companies facing disaster during peak seasons if they fail to prepare adequately, and here are the stories you need to know about.

J.Crew’s Black Friday Outage (2018)

In 2018, J.Crew experienced a major website outage during Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year. Customers were unable to access the site for hours, resulting in lost revenue and customer frustration. This failure was attributed to unpreparedness for the surge in traffic, a problem that load testing could have helped prevent.

J.Crew faced the unwanted consequences of revenue loss, a significant amount of sales were lost during the outage, and considerable brand damage, as customers openly vented their frustrations on social media, further spreading the word about the company’s lack of preparedness.

Lowe’s Cyber Monday Crash (2019)

Lowe’s website went down on Cyber Monday 2019, rendering customers unable to complete their purchases during the peak shopping day. Slow load times and checkout failures caused a significant loss of sales and customer trust. This outage underscored the importance of performance optimization and stress testing for eCommerce platforms during peak periods.

As a result, Lowe’s experienced lost sales, missing out on key revenue during one of the largest shopping days of the year. The service outage also led to customer dissatisfaction, as many customers turned to competitors after being unable to purchase.

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Outage (2016)

Macy’s website struggled under the pressure of Thanksgiving Day traffic in 2016. Checkout failures were rampant, and the site became inaccessible at key moments. This was particularly damaging as Macy’s was trying to boost its online sales at a time when the company was facing overall declining revenues.

This resulted in checkout failures, where customers were unable to complete purchases due to overloaded servers, and a subsequent reputation hit, where a high volume of customer complaints on social media hurt Macy’s brand image during a crucial shopping period.

What to Test on eCommerce Websites

An effective retail software testing strategy is created from scratch for any project and is based on the product’s specifics, team’s goals, and intended users. At the same time, in most cases, retail testing involves evaluating the same components of an eCommerce solution. These are the most vital areas to include in your eCommerce testing process.

Homepage

The homepage is one of the most important pages for any website, as it is your brand’s face and the first touch point when the customer discovers your business. There are many more pages that will be used to test the complete workflow, but you still need to ensure that the main page’s functions work correctly. Only up-to-date information must be included here. For example, you should not post outdated promotions or winter products on the main page if it is summer outside.

Search and Navigation

It is essential that potential customers can quickly and easily find the products they need. Search and navigation are the two main elements of your platform, no matter what kind of products you sell, whether it’s garden products, toys, cosmetics, or electric vehicles.

It’s not only how well the search works, how it uses suggestions to guide users towards the desired results, but also what icon or form you use. Practice shows that if you use a separate form and not just a search icon, you can increase profit by 0.01%, which can be significant with large sales volumes.

Product and Service Pages

The product page should contain complete information about the product and the motivation for the purchase. You can use testing to check how your sales will perform if you include information about promotions, stock, and other items that may influence a buyer’s decision.

It is also necessary to test the page’s content — text, video, image, recommended products, social proof, etc. Any changes can increase the conversion rate to the cart and to the payment gateway.

Order Process

Nearly 70% of users will abandon the purchase of goods if they have problems placing an order, and 57% will exit the page if it takes more than three seconds to load. There are several reasons why people leave an item after they put it in their cart. Some of the most important are:

• The site requires you to create an account;
• Excessive shipping, taxes, or other charges;
• Extra charges appear at the checkout phase;
• The shopping cart is too slow to load;
• No calculation of the exact cost of the purchase.

Even a slight change in the shopping cart’s design can positively impact decision-making, which is why all general test cases for eCommerce products should include all actions related to the purchase process.

Payments

It is important that your customers can immediately pay for their orders. The more payment systems you use (credit/debit cards, e-wallets, cryptocurrency, etc.), the better. Payment should be quick and easy without requiring customers to provide unnecessary information, but it also needs to be secure. So, you need to check the following:

• Confidentiality;
• Currency conversion;
• Whether it is possible to cancel the payment within the specified time;
• Whether it is possible to pay for the goods in installments;
• How the solution behaves when the payment doesn’t go through.

If your goal is to be present globally, it means you need to select several international payment systems and popular currencies, as well as ensure full compliance with the target location’s laws and regulations (PECR and GDPR being the most vital ones).

Post-Order Tests

Once someone has placed an order, their collaboration with your platform continues, which is why post-purchase test cases should always be included in the strategy. So, you need to test whether a person can cancel an order, view recent order history, or change information (for example, the shipping address or date).

eCommerce Testing Checklist

An eCommerce testing strategy is a complex document that outlines all the essential components of the process, from the testing methods to be used to the anticipated outcomes. The exact composition of the strategy will always depend on the specifics of the project and what testing involves. 

A checklist can be highly useful for any project, and for a good reason: it outlines the areas of testing in a structured, easily digestible way. Here is what a retail testing checklist can look like.

General

• All links and banners lead to the right pages.
• Navigation is smooth and responsive.
• Search results are relevant and sorted correctly.
• A wrongly typed address or search query leads to a clear error message.
• Translation and currency are correct for every location setting.

Compatibility and Accessibility

• Functionality is consistent across different browsers (Firefox, Safari, Edge, Chrome) and operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android).
• All UI elements are displayed and working as intended across all browsers and operating systems.
• Keyboard navigation, color contrast, and screen reader compatibility are all implemented properly.
• There is alt text for all images posted on the site.
• ARIA labels and landmarks are implemented throughout the website.

Account Creation and Login

• Clear success/failure messages for correct and incorrect password/login combinations.
• The system can recognize whether a visitor is a registered member.
• Mandatory registration fields are required to proceed.
• Repeat registration using the same credentials is prohibited.

Search and Filters

• Search bar displays suggestions based on the characters typed.
• Search bar suggests not only products, but also product categories.
• The number of search results is clearly visible.
• Search filters work correctly.
• Each filter selected or deselected affects the number of products displayed.

Product Page

• The information about the product is displayed correctly in the corresponding fields.
• Product photos and videos are adjusted to the screen size and can be zoomed in.
• If the number of items in stock is displayed, it should be relevant.
• Breadcrumb navigation should be clickable and functional.
• All links (brand page, size guide, etc) should work properly.

Shopping Cart

• Items are added to the cart with one click.
• The cart displays the correct quantity for each item.
• The options to modify the quantity or delete the product work properly.
• The total price of the cart changes when the quantity of items is modified.
• The cart maintains its state for the entire duration of the user’s session.

Order Placement, Payment, and Further Processing

• Discount codes and bonuses work correctly, where applicable.
• All available payment methods can be used.
• Shipping costs are displayed and change based on location.
• The buyer can save payment details for later (security testing is required).
• There is a success/failure message at the end of the order placement process.
• The buyer’s email address is recorded for future promotions in case they agree to it.
• Guest checkout option is available.
• Order status is updated timely in the buyer’s order history.
• There is an option to cancel the order or modify the details.

Returns and Refunds

• Return and refund policy is clearly displayed in a visible location.
• Return request form is functioning as expected.
• Return and refund status updates are instantly posted and sent to the customer via notifications.

Security and Compliance

• SSL certificate is valid and displayed correctly.
• Login and password information are stored securely.
• Vulnerability scans are passed successfully (SQL injection, XSS).
• Data exchanged during transactions is secretly encrypted.
• PCI compliance requirements are implemented in the product.

Challenges of eCommerce Testing

Like any testing project, an eCommerce website testing endeavor can run into certain challenges. Some of them, such as the inability to find a team experienced in testing eCommerce products or an inadequate selection of tools, are shared by pretty much all industries and solution types. However, some eCommerce testing challenges are unique for this field and therefore should be treated with even more attention. These are the typical challenges of testing eCommerce products.

Simulating User Behavior

Unlike, say, a corporate CRM application, which has a strictly defined, adequately prepared audience, eCommerce stores attract all kinds of prospective buyers, including users with little to no technical proficiency, users with outdated or simply rare devices they use to shop online, users with disabilities, and so on. This is why the team has to work extra hard to account for every type of buyer and test even the most unlikely scenarios to avoid service disruptions for the users.

Multiple Third-Party Integrations

Third-party integration is one of the most widely used options in an eCommerce store. Online stores rely on third-party software products for a variety of tasks, from payments to shipping settings. Naturally, this creates an additional challenge for testing teams, who have to not only test each integration on its own, but also see how its presence affects the base solution and all other integrations that come with it.

Managing User Expectations

With a growing number of eCommerce sites rapidly gaining popularity, users have come to expect nothing short of flawless performance, outstanding UX, and all-around compatibility. Otherwise, they are not going to tolerate a bug-ridden website, as there is always another online store to buy from. So, while testing plays a pivotal role in the way the eCommerce site is received, user expectations must be taken into account at every stage of the development process.

Rapidly Changing Inventory

Unless an eCommerce store deals with a small but highly specific inventory, there can be thousands, if not millions, of products on offer. Moreover, the inventory is often updated multiple times a day, especially in the case of FMCG eCommerce stores. The volatility of the inventory means that teams need to account for a frequently changing selection of products, so that customers don’t end up with a half-baked solution.

Cross-Device Consistency

With 2.71 billion online shoppers as of 2024, it’s safe to assume that the number of possible device, operating system, and browser combinations is growing by the year. Testing website appearance and functionality across a myriad of different devices and platforms is a challenge because it’s virtually impossible to get your hands on all physical devices required for testing, while virtual device farms cannot efficiently simulate all real-life scenarios. This is why it’s integral to develop a comprehensive test plan that combines both virtual and physical device testing to get the most complete idea of how the app behaves in different settings.

Legacy System Integration

Most eCommerce stores invest a lot of time and effort into maintaining an appealing and modern storefront, but the part that is facing away from the users, the backend part, is often based on various legacy solutions. Testing how well these outdated backend solutions integrate with the more up-to-date frontend part of the application poses an additional challenge for the QA team, especially when it comes to the compatibility aspects of retail software.

Localization Beyond Language

Translating all the content on a retail website is a complex task, but it’s not the only thing required for proper localization. Depending on the target location, the localization process can also include different currencies, units, and even cultural preferences and customs. The testing team’s objective is to get a deep understanding of a foreign market, so that they can create detailed test cases based on the location’s unique characteristics and help the developers flawlessly localize the solution.

Final Thoughts

Timely testing is vital for all kinds of software products, but it has special significance when it comes to eCommerce and retail. In the time where businesses have to take every opportunity to win over customers and surpass their competition, the impeccable quality of the eCommerce solution can be the one thing that tips the scales in your favor. eCommerce website testing is the most reliable way to ensure the functionality, usability, and security of your software product and help you grow your business with absolute confidence, so the sooner you engage in it, and the more thought-out your approach is, the better.