Role of Functional Testing in Increasing Ecommerce Conversions

In the highly competitive world of ecommerce, it is crucial to have a website that looks and functions seamlessly. Functional testing for ecommerce websites plays an essential role in ensuring that the site remains secured, optimized, and user-friendly for conversions.

Hence, identifying these issues and fixing them before they hamper user experience is easier with functional testing. Thoroughly assessing and verifying the ecommerce sites to inspect the reasons for reduced conversions and lost sales.

In this blog, you will know about functional testing in detail in the aspect of ecommerce testing.

Table of Content

1. Importance of Functional Testing in Ecommerce Conversions
2. How Functional Testing Can Boost Ecommerce Sales?
3. Checklist Functional Testing for Ecommerce Conversions
4. Challenges and Strategies to Improve Functional Testing for E-Commerce Conversions
5. QAble’s Strategies to Improve E-Commerce Conversions
6. FAQs

Importance of Functional Testing in Ecommerce Conversions

The first priority as an ecommerce website owner is to perform the best related to SEO. This helps in building brand visibility and boosting website rankings on search engines. It enhances the website's discoverability to attract more traffic.

However, not every website visitor gets converted into a paid customer. That’s why ecommerce businesses struggle hard to increase the base of paid users.

Improvement is always beneficial whether the conversion rates are poor, high, or even average. Applying the correct methods is a major key to protecting your ecommerce website and increasing conversions gradually.

Making necessary changes with the right leadership and control is important to identify the reasons behind poor conversions. Thus, functional testing for ecommerce websites is a secret solution to this problem.

Every ecommerce website comprises a plethora of functions to provide faster and easy navigation for customers. This can further lead to confusion and errors. For preventing problems after launch, it is equally important to assess the core functions with usability testing.

These are the important parameters to evaluate functional testing for an ecommerce website.

• Client server, APIs, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Inventory Management, and Payment Processing.
• User Experience which includes Product Page, Home Page, Shopping Cart, and others.
• Basic functions of the website such as product search, promo codes, payment gateways, product filters, order tracking, confirmation page, deals, etc.

How Functional Testing Can Boost Ecommerce Sales?

The primary purpose of conversion testing is to focus on reducing the friction between the visitors and site visitors that land on the site. Thus, higher friction indicates lower conversion rates.

So, conversion rates can have a major impact on the sales numbers, it is essential to emphasize on functional testing to expand sales. These are the few factors that can help you understand how functional testing is beneficial in increasing ecommerce conversions.

#1- Finding Products

A wide range of customer population visits ecommerce websites to find out about a particular brand or product. And, the unavailability of any brand or product can leave your customers disappointed. This results in removing their product from the cart including other products.

Thus, automating functional testing for ecommerce websites can solve this issue. It enhances the accessibility of products for the customers ultimately spiking up ecommerce conversions.

#2- Abolish Shopping Cart Problems

Imagine finding a product, but you cannot order it. This happens when the website isn’t tested properly. It will not take more than a few seconds for customers to switch to another website that offers the same product.

Furthermore, failing to test this ecommerce shopping functionality also leads to serious security problems during transactions. It is best to avoid this issue by implementing a thorough functional testing framework and mitigating it on time.

#3- Reduce Bounce Rates

Bounce rate is a particular metric that indicates that the visitors left the website without purchasing any product. Analyzing the total time spent combined with the bounce rate can help in understanding the frequency of visitors bouncing from the site.

However, the bounce rate doesn’t directly reflect the product experience for the users. But, it is an effective metric that heavily impacts the sales. A higher bounce rate means there is less chance of visitors getting converted as paid customers.

#4- Easy Availability of Online Stores

One of the most typical problems when it comes to improving conversion rates. Any problem regarding server provider, or hosting can lead to various problems, It can also happen due to the heavy workload during sales and holiday seasons. Due to this, users see error messages resulting in negative interactions.

But, with functional testing, you can easily confirm that the site is functioning properly. The reason is that it imitates the consumer interaction with the system to inspect the errors including UI problems, missing functionality, integration problems, etc.

#5- Reduce the Time Taken for Purchase

The time taken for purchase is the duration that users spend on the website while deciding on and purchasing the product. Longer time taken for purchase also indicates confusion and complexity of the website.

On the other hand, less time for purchase signifies enhanced discoverability, better search, and a seamless checkout process. Thus, functional testing for ecommerce websites for conversion tests covers every corner of the ecommerce website and app for overall improvement.

#6- Finding out the Pain Points

QA teams can effectively dig out various issues related to functional testing for ecommerce. Before you start testing, it is essential to find out the pain points which impact the conversion rates. To find that out, Heatmap analysis can be extremely helpful to figure out the user's choices and perspective.

Additionally, A/B testing is also a great way to verify and make the right decision. After identifying these pain points, you can make a detailed plan to resolve crucial issues in less time and enhance the overall outlook.

#7- Improved UX

Design plays a crucial role in attracting visitors to the website. Every element including setting, text, movement, and overall visual appeal can turn a visitor into a buyer. On the contrary, ecommerce businesses will eventually notice a major decline in conversions if several components remain broken and not solved frequently.

Ensuring that the ecommerce website is error-free will lower the risk of cart abandonment. Functional testing can be done faster with the increasing complication of the ecommerce app. Also, updating the app regularly enhances the reputation which improves revenue and better conversions.

Checklist Functional Testing for Ecommerce Conversions

Test cases are scripted and non-scripted scenarios created for checking the functionalities of the ecommerce website and application. These are the following checklist for writing crucial test cases for functional testing to improve ecommerce conversion.

#1- Testing of Checkout Process

The payment and checkout process is the backbone of any ecommerce platform. To top it off, scams and frauds are equally prevalent in the cyber world.

Due to this, it becomes highly essential to take protective measures and improve security. Thus, creating functional test cases for ecommerce websites reduces the issues related to the checkout process.
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Here is the list of the essential features that you must check for ecommerce functional requirements.

• Check the different options for payment
• Verify the user sign up
• Returning customers need to login for check out
• Ensuring that the session is timed out if the users are signed in for a long time
• Email confirmation along with the order number which has been generated
• Performing security testing if the ecommerce website stores crucial information such as credit card and other confidential information

#2- Testing of Product Pages

Each and every product or service should be listed on the ecommerce website. Also, it should contain explanatory descriptions with clear images. Along with that, the option of Add to Cart button should be responsive.

These are the following things you must check for ecommerce shopping functionality.

• Product Price
• Product Image
• Shipping information
• Availability of the product in multiple variations
• Checkout options
• Breadcrumb navigation for different categories.
• Reviews section
• Delivery options

#3- Testing of Search Functionality

The search feature is one of the highly used features of ecommerce websites. No matter how extensively you design the categories, still customers will find it difficult to find a particular product.

Hence, it makes it crucial to test the search features to make the process easier for customers to locate the products. These are the essential features you must check in the search feature.

• Check if there are any sort options available in your website according to the different parameters such as reviews/ratings, brand, price, and more.
• Verify the options available to make it easily navigate across the results on different pages.
• Determine if the search is available based on the brand name, product, etc.
• Check the correct number of the results which must be displayed on each page.

It is also important that customers can also search for their product on the homepage or other interior pages. Thus, the website search functions should adapt as per requirements.

#4- Test Cases for Post Order

After placing an order on the commerce website, users can still make several actions regarding purchases. Thus, testing post order purchases is a crucial aspect of ecommerce testing. These are some essential test cases that you must apply for post order.

Verify that customers can review the history and the recent orders of their purchased orders.

Check that the customers can change or cancel the order quantity after making the purchase.

#5- Recommended Products

One of the most common questions that arise for QA testers is whether they need to test every category of every product or not. However, there is no need to do that. The reason is that the featured products change every day. Also, returning customers will see recommended products appearing on the home page.

• Check the BI and Data mining systems
• Verify the algorithm according to the sections which are populated
• Check that customers can change the shipping or billing address and other profile information

#6- Shopping Cart

The shopping cart feature is an integral part of ecommerce websites which also requires comprehensive testing. This feature allows customers to select multiple items and store them so they can purchase everything at once. Here are some of the test cases for testing the ecommerce functional requirements of shopping carts.

• Adding applicable taxes according to the location
• Users can apply coupons for their purchase
• Verify that the items and their totals are displayed in the cart
• Users can add the items to the cart and continue to do shopping
• Options to remove the items from shopping cart

Also Read: Why is testing most important for your ecommerce website?

Challenges and Strategies to Improve Functional Testing for E-Commerce Conversions

Ecommerce functional requirements have their own challenges due to their dynamic and complex nature. Some of the eminent challenges testers face in functional testing for ecommerce conversions include.

• Dynamic Data- The dynamic data comprises inventory levels, product availability, and pricing. Testing the scenarios involving updates, inventory management, real-time data, and pricing is challenging. Thus, testers need to ensure that the flow of data remains consistent across the system and reflects the state correctly.
• Large Product Catalog- Ecommerce websites have a wide array of catalogs with various options and attributes. Thus, testing every combination for ecommerce shopping functionality will be time-consuming. Hence, testers must mitigate this challenge by ensuring adequate coverage.
• Cross-Browser and Cross-Platform Compatibility- It is essential that every ecommerce platform must be compatible with multiple platforms such as mobile, desktop, tablets, etc. along with browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and others. Thus, it can be a great challenge for the testers to check ecommerce functional requirements thoroughly.
• Order Fulfillment and Processing- The workflow of order processing in ecommerce systems is complex. It involved multiple integrations and steps and major systems like inventory management, shipping, etc. Thus, the testing order process and end-to-end fulfillment processing require meticulous coordination and planning.
• Integration of Payment Gateway- Ecommerce conversions involve integration with third-party gateways with different APIs, transaction flows, security protocols, etc. Thus, testing the payment gateway requires significant expertise to understand and simulate various payment scenarios. Therefore, they should carefully handle different response codes to ensure secure transactions.

QAble’s Strategies to Improve E-Commerce Conversions

Functional testing is a crucial component in optimizing ecommerce conversions. By understanding the key aspects of functional testing and taking the necessary steps, businesses can identify and address potential issues.

Our testers at QAble go through rigorous training to understand and apply them to get the best results. Here are some effective tips that can help you in functional testing for ecommerce websites.

• Develop Comprehensive Test Cases- Well-documented and defined test cases help cover every critical ecommerce shopping functionality. We consider different factors such as potential edge cases, use cases, and user personas to capture various scenarios.
• Focus on Continuous Improvement- At QAble, we emphasize the culture of continuous improvement for testing. We learn from every test and analyze the feedback which improves the process of implementing changes to enhance the ecommerce platform’s functionality and user experience.
• Monitor the Performance and Scalability- Regularly check the scalability and performance of the ecommerce platform so that it can handle the higher loads without affecting the functionality. Our testing team uses load-testing tools to simulate peak traffic scenarios to measure response time and identify bottlenecks.
• Incorporating User Feedback- We always recommend paying attention to user feedback. It becomes easier to get relevant insights on the potential pain points and other areas where the optimizations elevate conversions.
• User-Centric Approach-We focus on testing according to the user perspective. Our testers put themselves in the shoes of the customers to evaluate the overall experience with a different perspective Thus, they can easily find out the confusing elements, and other areas where customers might face difficulties while using the ecommerce website or app.

So, let’s embark on this journey together! It’s time to put your ecommerce platform to the test and see the transformative power of functional testing. At QAble, we will guide and support you at every step with our prompt expertise and cutting-edge testing solutions.

Therefore, take your ecommerce business to new heights, by delighting customers with a captivating user experience. Join QAble on this thrilling adventure together. Let’s revolutionize your ecommerce conversions by utilizing the power of functional testing.

Also Read: 7 Features that need to be tested in E-commerce Website