With eCommerce deployment surging in a COVID-19 landscape, and contactless transactions becoming the norm, businesses that want to maintain sustainability must offer services that are relevant to customers. eCommerce testing ensures businesses are meaningful to customers and profitable at the same time.
Why test?
According to online reports, the probability of bounce increases as much as 32% as page load time moves from one second to three seconds. This serves to illustrate the importance of keeping your eCommerce website active and functional at all times.
Testing allows problems to be identified and solutions outlined so that challenges can be overcome.
eCommerce testing assesses not only the website, but also applications and other tools, including critical elements like codes and discounts offered to customers. Ensuring all functionalities are working optimally is vital for a successful eCommerce venture.
Testing to ensure integrity
Testing is mandatory to check eCommerce system integrity. This testing includes checking and assessing all parameters experienced by the online shopper. This kind of testing can help identify issues and problem areas while helping strengthen the operational ability of the website. The main purpose of ecommerce website testing is to ensure optimal performance of the website and adequate system support. Software reliability and capacity utilization are also other critical aspects of eCommerce testing, which include checking performance in the presence of conditions that may mimic crisis situations, such as traffic bottlenecks.
1. Website functionality and user experience
One of the priorities for an eCommerce business is website performance. This includes several elements:
Each of these elements corresponds to the user’s experience while browsing the website. The website functionality also has other factors, including:
Read more about these elements.
Why is it important to focus on these?
The website is the first point of contact for the customer. A visitor is a potential customer, depending on their interaction with the website. Website functionality will guide visitor experience, eventually creating a positive one or a negative one. A positive experience can help convert visitors to customers more easily.
A negative experience on the other hand, can lead to visitors turning away.
2. SEO aspects implementation
SEO efforts help visitors access your website. You may have a great eCommerce website, but if nobody knows about it or has heard of it or cannot reach it through Google search, it cannot become a potential revenue generating source for your business. Regular eCommerce SEO testing ensures that efforts remain efficient and effective.
SEO efforts are part of digital marketing planning. Other elements of digital marketing include email marketing, Social Media Marketing, etc. SEO is all about utilizing technology and online tools to promote and optimize eCommerce efforts. However, there are no single-size fits-all formulas in search engine optimization. Plus, there are several critical elements within SEO efforts:
Why businesses need professional expertise
A professional provider of SEO efforts brings a ready understanding of diverse customer needs and expectations from an eCommerce website. This foundational understanding can help eCommerce business owners who are passionate about their businesses and would like to work on pursuing new business building opportunities, win and attract more customers, and plan long-term business growth.
3. Order processing and customer service
Order processing is a critical aspect of eCommerce and one that follows a successful sale. Rigorous and consistent ecommerce testing can ensure technical aspects are functioning smoothly while enabling human input to be more streamlined and productive.
For businesses new to eCommerce, it can be challenging to ensure supply matches demand, especially when your business plays the role of a facilitator and may not be manufacturing the products or service but depending on someone else to do so.
The second part of order processing is customer service.
Because there are no live salespeople in an eCommerce store, a credible and completely reliable virtual assistance experience is necessary. Depending on the kind of services and products offered by your eCommerce business, you can choose to provide assistance in the form of chat, phone support, or other methods. Support such as email requests can be long-drawn and may not be feasible for all industries.
Why is it important to focus on customer satisfaction?
Customer service post-sales can be a defining factor for returning business, or customers who choose to shop more than once with your business.
However, for a new eCommerce business or a startup, ensuring trained back-end staff can be time consuming and need more attention. But given the significance of the roles, businesses need to focus on customer service post-sales.
This can lead to shifts in focus from operational and management aspects; which can be entrusted to outsourcing eCommerce specialists. Outsourcing these functions can help owners better plan business growth because they know best how to address the other critical aspects: ensuring order management, supply, and post-sales customer service.
Underlining the importance of professional eCommerce assistance
Testing is a major part of eCommerce website functionality and usability. Getting a professional agency to do eCommerce deployment takes care of each element systematically. More importantly, the assistance afforded by professionals enables business owners to:
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