eCommerce platforms have evolved rapidly and are expected to grow at a steady pace in the upcoming years. It has transformed the way businesses “sell” and consumers “shop” across the globe. With the advent of eCommerce and technological advancements, businesses of all sizes can now stand along with premium brands and high-end competitors. However, in this digital era, all retailers should ensure their websites are performing well in order to maintain a steady stream of online traffic and maximize sales. Testing any website prior to and even after launch is the only way to confirm that it is on the right trajectory. Performance testing will assist businesses in identifying and fixing bugs that may have an impact on the website’s performance and consumer experience. 

What Is Performance Testing?

Performance testing is the process of evaluating the performance of a website in terms of stability and responsiveness under varying workloads. Some of the most popular performance tests include volume, load, endurance, stress, scalability and spike. When it comes to performance testing, both open-source: JMeter and commercial tools: LoadRunner[HP], WebLOAD, NeoLoad are available in the market. The objective of performance testing is to detect and eliminate bottlenecks in a website or application. Let’s look at the importance of performance testing for eCommerce applications.

Evaluating software objectives

eCommerce performance testing involves the testing of the platform as a whole to see whether it is working properly and whether the page loading speed is optimal. Moreover, it checks the billing and shopping guide sections. It will also analyze every page of the website, check for bugs and make plans to remove them in order to create a flawless web application.

Also Read: Why Chatbot Testing Is Essential and What Are The 7 Features To Check While Testing a Bot

Loading of pages

The loading of websites is often interrupted due to excessive traffic and can directly or indirectly affect the user experience. Nobody wants to spend their valuable time waiting for the pages to appear. eCommerce application performance testing examines the load speed of pages and helps make necessary changes to ensure that the platform runs smoothly and delivers a positive user experience.

Compatibility on different devices

It is not uncommon for a website to work properly on a mobile device and fail on a desktop. Most websites that haven’t undergone performance testing show compatibility issues. Performance testing not only evaluates the performance of websites on old and new devices but also analyses their performance on various operating systems. Hence performance testing of eCommerce platforms is critical to attain perfection in terms of functionality and technical performance.

4 Key Considerations In eCommerce Performance Testing

E-tailers can never predict the number of users that will visit their site at any given time. In the history of e-commerce, there have been numerous instances where applications have underperformed or even crashed under a sudden surge of traffic, leaving customers stranded and creating a drop in the retailer’s brand reputation. Adopting a performance testing strategy by taking 4 key considerations into account is the best way to maintain the performance of an eCommerce website under a sudden shopping frenzy or unexpected traffic flow.

1. Evaluating performance across geographies

E-retailers and D2C brands must ensure that the geographical location of their customers has little or no impact on the operation of their websites. The performance of key work processes must be tested across the client base to ensure that they are satisfactory. Testing ahead of busy times, such as the Christmas season or before a major sale, also aids businesses in providing a positive consumer experience. The variety of browsers and devices is an important factor to consider. This entails not only collaborating with the technical team but also with the marketing team in order to fully comprehend the campaigns and promotions that will be implemented.

2. Due attention to mobile

In this mobile-first age, most customers use applications on mobile rather than on desktop. Mobile performance testing guarantees that websites run as expected and the apps do not crash during peak loads. The use of load generation software can aid in the simulation of peak loads. The wide range of devices, networks, and platforms is the main challenge in mobile testing. Performance concerns that arise as a result of these variations must be addressed during the testing phase.

Also Read: What Is Regression Testing and How To Build An Effective Regression Testing Suite?

3. Test all transactions

A few transactions like product searches generally have a tendency to be more network-intensive than others. To ensure optimal processing speed, it is critical to test these transactions across various devices and browsers. Undoubtedly, when key website operations fail, it can have a serious impact on the sales targets.

4. Cloud-based testing

Cloud testing has high scalability and can quickly simulate as many users as needed without utilizing additional hardware. Because of the high costs involved, most e-tailers avoid adequate and repeated performance testing. However, Cloud has made overall performance testing cost-effective and hassle-free to test from diverse geographical locations with minimal setup.

How ThinkPalm Helps Enterprises With Performance Testing Services?

Performance testing is critical for the success of all eCommerce websites or applications in today’s competitive environment. It necessitates a high level of technical proficiency and in-depth understanding of performance testing tools, strategies, and best practices- That’s where the need for test automation tools comes in. At ThinkPalm, we offer a comprehensive range of test automation services like Agile/DevOps testing, API services/ Microservices testing, IoT testing, and Big Data testing that helps in reducing testing time with significant cost savings and thereby enhancing application quality. Get in touch with us for eCommerce performance testing services.

Author Bio

Manju is an enthusiastic content writer working at ThinkPalm. She has a keen interest in writing about the latest advancements in technology. Apart from writing, she is a classical dancer, embraces fashion attires, and loves spending time with her pets.