Why test an ecommerce website? The basics.

E-commerce or E-business is defined as the software and business processes required for businesses to operate solely via web portals, but e-commerce is much more than the provision of a web page as the customer interface. 

Why is testing important in the e-commerce environment? 
The first and primary reason is because technology for e-commerce is, by its very nature, business critical.  The second reason is that the history of e-commerce development is littered with expensive failures, at least some of which could have been avoided by better testing before the site was opened to the general public.

A successful e-commerce application should be usable, secure, reliable, maintainable and highly available to the user. These characteristics relate in part to the web technology that usually underlies e-commerce applications, but they are also dependent on effective integration with other applications.  E-commerce integrates high value, high risk, high performance business critical systems, and it is these characteristics that must dominate the approach to testing: do all the parts work, and do they work well together?

If we simplify matters and consider that an e-commerce site is fundamentally made up of a front end (the human-computer interface), a back end (the software applications underlying the key business processes) and some middleware (the integrating software to link all the relevant software applications), we can plan the independent testing of each of these components.

The front end of an e-commerce site is usually a website that needs testing in its own right.  
The site must be syntactically correct, but it must also offer an acceptable level of service on one or more platforms, and have portability between chosen platforms.  It should be tested against a variety of browsers, to ensure that the website is consistent across browsers.  Usability is a key issue and testing must adopt a user perspective.  The services offered to customers must be systematically explored, including the turnaround time for each service and the overall server response.  This, too, must be exercised across alternative platforms, browsers and network connections.

           

The back end of e-commerce systems will typically include ERP and database applications.  What is essential is to apply the key front end testing scenarios to the back end systems.  In other words, the back end systems should be driven by the same real transactions and data that will be used in front end testing.  The back end may well prove to be a bottleneck for user services, so performance under load and scalability are key issues to be addressed.  Security is an issue in its own right, but also has potential to impact on performance.

Integration is the key to e-commerce. Generally an e-commerce application integrates one or more components such as Database Server, Server-side application scripts/programs, Application server, HTML forms for user interface, Application scripts on the client, Payment server, Scripts/programs to integrate with legacy back-end systems. If an application is being built that uses a database server, web server and the payment server from different vendors, there is considerable effort involved in networking these components, understanding connectivity-related issues and integrating them into a single environment.   

  

Contributed by:

Thanooj Kumar

Transition Consulting Limited

To Know more about our ecommerce testing solutions contact:

Arun Kumar
arun.Kumar@tcl-asia.com

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About TCL:

TCL is a specialist consultancy in software testing.  As a company, our core purpose is to Develop and Deliver World Class Solutions in Software Testing that are Innovative, Structured and Professional.
The company exists to meet the needs of our clients who strive to ensure that their IT projects create value and demonstrate return for their investment.  We are geared to deliver services in all areas of software testing including functional, non functional and process improvement.
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