How To Write Test Plan And Test Cases For e-Commerce Websites

Writing effective test cases for e-commerce websites is essential to ensure the quality and reliability of your shopping application. As a project manager, it is your responsibility that not only the website meet the requirements, but also that its integrity and security are assured.

Author: Franco Martinig

Here are some steps you can follow to create your ecommerce website test plan:

1. Define the Area to Cover:

Start by identifying the specific areas or functionalities of your website that need testing. This is easier if you have the e-commerce website requirements document. Consider features like user registration, login, search, forms, and navigation.

1. Creating scenarios

For each feature, you have to create test scenarios that will help for comprehensive testing of all functionalities. Here are some examples of test scenarios you can consider:

• User Registration:

1. • Verify that users can successfully register with valid details.
   • Test error handling for invalid inputs (e.g., duplicate email, weak password).

• Login and Logout:

1. • Confirm that users can log in using valid credentials.
   • Prohibit intrusion with a limit for invalid login attempts
   • Check session management (e.g., session timeout, concurrent logins, connectivity interruption).
   • Validate proper logout functionality.

• Search Functionality:

1. • Test search with valid and invalid keywords.
   • Verify search results display relevant content.

• Form Validations:

1. • Ensure form fields (e.g., contact forms, checkout forms) validate input correctly.
   • Test mandatory fields, character limits, and data formats.

• Product Listings and Details Pages:

1. • Verify pagination and filters
   • Verify product details (price, description, images) are accurate.
   • Test product variations (sizes, colors).

• Add to Cart and Checkout:

1. • Confirm items can be added to the cart.
   • Check the case where the user removes an item from the cart
   • Test the checkout process (address, payment, order summary).

• Payment Gateway Integration:

1. • Validate payment options (credit card, PayPal, etc.).
   • Test successful and failed transactions.

• User Account Management:

1. • Test profile updates (change password, address).
   • Verify email notifications (password reset, order confirmation).

You will have also to check the non-functional requirements for your website like the behavior on different devices (desktop, tablet, mobile). If you have a website with a lot of customer interactions, like an e-commerce platform, it will be also essential to assess the behavior of your website under heavy load. Otherwise, you might end up with a bad surprise on Black Friday. Finally, it is important to check the security of your website using approaches like penetration testing against threads like SQL injection.

1. Create Clear Test Cases:

For each of the test scenarios that you have previously defined, you have to create test cases. Test cases should cover both the positive and negative cases of each functionality. That is, you should not test only the case when the user-id and the password are correct at login, but what happen if one or both are wrong.

1. • Use a unique test case ID for each case.
   • Write a concise description of the test scenario.
   • Specify preconditions (e.g., user logged in) and postconditions (e.g., data saved successfully).
   • Environment Information

Conclusion

Developing a test plan should be part of the activities of every website development project. One of the best approaches is to create the test plan in parallel with the gathering of the software requirements. Thus, the project manager can validate the requirements by associating them with acceptance criteria. These discussions are also useful to create some test data that both developers and testers can use.

References

Effective Test Planning: Mastering the Art

Key Elements to Include in Your Ecommerce Website Testing Checklist

Performance Testing: Tips for E-commerce Site Performance