Unlocking the Benefits of Automated Testing for Commerce Brands

Modern ecommerce brands are expected to constantly improve their speed, accuracy, and agility. The public’s ever-increasing demand for unique digital experiences keeps them on their toes, and the pressure to innovate has never been higher.

Balancing this demand with the need for a seamless, unified customer journey can feel impossible. But automated testing is paving the way for brands to do just that, offering the ability to iterate faster, improve product quality, and reduce costs.

Still, unlocking the full potential of automated testing requires careful planning, the right tools, and the right expertise. Brands lacking this trifecta end up with lackluster results. They stay on the hamster wheel of ever-evolving updates and fixes, never maximizing returns on what could be a game-changing investment.

So how can commerce brands realize the promise of automated testing? Let’s explore how to overcome common obstacles and maximize payoffs.

Breaking Down Automated Testing: What It Is and Why It Matters

Automated testing is a software testing approach that automates the process of testing and validating software functionality. Rather than running repetitive, manual tests, IT teams can leverage scripted sequences to analyze software features, report outcomes, and compare results.

This approach has a broad range of use cases.

• Unit testing: Testing of individual components or functions in isolation, ideal for early bug detection in the development phase

• Integration Testing: Examines how components and systems interact, vital for catching issues that don’t show up in unit tests

• End-to-End Testing: Simulates real-world user scenarios to validate that a website or application works as a whole, ensuring seamless functionality across multiple systems

In comparison to manual testing, automated testing offers faster execution times, repeatability, and more. According to Gartner, tech leaders leveraging automated testing report higher accuracy, increased agility, and wider test coverage. It also offers more consistent results, reducing human error and oversight.

Real-World Wins: The Impact of Automated Testing Across Industries

Rightpoint has helped numerous brands realize the benefits of automated testing.

Reducing Resting Time for a Major Healthcare Website

After implementing test automation in a cloud pipeline for a major healthcare website, we helped reduce regression time to 10 hours and 50 minutes — an impressive 82.5% reduction in testing time.

Automated tests are scheduled to run during off hours, maximizing productivity and minimizing downtime. Now this healthcare company gets real-time alerts and updates on test execution status and automatic reports after each test execution, dramatically reducing the legwork involved in manual testing.

Reducing Costs for an Electrical Manufacturing Company

Rightpoint also implemented test automation for an electrical manufacturing company, using Playwright to automate the check of PDF generation for 10,000 products. Since each PDF had three variations, manual tests were incredibly tedious and time-consuming.

Automated testing helped this manufacturer reduce testing time from 375 hours to just 2 hours — an incredible 96.8% reduction in total testing time.

No matter the industry, automated testing offers the potential to drastically reduce testing cycles, improve quality, and enhance scalability. Here are some of the top benefits:

• Speed: Shortens testing cycles dramatically, enabling faster release schedules and empowering teams to respond swiftly to market changes, customer demands, and competitive pressures

• Quality: Identifies defects earlier in the development process, ensuring more robust, reliable releases that deliver better user experiences

• Cost Savings: Reduces the need for resource-intensive manual testing, lowering overall testing expenses while increasing operational efficiency

• Scalability: Allows clients to scale testing efforts to accommodate evolving business needs, supporting high-demand periods like product launches or holiday seasons (without compromising performance)

• Real-Time Monitoring: Offers proactive, real-time monitoring capabilities that catch issues early for quick resolution, less downtime, and better system health.

The Power of Automated Testing in Commerce

For commerce brands, time to market is paramount, which is why commerce brands are especially poised to benefit from automated testing. Every second counts, and automated testing allows brands to minimize downtime, maximize agility, and deliver better shopping experiences.

Let’s explore how automated testing is giving commerce brands a competitive edge:

• Enhanced Customer Experience: Delivers seamless, reliable user experiences that reduce friction and increase satisfaction, even during the highest traffic periods.

• Faster Time to Market: Accelerates new feature releases and updates, empowering businesses to respond faster to customer needs and market changes.

• Reduced Risk of Revenue Loss: Prevents costly disruptions by minimizing downtime, resolving errors proactively, and reducing cart abandonment or failed transactions

• Adaptability: Enables brands to adapt rapidly in response to shifting market trends, seasonal demands, or unexpected disruptions, ensuring a competitive edge

• Compliance and Security: Streamlines compliance by automating repetitive checks for regulatory and security standards, reducing risk and increasing customer trust

Overcoming Unique Commerce Challenges

Manual testing can be incredibly time- and resource-intensive, especially for complex industries like commerce. ERP integration, testing in sandbox environments, and unique data dependencies only add to the complexity.

Here are some of the most common challenges modern commerce brands face:

• Seasonal Traffic Peaks: High-volume events like Black Friday or holiday sales require robust load testing to ensure seamless performance.

• Multiple Payment Gateways: Brands must test integrations rigorously for accuracy and reliability to ensure functionality across numerous payment methods and transaction types.

• High User Expectations: Standards for speed and ease of use are ever-increasing — particularly in critical areas like checkout, where even small delays or errors can cause cart abandonment.

• Platform Diversity: Commerce sites must deliver consistent performance across mobile devices, desktops, and diverse browsers to ensure optimal shopping experiences for every user.

• Frequent Updates: Rapid deployment cycles and high-frequency updates mean more testing cycles, making the demand for automation high.

• Credit Card Testing: Brands must validate payment processes without using live transactions by employing sandbox environments, which may behave differently than real-time scenarios.

• ERP Integration: Integration testing is essential to ensuring accurate order processing, inventory management, and data synchronization.

Manual testing processes simply can’t keep up with the speed and complexity of modern commerce environments. With so much at stake, automation is vital in helping businesses maintain performance, reduce risks, and meet expectations.

AI and the Future of Automated Testing

Commerce brands that embrace automated testing will be leaps and bounds ahead of their competitors. Thanks to AI, the gap between automated and manual testing will only continue to widen. In fact, Gartner research reveals that 69% of tech leaders believe AI will transform automated testing in the next three years.

Here’s how generative AI is redefining automated testing:

• Identifying common issues: AI can predict bugs before they occur, reducing downtime and shortening development cycles.

• Self-healing tests: AI-driven frameworks can adapt to changes in code or page elements, minimizing false positives caused by small tweaks.

• Analyzing and fixing errors: AI tools can analyze test results and suggest fixes for detected issues, freeing up valuable time for QA teams.

By reducing maintenance overhead and increasing test reliability, AI enhances the value proposition of automated testing, making it more accessible and effective.

Tools of the Trade

Choosing the right tool is critical to the success of automated testing. Each tool has unique pros and cons, and selection depends on business needs and existing skillsets.

Here are some of the top UI testing tools for commerce brands, chosen for their ease of use and comprehensive capabilities:

• Playwright: Ideal for end-to-end testing, Playwright offers cross-browser compatibility and an intuitive syntax that’s easy for developers to work with.

• Cypress: A JavaScript-based framework known for fast execution and ease of use, Cypress offers excellent reporting capabilities ideal for agile teams.

• Selenium: An established tool for cross-browser testing, Selenium provides robust support for web applications across various environments.

Unlocking the Power of Automation with Rightpoint

When implemented with care, automated testing allows commerce businesses to stay ahead of the curve by shortening test cycles, speeding up release schedules, and improving the overall quality and reliability of releases. It helps brands save money, scale faster, and proactively monitor issues for quick resolution.

Commerce brands can realize the full benefits of automation by investing in expertise, choosing the right tools, and leveraging AI for a quick return on investment. Ready to get started? Reach out to Rightpoint to learn how we can help you trade in manual testing for seamless experiences and high-impact results.