“It should work out” is the phrase that kills.
Companies seem to undervalue the impact of targeted processes. Retail, for instance, is a very mature sector. Everything regarding software development and testing is polished and standardized. And that makes it much easier for teams to work with a product. They follow an established path forged by millions of previous mistakes and successes.
But more often than not, doing everything by the book is a costly error.
Developing a project relying on proven ways isn’t wrong. Yet, straying off a familiar road can bring you to unseen, wonderful spots. And with the modern IT market and user expectations, outside the box is the best place to be.
Let’s figure out why that’s the case by investigating surprisingly common mistakes teams make.
After nearly three years of drops in sales, Macy’s was really banking on the Black Friday of 2017. The company’s hopes came true. Customers flocked to the stores and online services and began making purchases. But the lines of shoppers were getting too long. Macy’s website saw a surge in abandoned orders. And its socials were soon filled with confused and angry messages.
The culprit turned out to be an overwhelmed payment system. People were forced to either pay in cash, wait out the outage, or abandon their carts altogether. Macy’s quickly found out that their software couldn’t handle the surge in user activity, leading to delays and customer frustration.
Luckily, the issue was quickly fixed. And the company managed to up its stock by over 2%, which was a considerable win at the time. A similar situation didn’t end that well for J. Crew, however.
J. Crew had been walking the tightrope for a while at the time, with people worrying the brand was losing touch with its loyal customers. Previously, it had already experienced two outages during peak traffic. And on 2017th Black Friday, the same thing happened.
Users couldn’t log in to their J. Crew accounts, place orders, and faced numerous errors on the company’s website. The brand’s Twitter was flooded with angry messages. And at some point, the firm had to contact the shoppers directly to help resolve their issues with the online service. J. Crew also had to stretch their support department thin, as people were calling trying to place orders over the phone.
The retailer’s crisis lasted for five hours, which doesn’t seem catastrophic. But, according to estimations, the outage affected over 300,000 clients and cost the company close to a million in sales.
In the case of Walmart, a software error made a ton of people extremely happy. But it was quickly followed by rage. In 2013, shoppers noticed that the company’s items were listed with prices that went above and beyond a bargain. Computer monitors were selling for eight bucks, speaker systems for $30, and $600 projectors went for just nine dollars.
While some customers were worrying about the site being hacked, others didn’t dare to not try their luck, filling their carts with now-cheap items. The shopping frenzy didn’t last long, as expected. Walmart rushed to fix the glitch, promising to refund all orders.
People, of course, weren’t pleased. They were given a $10-dollar gift card while hoping to get a deal of a lifetime. In customers’ minds, Walmart gave them false hope, then robbed them. Things got a bit worse later, as users experienced slow loading times and errors on the website as the pricing issue was being amended.
In the end, the company didn’t take a big hit. But their image got twisted in some clients’ eyes.
For Home Depot, on the other hand, their clients’ trust was severely damaged. In 2014, the company became the target of one of the largest data breaches in the sector. How did this even happen? Let’s break it down.
This attack seems so simple. Elegant, almost. There was nothing elegant about the aftermath, though. Home Depot’s lacking security led to compromised data of over 40 million users. The firm had to conduct a lengthy investigation and develop and deploy advanced protection measures. And a couple years later, they had to pay $17.5 million in damages.
Marks & Spencer faced a completely different issue. The impact was no less damaging, however. After 11 quarters of failing profits, M&S launched a website worth $150 million and that took three years to test.
But on the day of the “grand opening”, millions of users complained about the astonishing diversity of issues they encountered.
As the customers’ rage grew, M&S’s executives kept insisting that “there was nothing wrong with the site”. It’s like they refused to believe that after putting so much effort and resources into it, the page could still have critical bugs. Alas, the reality quickly dawned on the firm. Their sales dropped by 8%, and the company wasn’t optimistic about the end result of M&S’s turnaround.
After two years of struggling, Target closed over 100 of its stores in Canada by 2015. How could this retail giant suffer such a fate? Here’s how the company left over 17 thousand people out of work and lost around seven billion dollars in the process.
Everything began with an overly ambitious goal paired with inadequate preparation. Target planned to open 150 locations in Canada within roughly two years. It did succeed in obtaining 220 sites and converting most of them into functional locations. But getting them up and running wasn’t going to happen.
Working with tight deadlines, Target opted to buy a ready-made ERP system instead of extending their existing tech. While the firm decided to go with SAP, they also needed to configure it to the Canadian market. It seemed simple enough. But extreme time constraints and lack of people who actually knew how to operate the SAP system quickly destroyed Target’s plans.
Mistakes began appearing left, right, and center.
The supply chain hurdles left Target stores with empty shelves. All the while its distribution centers were facing collapse as they were overflowing with goods that went nowhere.
To deal with the issue, the retail giant purchased a forecasting and replenishment system. But it didn’t take into account that the software would need tons of historical data to make accurate predictions. Instead, the team relied on optimistic views regarding customers’ purchases based on Target’s success in the US.
The company’s auto-replenishment system also faced troubles. It would offer incorrect info on the items in and out of stock. These issues further enraged customers. And at some point, Target had to fly in senior personnel to try and deal with the issues. But none of them knew how to work with all the new software.
Because the auto-replenishment system was novel, the company discovered very late that human error was involved, too. Some business analysts were misusing the software’s functions to make their numbers look good.
At this point, you’re thinking it couldn’t get any worse. Yet, more surprises were on the way. Target’s retail POS testing was also lackluster. The system would load too long or freeze completely. It also gave incorrect pricing and change, the payments weren’t going through, and people couldn’t scan items.
Even though things got better after some changes, the company was disappointed to see very few customers in its stores. The damage was already done. And in 2015, Target filed for bankruptcy protection.
These are loud stories with big traction. So, the mentioned retail app testing mistakes aren’t core issues nor do they happen to huge companies only. Most importantly, an error doesn’t have to be “significant” to cause chaos.
Yet, our biggest worry as a QA company is that the same issues keep popping up again and again. It might be due to the refusal to learn from mistakes. But the reality is that no matter how well you plan and prepare, there can still be snags that send all your efforts down the drain. Let’s take a look at the “regular” hurdles in e-commerce software testing services.
Companies often underestimate the effort required for thorough software testing for retail. This usually happens due to tight budgets, aggressive deadlines, or the misconception that testing is a cost rather than an investment.
Example: An e-commerce company tests its search feature but lacks resources to validate sorting accuracy across all categories. As a result, “Price: Low to High” sorting fails for certain product groups. The app displays higher-priced items at the top, frustrating price-sensitive shoppers.
Gaps can appear when retail testing services’ planning is rushed, incomplete, or lacks alignment with business needs. Teams may assume that common user flows are covered. While edge cases, dependencies, or cross-team responsibilities aren’t explicitly outlined. This leads to missed scenarios and last-minute fixes.
Example: A company expands to a new state but doesn’t clearly include tax calculations in its test plan. So, the system applies the wrong tax rate. Users are overcharged or undercharged, requiring costly refunds and damaging customer trust.
Checking only core features may seem sufficient, especially when under time pressure. But skipping less obvious but critical test scenarios can lead to damaging impacts. It can even break those tested core features.
Example: A retailer tests gift card purchases but skips checking how refunds interact with them. When a customer returns an item bought with a gift card, the system fails to restore the refunded amount properly.
Companies neglect records when they view testing as a short-term task rather than a continuous process. It also happens often with our good old friend — time pressure. But undocumented ecommerce test cases, bug reports, and requirements make future debugging and onboarding harder.
Example: A store runs a “Buy One, Get One 50% Off” promotion. But it doesn’t document how it should interact with sitewide discount codes. A later update mistakenly applies both discounts together, allowing customers to get two items for nearly free.
Testing automation solutions for retail is a common and efficient practice. Guess what’s also common? Excessive use of automated software testing services. This is often caused by the lack of trained engineers or an overemphasis on speed. While automation is great for repetitive checks, it misses UX and logic errors.
Example: Automated retail testing verifies that product recommendations appear. But they don’t validate their relevance. A tagging issue causes an electronics store to recommend HDMI cables for every product, even clothing, making recommendations useless.
Hiring experienced QA professionals can be costly. And some companies try to save money by relying on developers or junior QA specialists. While it offers alright coverage, it also leads to missed critical issues due to a lack of deep expertise.
Example: A junior expert overlooks a flaw where an order can be placed using an invalid credit card. So, the info is fake but the delivery appears as “Paid”. Fraudsters exploit this loophole to get products without being charged.
Teams may assume that if individual features work, the whole system will function correctly. This belief often comes from a lack of understanding of complex interactions or little time for integration testing.
Example: The checkout process passes standalone tests. The payment processing works. But due to a missing integration test, an order confirmation email is sent, yet the warehouse system never receives the order.
Some businesses opt to test only under normal conditions, failing to anticipate high-traffic scenarios. This happens when performance testing is seen as an extra cost rather than an essential safeguard. It’s also common to not stress the software enough.
Example: A retailer launches a 24-hour flash sale. But it hasn’t tested the checkout process under heavy traffic. As thousands of users try to pay at once, the payment API times out, halting transactions.
Security testing is often deprioritized due to a lack of expertise or urgency. Companies may assume that their platform is protected by default or that security breaches are unlikely. Some crews may also undervalue the impact of manual testing services when it comes to digital defenses.
Example: A mobile shopping app has an API that allows customers to check their order history. Due to a lack of security testing, a loophole lets attackers change the order ID in the API request. They access other users’ order details, exposing personal data.
Businesses sometimes focus too much on technical correctness, ignoring real-world user behaviors. This often happens because QA teams assume that standard test cases cover all use cases or neglect user-centric retail software testing services.
Example: A store offers the option to ship parts of an order to different addresses. But the QA team only tests single-address orders. In production, users find that when they split an order, the system incorrectly applies shipping fees to the entire order multiple times, overcharging customers.
With what we’ve discussed so far, we can define two main “crimes” teams commit with development and software testing in the retail domain.
Companies are often tempted to go with the benchmark workflows. After all, they are sort of industry standard. Plus, every team member knows what’s required from their position, so they will automatically do what they’re supposed to. Yet, there’s a big difference between doing what one’s supposed to and what’s actually needed.
Keep in mind that it’s smart to use ready-to-go software testing solutions for retail. You can save time and money, which are always the big issues in development. But without a customized strategy and processes that are oriented toward your specific case, you’ll be facing issues ingrained in those conventional methods you rely on.
So, strive to put a spin on every solution. Make it relevant to you and targeted to your project. And, of course, plan for what might go wrong or right with your situation, not the sector in general.
Alas, you can’t plot out everything. That’s where the next aspect comes into play.
Creating a team that has technical and domain knowledge is already tricky. And considering the current state of IT hiring, the task becomes even more difficult. As a result, the common solutions to this include:
Well, we’ve got to admit that these options are far better than no testing software for retail at all. But we’ve seen what follows after such decisions.
It is vital to remember that quality assurance isn’t just about testing. It’s about everything related to quality: planning, collaboration, processes, etc. So, when you have an expert dedicated QA team, they can:
As you can see, QA is far more than, for example, retail mobile application testing. Real QA is doing everything to make sure your business succeeds. And confusing quality assurance with just software validation is the biggest mistake companies make.
Well, you’ve already figured out that the best solution to any project troubles is a skilled team. A team who cares not about arbitrary numbers, doing exactly as told, or finishing one task and moving on but the quality of their work. A team who knows their impact and value for your business. A team who understands how to turn plans and hopes into a prosperous reality.
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