Summer seems to be ending very quickly and the big sale days are fast approaching. Are you sure your website can handle an unanticipated load? Sometimes, the application is not able to withstand the sudden influx of users and before you know it, either the website servers are down, or the payment gateway crashes. This negligence can end up having an adverse impact on the brand.

There are many renowned e-commerce companies that have faced this distress and have had a major setback during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale. Taking into consideration the previous years’ statistics, performance testing has to be more robust for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In this infographic, we will discuss some tips to ensure a great application/website’s performance for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The post Infographic | Black Friday Is Approaching. Are You Prepared? first appeared on TestingXperts.

Application failures on Black Friday can cause a negative impact on the revenue and reputation of the company. There are many renowned e-commerce companies that have faced this distress and have had a major setback during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale.

Contents 1. Black Friday and Performance Testing 2. Best Performance Management strategies for E-commerce Companies 3. Open Source Load Testing Tools 4. Conclusion

Black Friday and Performance Testing

Taking into consideration the previous years’ statistics, performance testing has to be more robust for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Though it is extremely challenging to survive through Black Friday and Cyber Monday, an extensive performance testing strategy can make it easier to achieve our goals successfully.

Let us discuss the best performance management strategies that can make it easier for e-commerce companies to survive through the big days.

Best Performance Management strategies for E-commerce Companies

An Increase in the website capacity

Analytics should be used to compare the current and planned system peak loads. In order to be sure and confident, it’s important to contact the web hosting provider and confirm all the traffic limitations and upgrade the server if possible.

Auto-scaling is able to handle the unexpected traffic spikes as this technique is used in cloud computing. Waiting until the influx of traffic causes hustle and crashes your website can make it worse. It is better to be ready for the worst beforehand. With the auto scaling technique, number of virtual machines can be increased and then decreased after the requirement has been met.

Improve client-side performance and optimize speed

According to industry reports, the average time for a website to load is 3.9 seconds. Visitors get annoyed and leave the website if they have to wait for too long to see the discount offers. Therefore, it is important to optimize the website speed. This can be done by compressing the size of the CSS, compressing image size, and shortening the JavaScript.

Open Source Load Testing Tools

Fortunately, there are various open source load testing tools that you can use to accelerate load time quickly:

WEBPAGETEST

This tool allows the testers to run a free website speed test from multiple locations around the world. Real browsers such as Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, etc. can be used at real consumer connection speeds. This tool runs simple as well as complicated tests including video capturing, content blocking, multi-step transactions, and much more. This tool provides a complete diagnostic information including waterfall charts, resource loading, and page speed optimization.

COMPRESSOR.IO

Compressor.io is one of the most powerful online tools for compressing the size of the images whilst maintaining a high quality. What really impresses people, is the quality that remains the same before and after compression. After compression, the page starts to load quickly.

PAGESPEED and YSLOW

PageSpeed and YSlow are important as they help in identifying what exactly is slowing down the website and what can be done about it. The information presented in these tools are very clear and easy to understand for developers as well as non-developers. For every issue, there is a detailed explanation given which tells why it is important to make improvements and how would it benefit the website.

SITESPEED.IO

This tool allows to run the tests locally or as a service on the web. This tool is not just based on the URL that is provided as it has a crawler that identifies and analyzes all the pages that one might reach.

Conclusion

As we talk about the tools that can help in increasing the performance of your application during the big days, you might realize that very few days are left for Black Friday. Now, all you can do is rely on a renowned software testing company that has extensive experience in performance testing, and that can provide you with the best services in no time. At TestingXperts, we have expertise in pioneering performance engineering for leading e-commerce sites globally.

Do you have an e-commerce website / application? We can help you implement thorough performance testing to ensure you don’t lose business because of a poor web or application experience. Connect with us today!

The post How to Improve your Application’s Performance on Black Friday first appeared on TestingXperts.

It’s that time of the year again when consumers are waiting desperately for huge discounts on their favorite shopping items. Yes! The most awaited shopping days Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner. Not only physical shopping but online shopping has become a huge craze among people these days.

Contents 1. Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2. Tips to ensure website performance for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2.1 Plan the tests in advance 2.2 Move to the cloud 2.3 Perform proper load tests 2.4 Select the perfect load testing tools 2.5 Run the tests 2.6 Scan the results 2.7 Run your tests yet again 8. Conclusion

But, when too many of these enthusiastic shoppers flood your application/ website at the same time, it might just break, and unfortunately, this is exactly what happens every year to major online shopping websites / applications. This is a worse situation that can occur, as, on a day where the app should hold maximum customers, it loses them all, creating a chaotic situation. Performance testing process plays a important role here.

In this blog, we will discuss some tips to ensure application/website’s performance just in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Tips to ensure website performance for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Plan the tests in advance

Execution of performance tests should not be done just a few days or week before going into production, as it takes a lot of time to resolve issues. Planning of tests should be done soon after defining the performance benchmarks.

Move to the cloud

Increasing the infrastructure could be a temporary solution to prepare for times when the expected user load becomes much larger than it usually is throughout the year. Moving to the cloud can make this task easier to perform, especially for small-scale businesses.

Perform proper load tests

It is logical to test the performance of application on the infrastructure of your choice. Performing proper load tests can make it easier to find breaking point of the system and thereby understand estimated load that the website can handle. A robust load testing strategy can help in ensuring that the application / website that can handle anticipated load. To estimate the expected traffic, trends from previous year, and the changes in traffic over the last few months should be taken into consideration.

Select the perfect load testing tools

There are numerous tools available for load testing, such as JMeter, The Grinder, Locust, Gatling, and Selenium. A tool that fulfills all testing requirements should be considered. There are several factors need to consider for selecting best load testing tool for your business needs.

Run the tests

After analyzing the estimated load, final tests can be run in order to know when the system breaks and at what level it stops responding. Running the tests can eventually help in foreseeing the real-time traffic spikes that needs to cope with.

Scan the results

Identify errors and bottlenecks and describe the solutions that are required to fix them. Dedicated technical resources should be allocated to this task. Identifying KPIs such as response time, latency, throughput, and connect time would be the best strategy to make the website error-free.

Run your tests yet again

After fixing all the bugs and after making necessary changes, servers should be ready. Adjustments in tests should be accordingly and run again to see whether the changes were able to enhance system’s capabilities.

Conclusion

After implementing these tips, your website / application would have no choice but to beat the Black Friday and Cyber Monday rush. TestingXperts’ proficient performance testing services have been helping its clients manage their web / mobile application performance challenges efficiently. With its vast industry experience and the best methodologies and approaches, it has become the best choice for the e-commerce companies to validate their critical web and mobile app issues. Reach out to us for the best performance testing practices during days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The post How to make your Application Survive Black Friday and Cyber Monday? first appeared on TestingXperts.

Summer seems to be ending very quickly and the holidays are fast approaching. Is your website/application up and running as planned? Even if it is, it needs to be additionally prepped for the fall and winter holiday shopping season. Sometimes, the application is not able to withstand the sudden influx of users and before you know it, either the website servers are down, or the payment gateway crashes. This negligence can end up having an adverse impact on the brand. Executing a great amount of testing can help you cover different conditions under a uniform environment.

Contents 1. E-commerce Testing Techniques 2. Perfecting the Performance 3. Giving Prominence to Usability Testing 4. Getting the Spotlight on Security 5. Conclusion

Let us talk about 3 most effective testing techniques that help your e-commerce company to deal with adverse situations on those big days.

2. Giving Prominence to Usability Testing:

Considering that e-commerce websites hold plenty of dynamic content, usability testing helps testers detect issues faced by potential users. The testing is performed under given scenarios that represent realistic conditions. A/B testing or split testing comes under this category and is possibly the most effective method to provide a choice of desired user experience to your customers.

3. Getting the Spotlight on Security:

Security is not an option. In fact, it is an important aspect that can either make or break your e-commerce company. Ensuring that your website is secure is possibly the most important advice here. While other issues can be ignored, overlooked, or elapsed time but security issues can have a huge impact on your business. The amount of sensitive information, an e-commerce application has increased the risk of it getting hacked. To deal with such instances, prior security measures should be taken in the form of extensive security testing.

Conclusion

Since your website/application is the gateway to your business, you should embrace the right testing strategy that helps you deliver the right buying experience to your customers and helps you gain more and more customers. Once you are ready with planning an effective testing strategy, all you need to do is to assign the right time and resources.

TestingXperts is the leading provider of e-commerce testing solutions globally. We cater to customers across various industry domains, through effective testing solutions. We have successfully performed usability testing for our numerous clients. Get in touch with us if you are looking to test usability aspects of your business applications.

The post Is your E-Commerce Application Ready for the upcoming Holiday Season? first appeared on TestingXperts.

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