Content 1. Some Popular Incidents of Website Crashes During Black Fridays 2. The Real Cost of eCommerce Site Crashes on Black Friday 3. eCommerce Performance Testing for Black Friday 2023 and Beyond 4. Conclusion 5. How can Tx help?

Last year’s Black Friday set new records for eCommerce, and 2023 shows no signs of slowing down. People are already planning for Christmas this year, the holiday shopping-inspired rush of Black Friday and Cyber Monday is approaching fast.

Millions of online shoppers look forward to visiting the eCommerce stores on Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year to shop for the latest sale items. Customers search for the best deals while expecting a fun and frictionless shopping experience. Unprepared eCommerce stores with slow or crashing applications will, however, disappoint the buyers, who will eventually move to their competitor sites.

It’s a no-brainer; customers will choose the sites where the shopping experience is user-friendly and frictionless.

Some Popular Incidents of Website Crashes During Black Fridays

• Walmart and GameStop Corp. experienced website outages, site crashes, slow load time, and other performance issues during Cyber 5.

• Crew, the American multi-brand apparel and accessories retailer, lost $775,000 in sales and disappointed more than 323,000 shoppers in one holiday afternoon.

• GlassesUSA, the online retailer for prescription glasses, encountered 502 Bad Gateway server problems during CyberWeek and lost hefty site traffic.

• Costco faced losses worth $11 million as the website faced performance issues and went down for more than 16 Hrs.

The Real Cost of eCommerce Site Crashes on Black Friday

As seen in many reports and surveys, digital shopping is the future. It’s especially true during the holiday season when deal-hungry consumers rush to the online stores and fill their shopping carts. As the holiday season approaches, eCommerce businesses are concerned about their websites experiencing crashes and other performance issues.

Retailers have realized that Black Friday is no longer a single-day event. Customers seek great deals and discounts days in advance and wish them to last through the holiday season of Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Green Monday, and Christmas.

When eCommerce sites are unprepared to handle the performance and load during peak hours, they look at irreparable damage to their businesses. Apart from the heavy revenue losses businesses face during such crashes, non-performing sites also lead to irreparable loss of brand credibility and customer loyalty.

eCommerce Performance Testing for Black Friday 2023 and Beyond

eCommerce apps are complex platforms with multiple features like payment options, search options, cart, and product details. Each functionality should perform seamlessly to deliver the best user experience. This requires thorough eCommerce performance testing to evaluate whether the app can handle the sudden surge during the holiday season. Performance testing highlights the performance-related problems with the app long before the customers do. Here is how eCommerce apps should be tested for performance and scalability.

Perform speed and load testing:

eCommerce businesses should consider load tests to understand the estimated load handling capacity. A robust and effective load testing strategy should ensure that the website or the mobile application handles the anticipated load without crashing. Leveraging analytics from previous years’ traffic, it is recommended to estimate loads and run eCommerce performance testing accordingly. Critical user paths that should be tested include the login page, registration page, products, checkout, shopping carts, and similar pages.

Ensure the website is running seamlessly:

Mobile apps and web apps should be made to perform seamlessly and handle numerous transactions without any glitches. Retailers should see that their web and mobile apps are tested for both their functional and non-functional app components to ensure they deliver a great customer experience to provide seamless transactions across the value chain from adding to cart till the transaction, along with seamless gateway passage until check out.

Ensure safe and secure online transactions to customers:

With the rampant cyber-attacks continuing, eCommerce businesses should ensure their customers’ critical data is secure and safe and that no personal transaction data is exposed to any security attack. Security testing should be taken up to ensure these web apps and mobile apps are free from cyber threats, especially during the holiday season when online transactions are at an all-time high.

Ensure website accessibility:

eCommerce web apps should be accessible to specially-abled people. When testing for accessibility, the key areas to consider are color blindness, impaired vision, blindness, deafness, hearing impairment, motor impairment, etc. People with disabilities also want to shop online from the comfort of their homes, and accessibility testing ensures they, too, have a seamless shopping experience.

Ensure seamless customer experience (CX):

Identify the weak points in UI/UX and make the necessary updates to provide an intuitive interaction with the eCommerce app. eCommerce organizations should focus on the system’s ease of use and streamline critical features such as easy browsing, user-friendly navigation, handy catalog, and so on.

Ensure usability across website features:

Online retailers should ensure that the application is easy to use and that the users are able to find their products within a few clicks. The interface should be intuitive and not confuse users on finding the products from the list, making payments, etc. If the website’s interface is hard to use, the users might be convinced to look elsewhere.

Ensure mobile-readiness of apps:

Multiple devices or platforms may be involved throughout a customer’s buying journey. Customers may research their products on their smartphones and then place their orders on their iPad or other mobile devices. As a result, multi-device testing on eCommerce apps should be performed across various mobile devices, operating systems, and browsers to ensure a seamless sales transition from platform to platform.

Conclusion

Retailers and eCommerce businesses worldwide will try to make the most out of the upcoming holiday sales. But, to reap significant benefits from the shopping season, effective performance and holiday readiness of apps are important to meet the peak load requirements. Businesses must leverage eCommerce performance testing for high-performing, holiday-ready apps that do not hamper the sales flows while customers continue to buy the products online. Performance testing is crucial for any eCommerce business wishing to keep its credibility during the holiday season, maximize revenues, and keep customers happy. However, this complex process requires high levels of technical expertise and an understanding of performance testing tools, methodologies, and best practices.

TestingXperts (Tx) is a leading performance and load testing service provider for businesses across domains. Leverage next-gen testing services provider for end-to-end digital and performance testing of your systems to deliver a seamless shopping experience to your users this holiday season.

How can Tx help?

Prevent Black Friday Crashes by leveraging our performance testing accelerator Tx-PEARS.

Tx-PEARS:

It is an in-house developed robust framework that helps with all your non-functional testing requirements, including continuous monitoring of your infrastructure in production and lower environments. A consolidated platform to perform security, performance, and accessibility testing to deliver scalable, robust, reliable, and accessible apps to all. This tool can be leveraged to fine-tune your app’s performance effectively as it:

• Ensures to deliver quality products with effective non-functional testing services enabled through a single framework

• Provides actionable tuning recommendations to the development team which need to be implemented to get high app performance

• Provides detailed insights into the performance bottlenecks at the application server, web server, and database server level

• Helps improve the overall lifecycle of the identified performance issues

• Proides detailed reports to the clients and stakeholders to gather actionable insights

The post Boost your Black Friday Sales with eCommerce Performance Testing first appeared on TestingXperts.

For today’s business-critical apps/websites, performance is an essential factor that determines its success in enabling a seamless user experience (UX). These business apps should be free from all performance bottlenecks such as slow loading speed, frequent time out/crashes, delayed response times, etc. It is also critical that the web apps/mobile apps be scalable, reliable, and robust to deliver effective end-user performance. Therefore, to ensure business-critical apps perform seamlessly, it is essential to measure performance testing metrics.

Content

1. What is performance testing?
2. An overview of performance testing metrics
3. What is the need for performance testing metrics?
4. Important performance testing metrics
5. Performance testing metrics categories
6. Some important performance automation testing tools
7. Conclusion
8. How can we help businesses fine-tune apps/systems leveraging our performance testing accelerator Tx-PEARS?

What is performance testing?

Performance testing is a non-functional software testing method used to check the speed, scalability, reliability, responsiveness, and performance of an app/website. Various performance testing methods include a spike, volume, endurance, stress, load, etc. These performance testing types help determine the app performance under fluctuating networks, varying user loads, varying bandwidths, etc. During performance testing, certain key performance indicators (KPIs), also known as performance testing metrics, are used to measure the effectiveness of this testing method. These KPIs define the effectiveness of the performance tests for businesses.

An overview of performance testing metrics

Performance testing metrics are the measures or parameters gathered during the performance and load testing processes. With the help of these metrics, performance test engineers or UAT teams determine the success of the performance testing process and further identify the critical areas in the software that needs more attention/improvement.

What is the need for performance testing metrics?

• Reflects current performance of the application, infrastructure, and network

•  Compares the test results and helps to analyze the impact of code changes

•  Determines the success of the overall performance testing process

•  Enables QA teams to make informed decisions and improve the quality of software

Important performance testing metrics

CPU utilization:

It is the percentage of CPU capacity utilized in processing the requests.

Memory utilization:

This metric measures the utilization of the primary memory of the computer while processing any work requests.

Response times:

It is the total time between sending the request and receiving the response. Better the response time, better the performance of website/application.

Average load time:

This metric measures the time taken by a webpage to complete the loading process and appear on the user screen.

Throughput:

It measures the number of transactions an application can handle in a second, or in other words, it is the rate at which a network or computer receives the requests per second.

Average latency/Wait time:

It is the time spent by a request in a queue before getting processed.

Bandwidth:

It is the measurement of the volume of data transferred per second.

Requests per second:

This metric refers to the number of requests handled by the application per second.

Error rate:

It is the percentage of requests resulting in errors compared to the total number of requests.

Transactions Passed/Failed:

It is the percentage of passed/failed transactions against the total number of transactions.

Performance testing metrics categories

1. Client-side performance testing metrics:

During performance testing, QA teams evaluate the client-side performance of the software. It includes the evaluation of end-to-end test scenarios and the apt rendering of front-end elements like CSS and JavaScript files. These client-side performance testing metrics help evaluate the application response for different clients using various devices (desktop, mobile, etc.) and servers. Some of the common client-side performance testing metrics are:

Most commonly used client-side performance testing tools:

2. Server-side performance testing metrics:

The performance of the server directly affects the performance of an application. Therefore, it is essential to measure the performance of servers leveraging server performance monitoring metrics. Some of the key server performance monitoring metrics are:

Most commonly used server-side performance monitoring tools:

Some important performance automation testing tools

JMeter:

It is an open-source performance and load testing tool used to measure the performance of applications and software. JMeter simulates a heavy load on the server and creates multiple simultaneous virtual users on a webserver to enable effective load testing. It can be used to effectively track, interpret, and analyze the performance testing results. Some of the key metrics of JMeter are Elapsed Time, Latency, Connect Time, Median, 90% Line (90^th Percentile), Standard Deviation, Thread Name, Throughput, etc.

LoadView:

It is an easy-to-use performance testing tool and provides insights into vital performance testing metrics for organizations. LoadView allows the user to view test execution in real-time to see a graphical representation of the execution plan, average response times, and errors. It provides detailed level statics, including key performance testing metrics such as maximum, actual, and expected number of virtual users, the average response time of transactions, number of sessions, session errors, load injector CPU usage, DNS Time, Connect Time, SSL Time, etc.

LoadNinja:

It is a cloud-based load testing and performance testing platform. LoadNinja produces intelligent and accurate data that helps analyze the performance of websites, web applications, and APIs in real-time using accurate browser-based metrics. Some of the key metrics of LoadNinja include Virtual users, 90^th Percentile Duration, 95^th Percentile Duration, Standard Deviations, Total Iterations, Total Timeouts, Total Page errors, etc.

Conclusion

Performance testing is a non-functional software testing method used to check software’s speed, scalability, reliability, and responsiveness. For businesses to know the effectiveness of performance testing within the enterprise, certain performance testing metrics should be known. These metrics help determine the success and the progress of the performance testing process. Typically, effective tracking of performance testing metrics helps improve the software’s performance and quality. Leverage performance testing from a next-gen QA and independent software testing company for effective performance and load testing services and get high-performing, high-quality, scalable, and robust software.

How can we help businesses fine-tune apps/systems leveraging our performance testing accelerator Tx-PEARS?

Tx-PEARS:

It is an in-house developed robust framework that helps with all your non-functional testing requirements, including continuous monitoring of your infrastructure in production and in lower environments. A consolidated platform to perform security, performance, and accessibility testing to deliver scalable, robust, reliable, and accessible apps to all

This tool can be leveraged to fine-tune your app’s performance effectively:

•  Ensures to deliver quality products with effective non-functional testing services enabled through a single framework

•  It provides actionable tuning recommendations to the development team which need to be implemented to get high app performance

•  Through Tx- PEARS, detailed insights into the performance bottlenecks at the application server, web server, and database server level are identified

•  Through Tx-Pears overall lifecycle of the identified performance issues can be improved

•  Detailed reports are delivered to the clients and stakeholders to gather actionable insights

The post Performance Testing Metrics – A Detailed Guide for Businesses first appeared on TestingXperts.

Every business needs high-performing and seamless applications (mobile & web) to increase user engagement and deliver a great customer experience (CX). Today, businesses continue to embrace DevOps to get faster releases and high-quality software that embeds continuous integration, continuous testing, and delivery. The DevOps continuous testing involves functional, performance, security, and other testing methods to ensure flawless, high-quality apps. Specifically, performance testing plays a critical role in improving the scalability, reliability, and robustness of the apps before they are released into the market.

Content 1. What is Performance Testing? 2. Some of the Use cases of Performance testing 3. Benefits of performance testing 4. Various types of Performance Testing 5. An overview of performance testing in DevOps 6. Performance testing in DevOps CI/CD pipeline 7. Performance testing process overview 8. Performance testing metrics to measure mobile app performance 9. How is performance testing important for data migration and ETL testing? 10. Significance of think time in performance testing 11. An overview of automated performance testing tools 12. Conclusion

What is Performance Testing?

Performance testing is a non-functional software testing method performed to check the software’s speed, responsiveness, scalability, stability, and reliability. The primary aim of this testing method is to remove performance bottlenecks from the app/software and ensure seamless performance under all conditions such as varying user loads, fluctuating networks, varying network bandwidths, etc.

Some of the Use cases of Performance testing

• Checking app performance by simultaneously running multiple applications in the background

• Verifying app performance when multiple users login at the same time

• Checking app performance by suddenly increasing/decreasing user load

• Checking app performance under various types of networks, such as Wi-Fi, LAN, 3G, 4G, etc.

• Checking app responsiveness by taking into consideration the app response to user queries

Benefits of performance testing

1. Improves website speed:

Common issues like broken images, content-related issues, frequent timeouts, etc., hamper the website speed. This non-functional testing method helps identify and resolve these issues, thus enhancing the website speed.

2. Removes performance bottlenecks from apps:

This software testing ensures the removal of critical bugs and performance bottlenecks from the software before it goes live.

3. Ensures scalability, reliability, and robustness of apps:

This testing type ensures that the software is scalable and can handle users even during peak loads. It ensures that the software performs well under unexpected situations like fluctuating networks, bandwidths, user load, etc. Thus, it ensures the software’s scalability, reliability, and robustness.

4. Enhances customer experience (CX):

End-users don’t prefer slow-loading apps and websites. This testing method helps in improving the app’s performance and speed, which ultimately enhances the CX.

5. Helps to generate more revenue:

It is known that end-users prefer apps with seamless performance. Better app performance will generate more revenue for businesses as users prefer to download such seamless apps, especially for eCommerce, telecom, and healthcare sector apps.

Various types of Performance Testing

1. Load Testing:

Testers perform this testing by simulating the number of virtual users that might use the application. The principal aim of this testing method is to ensure that the application performs well under normal and peak user loads.

2. Stress Testing:

This testing technique helps identify the system’s breaking point when user load is increased beyond the expected peak.

3. Endurance Testing:

This testing helps identify any resource leakage in the system, while it is subjected to normal user load for an extended duration like 8 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, or 48 hours, etc.

4. Spike Testing:

It is a subset of stress testing and checks the system’s behavior by suddenly varying the no. of users. This testing checks if the system can handle the variations in user load.

5. Volume Testing:

In this testing method, multiple data-intensive transactions are performed to validate how the system performs under such data volumes.

6. Scalability Testing:

This testing method determines the capability of the system to scale up in terms of user load, data volume, number of transactions, etc. The main aim of this testing method is to determine the peak point beyond which the system prevents more scaling.

7. Component-level performance testing:

An application comprises minor components that are the smallest parts of an application. In component-level performance testing, the individual components of the application are tested to ensure the effective performance of components in isolation. Later, all the app components are tested as a group to ensure a high-performing and fully integrated application. Further, these components are integrated, and finally, performance testing is executed after integration.

An overview of performance testing in DevOps

Businesses continue to embrace DevOps to get faster releases and high-quality in less time. This DevOps methodology promotes collaboration between teams to deliver faster and quality releases to the customer. The DevOps lifecycle includes various stages such as Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Testing (CT), and Continuous Delivery (CD). Typically, to ensure the release of high-quality software in less time, performance testing in DevOps plays a critical role. Moreover, performance testing in DevOps is done by integrating continuous and automated performance testing in the continuous delivery pipeline. However, to take up performance and load testing in DevOps, a series of steps should be followed at each stage of the DevOps lifecycle.

Performance testing in DevOps CI/CD pipeline

Performance testing in DevOps involves continuous performance evaluation at each DevOps CI/CD pipeline stage and ensures faster feedback loops for software improvement. 

1. Code and build stage:

DevOps performance testing starts with continuous performance testing at the build stage, which involves unit performance testing. In this stage, the smallest unit of the software is checked to ensure they perform well in isolation.

2. Integration stage:

Once the unit performance testing is done, performance testing is done at the integration stage, where the smallest units of the software are integrated. The performance of these integrated units/modules is tested to ensure the effective performance of modules after integration.

3. Test stage:

During this stage, system-level performance testing is done to ensure the software performs well as expected. Once the system-level performance tests are passed, the software moves to the release and deploy stage.

4. Release and deploy stage:

During this stage, load testing and real user monitoring are performed to ensure that the software handles the user load effectively in the production environment.

5. Monitoring stage:

After the software reaches the monitoring stage, continuous performance monitoring is done, where various performance metrics are evaluated to determine areas that need improvement.

Performance testing process overview

1. Prepare performance testing checklist:

Testers should prepare a checklist before starting the test. Performance testing checklist includes what is to be tested, pass/fail criteria, user scenarios, issues to be monitored, etc. While preparing the checklist, testers need to gather the client’s requirements. 

2. Plan the test:

Prepare a test plan or test strategy which covers the aim and scope of testing, application architecture, environment details, testing tools, roles, responsibilities, etc.

3. Setup the test environment:

Testers need to set up the test environment. There are two types of test environments, on-premise, and on-cloud. The test environment should be chosen wisely, as the effectiveness of the testing process largely depends on the environment in which it is executed. Load generation environment should be configured to generate virtual load for load testing of the software.

4. Prepare test data:

To set up the test data, testers need to first extract test data, modify the data for testing the software, and generate enough test data to perform the tests.

5. Prepare test scripts, execute the test and analyze the results:

This is an important step that involves preparation of test scripts, execution of test cases, and analysis of test results to know whether it is pass or fail.

6. Fix the bugs:

The Dev team resolves all the bugs found during the testing process. Once all the bugs are fixed, the testing process is repeated to ensure defects are fixed.

7. Prepare test report:

Document all the test findings in one place and share the test report with all the stakeholders and project team.

Performance testing metrics to measure mobile app performance

1. App installation time:

This metric gives the user a first impression of the app. This metric measures the app installation time and how it can be improved.

2. App launch time:

App launch time or app start time is another important metric that must be checked in an application. Ideally, it should not be more than 1 to 2 seconds.

3. App background processing:

It is essential to ensure that app performance remains unaffected when multiple apps run parallelly. It is essential to ensure that no data loss should happen when the app runs in the background and is retrieved.

4. Client-side resource usage:

An app should not consume excess memory and must not heat the device, especially when it runs in the background. Thus, checking an app’s CPU usage and memory during its execution is essential.

5. Response time:

This metric measures the time is taken by an app to respond to a given input. Faster response time ensures less wait time and high performance of the app.

6. Average load time:

Load time of app/website and page load time is very important for users and businesses. Faster loading time or speed ensures better performance of an app.

7. Bandwidth and network compatibility:

Varying bandwidth and fluctuating networks affect the app loading time. However, to ensure effective app performance, it is essential to perform load testing of an app with minimal bandwidth and different network types and connections such as 3G, 4G, 5G, Wi-FI, etc.

8. Concurrent users:

This metric measures how many virtual users are active or accessing the app at a given point in time. The number of users using the app directly impacts the app’s performance.

9. Requests per second:

It is the measure of how many requests by second the server can handle without degrading performance or resulting in error.

How is performance testing important for data migration and ETL testing?

Data migration is a complex but essential process for every business. Effective data migration helps businesses ensure better data availability, reduced cost, improved performance, and more. However, while migrating data from various sources to a new system, it is essential to ensure that the new system’s performance remains unaffected after migration. This is where the need for performance testing during data migration comes into the picture. In this testing type, various performance tests are executed on the system before and after migration to ensure the new system’s performance is not degraded post-migration.

Performance and load testing play a vital role in the Extract/Transform/Load (ETL) process. The data is extracted from various sources during the ETL process, transformed into a consistent data type, and then loaded into the data warehouse or target system. Performance testing in ETL is done to ensure that the ETL system can handle a high volume of transactions. Performance tests in ETL also verify the efficiency of the ETL system by determining the actual time taken by the system to process data. The lesser the data processing time, the higher is the efficiency.

Significance of think time in performance testing

Think time is the time difference between each action performed by the user. When users visit a website, they take some time to think and take action. The difference or the time gap between each action performed by the user is known as think time.

For example, suppose a user visits an eCommerce website. The user clicks on the products tab, selects the product, reads the description, and adds the product to the cart. The time spent between clicking on the product tab to clicking on the add to cart tab is considered think time.

Think time plays a very crucial role, as it represents the user’s actual behavior in the system. A user never does all actions like login, search product, add to cart, payment, log out in one go. The users take some time to complete all actions. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce think time in this non-functional software testing technique to create a real-world scenario in the testing environment.

Another reason to introduce think time in performance and load testing is that suppose if a tester executes software testing giving multiple requests with no pause, it will fail the server. The server also needs time to process requests and give the result. Therefore, it is essential to consider think time in performance and load testing.

An overview of automated performance testing tools

1. Apache JMeter:

It is an open-source tool that helps to analyze and measure the performance of a range of web applications. This tool supports various protocols, such as HTTP, HTTPS, XML, SOAP, Java-based protocols, etc. This non-functional software testing tool requires less scripting effort as compared to other tools and has simple charts/graphs that can be used for analyzing key load-related statistics and resource usage.

2. WebLOAD:

It is an enterprise-scale load testing tool that is used for web and mobile load testing. This tool comes with a good number of features and functionalities, such as Load Generation Console, Analytics Dashboard, and comprehensive IDE.

3. Stress Stimulus:

This tool is used to perform load testing of web apps, mobile apps, and enterprise apps. Stress stimulus supports on-premise or cloud load testing and works well with Fiddler. This tool comes with an end-to-end test wizard that eases the performance testing of mobile and web apps.

4. io:

It is a multiplatform performance and load testing tool. This tool allows adding performance testing into the continuous integration process, real-time monitoring of the test environment, and analyzing test results on multiple machines.

5. NeoLoad:

It is a continuous performance testing tool for desktop and mobile apps. This tool comes with great features like scriptless test creation, GUI-driven design, automated parameterization, etc. Neoload can be easily integrated with CI tools, and it allows real-time identification and removal of performance bottlenecks.

6. Load Runner:

It is the most widely used tool to test applications and measure system behavior and performance under varying loads. This tool is used to simulate thousands of concurrent users and record the variations in the system performance. This testing tool supports all advanced technologies like Ajax, Flex, HTML5.0, Java, SOAP, Citrix, along with all other legacy technologies.

7. LoadView:

It is used for cloud-based load testing, and it helps DevOps teams to test websites, web apps, and application programming interfaces (APIs) with thousands of concurrent users. This tool simulates API calls, validates API responses, and verifies the most important SLA requirements. The agile and DevOps teams can test their website’s UX under load, verify performance and identify various bottlenecks within the applications.

Conclusion

Performance testing is an essential element that determines the success of an application in DevOps processes. A high-performing app is the need of the hour for businesses and the low performance of the app can affect the brand reputation and even the CX. Hence, a well-developed performance testing method and proper automated tools should be leveraged to get high-performing and scalable apps. Thus, enterprises should leverage end-to-end performance testing from a next-gen QA and independent software testing services provider for high-performing software and faster time to market.

The post How to Do Performance Testing in DevOps? first appeared on TestingXperts.

“If your business is not on the internet, then your business will be out of the business.” -Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft.

It seems like the above statement is turning into an unexpected reality with time. Due to the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, businesses across the world have started shifting online. Though this sudden shift helped businesses to survive, it increased the level of competition among companies. And now, with the holiday season 2021 fast approaching, the competition among businesses is expected to grow more intense.

This year, the holiday shopping season, especially Black Friday and Cyber Monday, is likely to be different and bigger than all previous years. Thus, for businesses to reap significant benefits from the holiday season 2021 and deliver a great shopping experience to customers, the holiday readiness of apps is critical.

Content 1. Top Predictions for the Holiday Season 2021 2. Common Challenges faced by Businesses During Holiday Sales 2020? “3. Role of Performance Testing for Holiday Readiness of Apps 4. Stats Depicting the Criticality of Performance Testing for Holiday Season 5. Major App Functionalities that need Effective Performance Testing 6. Performance Testing Types Businesses must Leverage for Holiday Readiness of Apps 7. 8 Key Performance Testing Metrics for Business Apps 8. Conclusion 9. How can TestingXperts (Tx) help?

Top Predictions for the Holiday Season 2021

The holiday season will start early: Keeping in view the trends of last year’s holiday season, which started early during mid-October 2020. It is expected that this year, the same trend will be followed, and businesses are expected to roll out early Black-Friday deals and offers.

M-commerce is expected to rise even more: Since mobile apps have become an inseparable part of human lives, this year, it is expected that more shoppers will prefer to use mobile apps for shopping. Thus, businesses need to ensure their mobile eCommerce apps and websites are ready for high user-load.

No more cookies and ad-tracking: According to Forbes, In March 2021, Google and Apple confirmed plans to end third-party cookies that track user movements across websites. It means that the only way left for online businesses to gain customer attention is by ensuring a great first impression on customers. Thus, businesses must ensure their eCommerce apps and websites load fast and perform well under all circumstances to deliver a great customer experience (CX).

Common Challenges faced by Businesses During Holiday Sales 2020?

Undoubtedly, last year’s holiday season was a huge success. According to Salesforce, global online sales during Cyber Week 2020 hit a new record with $270 billion, which was 36% higher as compared to the year 2019. The major driver behind this unexpected rise was the change in customers’ shopping behaviour due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the reduced in-store holiday hours, consumers preferred online shopping during the cyber week that pushed digital sales to new heights.

However, various challenges were faced by businesses during the holiday sales 2020, which negatively affected their revenues, brand image, and customer shopping experience.

• Issues with mobile app performance, such as frequent app crashes, server time-outs, delayed response etc.

• Failure to provide a high-performing and secure interface for online shoppers

• Slow app loading due to heavy user load

• Difficulty in maintaining responsiveness of eCommerce websites

• Challenges in ensuring 24/7 uptime for POS applications

• Delay in processing payments

Role of Performance Testing for Holiday Readiness of Apps

Performance testing is a non-functional software testing type that evaluates the performance of apps under various conditions, such as varying bandwidth, increased user load, fluctuating networks, etc. The main aim of this test is to remove performance-related bottlenecks from apps. Therefore, by leveraging this non-functional software testing type, businesses can overcome the above-mentioned challenges and get the effective performance of apps during peak load days such as the festive season and holiday season.

There are various benefits that businesses can reap by leveraging this non-functional software testing type.

Increases responsiveness of apps:

It is always preferred that if the responsiveness of apps is good, it ensures excellent user engagement. To ensure the high responsiveness of apps, performance testing is essential.

Improves loading time:

Slow-loading websites usually annoy the customer, and they lose interest. Performance testing helps to improve the loading time taken by applications or websites.

Provides higher stability:

Apps should not crash when the user load increases to ensure a great use experience (UX). Therefore, load testing should be taken up to improve the stability of the apps.

Stats Depicting the Criticality of Performance Testing for Holiday Season

• According to a Deloitte Digital report titled, ‘Milliseconds make Millions’, a 0.1s improvement in site speed results in an 8.4% increase in conversions for retail consumers, a 9.2% increase in the average order value, and a 5.2% increase in retail customer engagement.

• According to an article titled, ‘Shopping for speed on eBay.com’, for every 100 milliseconds improvement in search page loading time, eBay saw a 0.5% increase in the “Add to Cart” count.

• According to news published by com<, Costco's website went down for more than 16 hours during Thanksgiving Day, costing the retailer nearly $11 million in lost pre-Black Friday potential sales.

• Another evidence of a website crash is PetSmart, which sells pet products, services, and small pets in the US. PetSmart faced an issue with its website during Black Friday 2020. The company tweeted the issue on Twitter and apologized to customers for the inconvenience.

Undoubtedly, performance testing has significantly helped businesses across the world improve the performance of their apps/websites. However, certain areas must be tested thoroughly to ensure seamless, performance of apps/websites.

Major App Functionalities that need Effective Performance Testing

Critical user paths:

An eCommerce app has various critical user paths, such as registration, login, product page, shopping cart, checkout, etc., that must be tested to identify and remove performance bottlenecks.

Payment gateway:

Delays in processing payments or failed payments hamper the CX. It is essential to test the payment gateway to ensure successful payment transactions during peak load days.

Back-end integrations:

For an eCommerce app to work properly, its front-end and back-end systems must work in harmony. Back-end integration such as CRM and logistics must be load tested to ensure proper functioning on peak user-load days.

Communication mediums:

Email, SMS, and other communication mediums play an important role in keeping the customer engaged and updated. Thus, it is essential to load test these mediums for their seamless performance under increased user-loads.

Performance Testing Types Businesses must Leverage for Holiday Readiness of Apps

Load testing:

This testing method is performed to check how the system performs under normal (usually around 70% of peak load) and peak user load conditions.

Stress testing:

This testing method helps identify the system’s breaking point when subjected to a user load beyond the expected peak load. The breaking point can be defined as a load at which either the response time degrades beyond 10% or transactions start falling by more than 5%.

Endurance testing:

This testing method checks the stability and responsiveness of the system when it is under significant load (around 70% of peak load) for a longer period (usually 8 hours to 72 hours).

Spike testing:

It is a subset of stress testing and checks the behaviour of the system by suddenly varying the number of users. It checks if the system can handle the increased user load or not.

Volume testing:

In this testing type, multiple data-intensive transactions are performed to validate how the system performs under such data volumes.

Scalability testing:

This test is performed to measure the capability of software to scale up or scale out when additional resources are added to it.

8 Key Performance Testing Metrics for Business Apps

App installation time:

This gives the first impression of an app to the user. Thus, it is essential to have a faster installation time for the app to make a great impression.

App launch time:

App launch time or app start time is another important metric that must be checked in an application. Ideally, it should not take more than 1 to 2 seconds for the first screen to appear.

App background processing:

It is essential to ensure that in-app performance remains unaffected when multiple apps run in parallel. When the app runs in the background and is retrieved, no data loss should happen.

Memory usage:

An app should not consume excess memory and must not heat the device, especially when it runs in the background. Thus, it is essential to check an app’s CPU usage and memory during its execution.

Response time:

It is the amount of time taken by an app to respond to a given input. Faster response time ensures less wait time and high performance of the app.

Average load time:

Load time of app/website and page load time are both extremely important for users and businesses. Faster loading time or speed ensures better performance of the app/website.

Bandwidth and network compatibility:

Varying bandwidth and fluctuating networks affect the app loading time. Thus, to ensure effective app performance, it is essential to load test the app with minimal bandwidth and with different network types and connections such as 3G, 4G, and 5G.

User Geography:

An app should ideally work seamlessly across geographies. Thus, it is essential to conduct geo-load testing to ensure effective apps performance across different regions.

Conclusion

This year 2021, the holiday season will be a more significant event. Retailers and eCommerce businesses from all over the world will come together and will try to make the most out of the holiday sales. But, for businesses to reap significant benefits from the upcoming holiday shopping season, effective performance and holiday readiness of apps and business websites are essential. Businesses must leverage performance testing for high-performing, holiday-ready apps from a next-gen QA and independent software testing services provider.

How can TestingXperts (Tx) help?

TestingXperts (Tx) is a leading provider of performance and load testing services for businesses across domains. Tx has experience with all industry-leading performance testing and monitoring tools, along with expertise in end-to-end application performance testing services, including network, database, hardware, etc. With a highly-skilled team of performance testers, Tx helps businesses benchmark their application performance. Tx provides customized test results reports to clients that help them make informed decisions. Tx’s in-house accelerator Tx-Perfkit can be leveraged to achieve faster performance testing outcomes.

The post Significance of Performance Testing in Ensuring Holiday Readiness of Apps first appeared on TestingXperts.

Content 1. What is the importance of application performance for businesses? 2. What is Performance Testing? 3. Benefits for Businesses Leveraging Performance Testing 4. Why is Performance Testing Required? 5. Need for high-performing apps across some major industries 6. Different Performance Testing Types Businesses should leverage 7. Conclusion 8. How can TestingXperts (Tx) help?

What is the importance of application performance for businesses?

With the rapidly changing customer expectations across the business landscape, the need for high-performing apps is growing in the market. Today, every business needs apps that perform seamlessly to attract new customers and retain existing users. Also, today’s customers expect companies to deliver apps that load fast and perform seamlessly even under peak loads to provide a great Customer Experience (CX).

Typically, businesses need apps that perform flawlessly under various conditions such as fluctuating networks, low bandwidths, high user loads, etc. For example, If a mobile application performance does not meet the user expectations, users are likely to abandon that app and switch to the nearest competitor. Invariably, the application or website or the web app performance plays a significant role. Therefore, to ensure that the apps perform seamlessly under all conditions, businesses must deliver a seamless user experience.

What is Performance Testing?

Performance testing is a non-functional software testing method that validates the app’s speed, responsiveness, scalability, and reliability. This load testing method checks if the application performs seamlessly under varying networks, bandwidths, and under varying user loads. Some of the app issues identified with this type of testing are runtime error, optimization issues related to speed, latency, throughput, response times, load balancing, etc.

Why is Performance Testing Required?

Latest research analysts views on the need for high-performing apps

According to Statista, there are almost 3.5 million apps available on the Google Play Store and nearly 2.2 million apps available for iOS as of the second quarter of 2022. The report also states that only the best-performing apps stand out in the market and will attract customers.

Think with Google, a one-stop shop of Google for understanding industry trends, in one of its blogs on ‘Speed is key: Optimize your Mobile Experience,’ states that 29% of smartphone users will immediately switch to another site or app if the app is slow or doesn’t satisfy their needs.

According to a Pinterest Engineering Blog titled ‘Driving User Growth with Performance Improvements,’ it has been stated that Pinterest engineers ran an experiment in which they rebuilt web pages for performance. As a result, it led to a 40 percent decrease in Pinner wait time, a 15 per cent increase in SEO traffic, and a 15 per cent increase in conversion rate to new signups.

The above statistics showcase how critical the performance of mobile & web app or website is for businesses. Let us further understand the significance and the need of application performance across some major industries.

Benefits for Businesses Leveraging Performance Testing

1. Improves response time:

Response time is the total time taken by the software to generate an output against the input received. Typically, this testing method helps to improve the app’s response time by removing performance-related issues from the software.

2. Enhances the load time:

It is known that slow-loading websites annoy customers, and similar is the case with mobile apps having more load time, users either abandon the app or move to the nearest competitor. Typically, this testing method improves the loading time of applications by identifying and removing performance and load-related issues or bugs from the software.

3. Improves scalability:

The scalability of an app refers to its capacity to handle varying user loads seamlessly. This test helps in enhancing the load handling capacity of apps by testing the apps and websites under varying user loads.

4. Eliminates bottlenecks:

Bottlenecks are the barriers that decrease the responsiveness of the entire system. This performance testing method helps to find performance bottlenecks in the software by identifying the areas that cause the problems and helps to fix them by notifying the dev team promptly.

5. Helps in early identification and fixing of defects:

Performance testing allows testers to detect and fix performance-related issues faster and frequently. It enables testers to quickly identify issues and helps in faster resolution of bugs.

6. Speeds up the testing process:

In the earlier software development models like the waterfall model, the testers had to wait for the development process to get over to start the software testing. But in an agile environment, performance testing is integrated along with the development process, which speeds up the overall software testing process. Typically, a shift-left method of testing is followed in parallel to development which ensures faster results.

7. Enhances Customer Experience (CX):

Performance testing ensures delivery of high-quality products to customers in less time. Faster delivery of quality products enhances CX and makes the stakeholders and customers happy.

Need for high-performing apps across some major industries

Enterprises across industries require their websites, web apps & mobile apps to perform seamlessly 24×7, and each of the industry segments, as given below, states the significance for app performance.

Healthcare:

• Healthcare apps bridge the gap between healthcare service providers, doctors, patients, and third-party service providers.

• Healthcare apps help patients book appointments with doctors, get real-time consultation with physicians, view and maintain health records, purchase medicines via telepharmacy apps, telemedicine apps, etc.

• According to Grand View Research, the global mHealth apps market size was valued at USD 40.05 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.7% from 2021 to 2028. The major forces driving the growth of mHealth applications in the healthcare sector are better treatment outcomes and improved patient lifestyles enabled by these apps.

• Invariably, It is essential to ensure that the healthcare apps should perform seamlessly under all network conditions and workloads to deliver a great CX to its users.

Telecom:

• Telecom apps enable the flow of communication and information sharing via various platforms such as telephony, video conferencing, broadcasting, television media, instant messaging, e-mails, etc.

• Various types of telecom apps such as retailer apps, mobile wallets, CRM apps, customer support apps, etc., help businesses and customers to interact, share information, perform transactions, etc., with just a click of the button.

• According to Grand View Research, the global telecom services market size was valued at USD 1,657.7 billion in 2020 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 5.4% from 2021 to 2028.

• Telecom companies must ensure their apps load fast, perform seamlessly under varying user loads and fluctuating network conditions to deliver a great CX and protect brand image.

eCommerce:

• Today, eCommerce apps continue to dominate the retail and shopping sector as it allows end-users to view and shop products on the go.

• eCommerce apps allow users to perform various tasks such as viewing products, adding products to cart/wish list, removing products from cart/wish list, paying the amount via EMI, Wallet, UPI, COD, etc.

• According to Statista the eCommerce software application market had an estimated value of around 5.1 U.S. dollars in 2018 and is forecasted to grow to approximately 6.3 billion U.S. dollars by 2023 during the forecast period of 2019-2024.

• eCommerce app providers should ensure that their apps perform seamlessly during peak days holiday sales like Cyber Monday, Black Friday, etc. These business-critical apps should perform as expected under all networks and user loads to deliver a great shopping experience to customers.

BFSI/FinTech:

• Banking and finance apps have become a part of human lives, as these apps allow users to perform transactions with a single click.

• Banking apps have made customer’s lives easy as users can now pay bills, transfer money, book tickets, buy policies, etc., on the go.

• According to Mordor Intelligence, the financial services application market was valued at USD 103.99 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach USD 164.01 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 7.89% over the forecast period 2020–2025.

• Banking apps should deliver expected performance under peak hours to eliminate chances of a server crash, app crash, stuck payments, etc. High-performing banking apps help businesses to deliver a seamless online banking experience to customers.

EdTech:

• EdTech apps have gained a lot of importance, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic. EdTech apps help teachers, students, and others to connect online.

• EdTech apps help teachers provide virtual education to students and allow students to attend online classes, watch videos, and write exams virtually.

• According to MarketsandMarkets, the global EdTech and smart classroom market size is expected to grow from USD 85.8 billion in 2020 to USD 181.3 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 16.1% during the forecast period of 2020-2025.

• The EdTech apps should perform seamlessly 24/7 under all conditions to ensure great learning and teaching experience for both students and teachers.

Across industries, businesses need scalable, robust, and high-performing apps to deliver a great CX. Hence, businesses should leverage different performance testing types to get seamless apps.

Different Performance Testing Types Businesses should leverage

1. Load testing:

This testing method evaluates the potential of an application to work under varying user loads. It is conducted to remove any performance bottlenecks from the system.

2. Stress testing:

It identifies the breaking point of the software when it is subjected to a user load beyond the expected peak. This testing method verifies the stability & reliability of software applications and measures their robustness and error handling capabilities under extremely heavy load conditions. It also ensures software does not crash under varying conditions.

3. Endurance testing:

It checks the system’s performance when it is under significant load (around 70% of peak load) for a longer period (usually 8 hours to 72 hours). This testing method helps in improving the performance, stability, and reliability of the app.

4. Spike testing:

It is a subset of stress testing and checks the performance of the software by suddenly varying the no. of users. This testing method also checks if the software can handle fluctuating user loads under varying conditions.

5. Volume testing:

In this testing, the data load of the software is increased, and its performance is then checked. It helps in providing the volume of data that can be handled by particular software.

6. Scalability testing:

This test identifies the actual number of users that the system can support with existing hardware capacity.

7. Baseline testing:

Each time the software application is updated, performance testing is performed, and baseline metrics of the software application are recorded. These baseline metrics are compared with the results of previously recorded performance metrics. This testing method helps businesses to ensure that a consistent quality of the software is maintained.

8. Benchmark testing:

This testing method compares performance testing results against performance metrics based on different industry standards. This software testing method helps businesses ensure that the software’s current and future releases meet high-quality standards.

Conclusion

With the growing business competition and intricate application architecture, the need for high-quality and optimally performing apps is rising in the market. Though millions of apps are available, only the high-performing apps attract the customer and survive the competition. It is a known truth that low-performing apps affect the brand’s reputation and customer experience. Therefore, businesses should leverage performance testing to ensure their critical apps are of high quality and perform seamlessly to deliver a great CX.

How can TestingXperts (Tx) help?

TestingXperts (Tx) helps businesses predict application behaviour and benchmark application performance. Tx ensures the application is responsive, reliable, robust, scalable, and also meets all contractual obligations and SLAs for performance. Tx offers performance & load testing services across domains and technologies, including web-based n-tier applications, client-server applications, SOA-based solutions, or COTS solutions.

We have rich experience in all industry-leading performance testing and monitoring tools, along with expertise in end-to-end application performance testing, including network, database, hardware, etc. We publish a detailed performance testing report for the application with response times, break-point, peak load, memory leaks, resource utilization, uptime, etc. Get in touch with our performance testing experts to know more.

The post Role of Performance Testing for Businesses Across Industries first appeared on TestingXperts.

Software testing plays a major role along with software development in the software development lifecycle (SDLC). This testing process involves the testing of the software developed to ensure it is as per the requirements defined and error free for end users. Software testing can be categorized into two major types as Functional testing and Non-functional testing types.

Content 1. What is Performance Testing 2. Why is Performance Testing Essential for Testing Business Websites and Mobile Apps? 2.1 Performance Testing Process in Software Testing 3. What are the Challenges of Performance Testing and How to Overcome Them? 3.1 Selection of wrong performance testing tools 3.2 Lack of proper test strategy & test coverage 3.3 Time and budget constraints 3.4 Lack of knowledge about need for performance tests 3.5 Improper analysis of performance test outcomes 3.6 Difficulty in conducting tests on production environment 4. Conclusion

Some of the common types of functional testing are Unit, Integration, System, Sanity, Smoke, Interface, Regression, Acceptance testing, etc. Some of the most common Non-functional testing types are Reliability, Endurance, Localization, Recovery and Performance testing to name a few.

Out of these testing types, Performance testing is one of the important testing process that plays a critical role by ensuring the software performs stably and seamlessly even under varying load conditions.

What is Performance Testing?

Performance or load testing is an important non-functional type of testing and involves the process by which software or an application is tested to know its current system performance.

This sort of testing checks how your current system performs in terms of responsiveness and stability when tested under varying workload conditions. Significantly, the system is tested under multiple and different load and network conditions and this testing process effectively checks the time taken by the system to respond under these different loads.

Performance testing also ensures that the application performs as expected irrespective of the network fluctuations, bandwidth availability, or the load of traffic. Basically, this testing process determines the speed with which the system works and some of the issues identified with this type of testing are runtime bloat, optimization issues related to speed, latency, throughput, poor response times, load balancing problems, and other bandwidth issues if any.

There are various types of performance testing that are commonly adopted which include Endurance testing, Load testing, Volume testing, Stress testing, Scalability testing, Spike testing, etc. and these testing methods determines the speed, and responsiveness of the website, the app or the network when tested under different workloads.

Why is Performance Testing Essential for Testing Business Websites and Mobile Apps?

Performance testing measures the speed, scalability, reliability, and stability of the software under varying loads thus ensuring their stable performance. Every business application has to be stable and deliver consistent results, irrespective of the number of users accessing it at any point of time. Especially, with respect to banking apps, eCommerce apps, etc. these apps need to perform seamlessly even with numerous users, else it adversely affects the brand reputation.

Today’s users prefer apps that load spontaneously and get enticed with these apps that perform seamlessly and deliver great user experience. If the apps deliver slow response while accessing them, users tend to leave such apps and look out for alternatives.

Evidently, today it is essential for businesses to ensure the performance of their business apps and websites is seamless in order to deliver great customer experience. Performance tests such as load and stress tests determine the behaviour of the application, and help to check whether the server responds to the user with requested data within the stipulated time.

Hence, it is essential for business websites and mobile apps to work effectively even under heavy load of users, as it is important for them to keep going to ensure business continuity. Therefore, Performance testing is critical for business success and should be leveraged by enterprises.

Performance Testing Process in Software Testing

Now, let us try to list different activities of the Performance testing to get an understanding of the actual Performance testing process listed below:

– Analyze the existing environment

– Gather performance characteristics of the current system

– Define usage model and load distribution

– Define the performance acceptance criteria

– Develop the test assets, test plan, test scripts and scenarios

– Configure the load generation environment

– Execute planned tests

– Monitor web servers, application servers and database server’s performance counters

– Correlate and analyze the results

– Generate reports

– Provide performance improvement recommendations

– Retest as needed

Specifically, it is the QA team that is involved in the process of performance testing. The team needs to follow all the steps in order to perform this testing process to deliver effective results.

But, typically, while performing this method of performance testing or load testing, there are certain challenges which should be handled by the teams to ensure the success of the performance testing process.

What are the Challenges of Performance Testing and How to Overcome Them?

1. Selection of wrong performance testing tools:

This is a common challenge and in many situations the most appropriate performance testing tool is not selected. This tool selection depends on a number of factors such as application communication protocol, application technology stack, skill-level of the performance tester and the licencing cost of the tool.

If a wrong tool is chosen, then it might lead to loss of testing days for getting the test scripts to work and it is necessary that the chosen performance tool should recognize the controls of the application under test.

Solution:

It is necessary for the QA manager and the QA team to properly evaluate the application under test (AUT) along with licencing cost involved, and then choose the best performance testing tool to ensure success of the testing process.

2. Lack of proper test strategy & test coverage:

There is a lot of effort involved in designing a comprehensive testing strategy which takes care of identifying and prioritizing project risks and deciding on what actions to be taken to mitigate them.

This testing process involves identifying application performance characteristics, planning appropriate tests to exercise those characteristics, simulating real user interactions, testing of API services and testing whether all these services are working or not as part of the test strategy. Due to the lack of proper brainstorming while creation of test strategy and test coverage, it becomes difficult to get effective performance test results.

Solution:

The performance team should spend significant effort on analysing and understanding application architecture and other performance characteristics like load distribution, usage model, geography of usage, availability requirements, resilience requirements, reliability requirements, technology stack etc.

A proper and clear testing strategy should be developed to ensure validation of these performance characteristics to get effective performance test results.

3. Time and budget constraints:

Load testing essentially takes some time and budget to get effective results. Due to the lack of proper planning during software development, allocation of resources or budget is not done. This leads to dependence on low-skilled resources, who do not understand full scope of performance testing activities.

It also might lead to usage of open source tools which might lead to increased project risk. All these factors impact the quality of overall performance testing process.

Solution:

Therefore, at the beginning of projects, it is essential for businesses to plan for proper performance testing activities accounting for required timeframe, resources and proper budget allocations.

4. Lack of knowledge about need for performance tests:

Most stakeholders and budget makers do not recognize the value of performance testing during software development. In most instances, post production release of software, many performance issues may crop up which might result in crashing of the website, app or software.

Solution:

Evidently, it is essential for the stakeholders, product owners or test architect to plan for performance testing as part of end-to-end testing strategy. These applications should be performance tested exercising web servers, databases and third party apps to ensure effective performance.

5. Improper analysis of performance test outcomes:

This is indeed a significant challenge faced by many testers as a good amount of system and application knowledge is essential to deeply analyze the performance test results.

Solution:

An experienced performance tester should perform the testing process who will be able to judge the scenarios and could continuously refine the tests and keep adding tests to make them consistent. The performance tester should be well aware of application architecture.

Also, the performance tester should have experience across OS concepts, web architecture, OSI model, networking concepts, data structures, client-side performance concepts and server-side performance concepts. These performance experts will be able to quickly analyze the test results.

6. Difficulty in conducting tests on production environment:

Conducting load tests on a fully functioning production environment is a challenge. Especially while testing in such situations, real-time users are using the product and any change to the production environment might affect the user experience.

Solution:

It is essential to closely monitor the trends in the production environment in order to spot out irregularities. The performance testing activities should ideally be planned in production like environment instead of actual production environment.

If business needs demand execution in actual production environment, such activities should be executed only during off business hours with sufficient time in hand for any corrective actions in case application crashes under load in production.

Earlier, load testing was mostly taken up to simulate basic user actions at a protocol level. But, today with more complex applications in place with intricate user actions, load testers might need to balance between automation and exploratory testing to handle these new technology complex applications.

Conclusion:

Performance testing is a non-functional type of testing that is performed to ascertain how the system performs under varying load conditions. The speed, scalability, reliability and resource usage of the software or the application is evaluated with this type of testing. It is essential for business websites especially eCommerce sites and mobile apps to get performance tested to ensure they scale up when numerous users access simultaneously.

There are many types of performance testing methods that can be adopted to test the software. But, typically while performing this testing method, the QA teams tend to encounter certain challenges. Specifically, the QA teams need to follow certain measures to overcome these above listed challenges to deliver stable and quality software.

Last but not the least, it is essential for businesses to leverage performance testing services provider to be assured of scalable, stable and high-performing software.

Talk to our experts today to discuss your unique QA challenges and see how we bring value to your business

The post Major Performance Testing Challenges and How to Overcome Them first appeared on TestingXperts.

Contents
1. What should Retail industry CEOs Look for in 2022?
2. What are the Generic Challenges Faced by Retail Businesses?
3. What are the Common Software (Application) Challenges Faced by Retailers?
4. Software Testing for Retail
5. What are the testing services required for Retail Apps?
6. What are the Benefits Retailers Get with Effective Software Testing?
7. Conclusion

In recent years with rapid digitalization across business sectors, the Retail industry has been the most impacted by these digitization moves. The Retail segment mainly delivers an omnichannel experience. This includes a user-friendly and stable customer experience at the front end and a load of transaction data at the back-end. The retail segment software includes inventory, CRM apps, data warehousing, e-commerce channels, supply chain management, and Point of sale (POS) systems, etc. Undoubtedly, the effective working of retail software drives the return on investment (ROI) for retailers.

Especially, for the retail industry, the customer experience is at the center of their business. A poor quality experience at the storefront or with mobile apps that process the payment transactions would greatly impact customer experience and affects their business bottom line!

Also, the retail marketplace centered over POS needs to satisfy customers by delivering effective user experience. This can be achieved by a specialized POS testing process, else it has a significant impact on overall retail business outcomes.

What should Retail industry CEOs Look for in 2022?

• Digital readiness to deliver an exceptional customer experience (CX)

• Deliver high-quality solutions to best meet consumer behavior with early-to-market

• Data and insights-driven approach to digital eCommerce and omnichannel presence

• Focus on products for better performance and sustainability by adopting proper market approaches to appeal to the audience (especially Millennials & Gen Z)

• Process automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and data analytics to help eCommerce & retail businesses achieve more by enhancing solutions with improved CX

• Introduce effective business models that drive higher ROI and, at the same time, innovate with new services and offerings to meet ever-growing customer demand

Today, the retail sector is constantly changing and there are new challenges faced by all players. The challenges are faced at both the business as well as application level. These challenges should be properly fixed to ensure retail business success.

Overview of Present Retail Sector

For today’s businesses, the online channel has evidently become the most effective platform to perform their business transactions. Every business domain continues to take the complete advantage of online marketing to enchant their customers. Evidently, internet retailing has become a modern pathway for shopping to many internet surfers and online users. The increase in the usage of mobile phones, e-commerce, and internet services has truly simplified shopping means and effectively multiplied the scope of online shopping.

Over the past few years, online retailing is trending and accounting to over 1.5% sales across the globe. This is because of the available easy shopping ways being enabled through mobile apps, online channels and the availability of umpteen online payment and transaction methods. Among the many industry types that are emerging today, retail is one of the finest and fastest-growing sectors. It is the industry where products or services are provided for consumers by following a set of selling methods or practices. Also, it is the sector that is experiencing year-over-year progress.

The main reason why the retail sector is receiving the prominence is due to the changing lifestyle of the people and the increased dependency on obtaining services and products with ease. The need for retail services is tremendously increasing and the statistical report prepared for the total worldwide retail sales is a clear example with a total number of retails estimated over trillion dollars for the coming years.

As per the Global Retail Industry Analysis, in 2017 the retail industry was valued at USD 23,460 billion, but this effective number has been gradually increasing and during the period 2018-2023, it is aimed to reach USD 31,880.8 billion. This is because the retail markets have become more competitive and are excelling to target many developed and small countries to expand their consumer base. Also, the retail giants are preferring the online mode to follow their consumers and provide them the best offers that can result in future sales and increase their brand reputation with the usage of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Internet channels help in increasing the production and as well introduce several other complications for the retail sector. It has become essential for the retail sector to choose mobile technology and leverage proper infrastructure to deliver the best customer experience.

Though the retail segment has been expanding in recent years, it continues to face certain challenges that have been categorized as generic challenges and application-level challenges.

What are the Generic Challenges Faced by Retail Businesses?

• Challenges faced while embracing in the facet of digital transformation across lines of business
• Maintaining customer loyalty continues to be an important challenge for the retailer's success
• Delivering a good customer experience is a major factor to uphold their brand and protect their business
• Keeping up with the ever-changing customer expectations is another critical factor of concern
• Seasonal trends influence customers, and retailers need to balance to upkeep their customer shopping experience both online and offline
• Adopting new technology solutions for the retail industry is an important challenge to deliver secure and safe transactions
• New innovation trends of Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning (ML) continue to have a great impact on the retail sector

What are the Common Software (Application) Challenges Faced by Retailers?

• App performance issues negatively affect customer experience and damages brand loyalty
• Security glitches while processing transactions across e-commerce channels also disengages customer from using them
• Customers continue to abandon apps due to payment processing delays
• Increased/Heavy app loading time also adversely affects customer experience
• App usability plays an important role, as complex navigation flows will refrain users from using i

Software Testing for Retail

Primarily, in e-commerce websites and apps, any sort of design issues can greatly hinder business growth. As customers demand the latest features, the online channels failing to deliver these, suffer from customers disengaging.

Any sort of performance and security issues prevailing in online shopping apps adversely affects the customer experience. Hence, in order to overcome these challenges, retailers must adopt effective software quality assurance. The Next-gen software testing services will ensure and deliver a great customer experience.

What are the testing services required for Retail Apps?

An Overview of the Retail App Features and the corresponding testing service required to achieve Quality at speed

• Retail apps are generally integrated with several external hardware and software peripherals. There is a need for thorough functional testing and non-functional testing services
• Retail apps user interface (UI) and business processes change frequently. Hence they need thorough testing with automated regression testing
• Retail apps are integrated with various payment systems which need payment gateway integration testing
• Security testing is essential as customers across their digital journey need fast, effective, safe and secure transactions
• Retail apps require a digital assurance and testing strategy which can be applied to ensure apps perform stably under varying loads
• E-commerce channels should deliver great user experience for which usability testing should be taken up
• Retail apps testing needs embracing Test automation frameworks to test various scenarios of the application with test automation tools
• Test automation helps to deliver faster releases within shorter timelines which helps software developers and QA teams to deliver faster.

What are the Benefits Retailers Get with Effective Software Testing?

Benefits to customers

• Improves customer experience across the e-commerce channel as the application becomes glitch-free
• Quicker development is ensured as defects are identified early in the SDLC
• Improves business outcomes as new features are thoroughly tested before go-to-market
• Enhances user experience with great UI and stable performance with load testing across the e-commerce channels
• The application becomes accessible to one and all and achieves accessibility norms

Benefits to Businesses

• Considerable cost savings assured as faster releases are ensured by embracing test automation
• Reduced time to market as faster releases are achieved with DevOps Continuous integration and continuous development (CI/CD)
• Reduced human intervention as test automation is leveraged
• Efficient and comprehensive reports deliver quality insights
• Faster time to market results in a quicker return on investment (RoI)

Conclusion

Retail business use cases are not identical as the retail industry cannot be generalized, unlike other sectors. There is a huge challenge involved in combining retail software with wide integrations all through. This all requires attention to detail and an effective focus on quality.

Hence, testing e-commerce applications is critical to drive online sales and deliver a great user experience. It also makes sure the website or the apps on mobile devices are globally available and accessible to all. Therefore, an effective end-to-end digital testing is essential for retail software.

Leverage our experts with domain knowledge in digital testing to achieve quality retail software. Connect with our automated testing services team.

The post Why Software Testing is Critical for Retail Sector? first appeared on TestingXperts.

Contents 1. What is Black Friday and Cyber Monday? 2. Important facts about Black Friday 3. Best Strategies to avoid Black Friday pitfalls 4. What are the strategies to become successful for e-commerce retailers during the Black Friday sales? 5. Conclusion

What is Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

Black Friday and Cyber Monday represent the two largest online selling days in the year, mapping huge sales around the world. TechCrunch reports Black Friday racks up $5.03B in online sales, and $2B in mobile alone during 2017, while during 2018 the sales hit $6.2B in the US alone, with smartphones accounted for about $2.1B.

These whopping figures keep you surprised. However, it is true that Black Friday & Cyber Monday generates the highest business for retailers. It is essential for businesses to be up and running seamlessly during this peak load time (extended weekend sales).

In the US, Canada, UK, and Europe, online shoppers are quick buyers on Black Friday sales. There is a popular myth around this Black Friday, which states “Black Friday” described how retail stores spent most of the year “in the red” on their balance sheets. Thus, the holiday shopping season, beginning on the Friday after Thanksgiving, put them back into the “black”. Hence, Black Friday.

Some important facts about Black Friday worth a read:

– Tech Radar: Cyber Monday has become more popular than any other online shopping day in the US, Revenue estimates a year ago reached $7.9 billion in the US. It topped every other shopping day ever online, according to Adobe Analytics. Online stores should plan a smooth shopping week for customers. BlackFriday.com predicts that 2019 Black Friday online spending will surpass $12 billion this year. Of the shoppers they surveyed, 61% plan to do most of their holiday shopping online.

Hence, it is inevitable for online stores and e-commerce businesses to work on apps and websites to deliver a smooth shopping experience. Now is the time to get ready and prepare your application for the anticipated crowds and ensure that your application won’t fail on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Best Strategies to avoid Black Friday pitfalls

Under unprecedented high volumes of traffic on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, many e-commerce websites crashed in recent years, causing damage to their brand reputation and incurred immense losses.

1. Check out Speed Optimization and UX Viability:

Primarily it is crucial for e-commerce sites to have optimal page loading speed to ensure the shopper stays for good amount of time browsing their products.

Secondly, all online store apps should have a user interface that provides great User Experience (UX). These two features play a vital role for online shoppers to be engaged. To achieve an optimal loading time, the applications should be Load tested end-to-end. And for a great UX, usability testing should be taken up necessarily.

2. Research upon browsing Trends and Maintain Checklists:

It is essential to perform research on the trends that are most likely to hit the shopper in the sale season and subsequently maintain them with lucrative offers.

Such shopper’s analytics will help in enabling successful closures by online shoppers. Physical and online stores should be well aware of the trends for electronics, apparel, footwear, toys, media, cosmetics or household appliances and try to take complete advantage of data

3. Ensure Security Measures:

All online sites should necessarily use HTTPS to ensure full site-wide encryption. Full HTTPS is a mandate for all shopping (transaction) sites. Secured transactions are utmost required, as online shoppers want to safeguard their critical personal information. Moreover, online transactions should also be encrypted to ensure secure transactions for which Integration testing of the apps must be followed.

 4. Opt for virtual Load Tests:

  A load test should be performed ahead of time to ensure there are no last-minute surprises. To overcome this surge in traffic, appropriate Load testing should be performed to achieve the desired scalability levels so that users remain unaffected. During Black Friday sales, almost all online stores face massive incoming traffic, which has to be monitored ahead of time to make the website and application stable.

5. Check End-to-end Site Performance:

It is also essential to test the entire application end-to-end when once it is ready for the public. This sort of performance testing ensures that the site is working well even when numerous users access it at the same time. In the earlier years, many apps have crashed as they were not scalable enough to handle massive traffic during this holiday season, as apps received more number of end users accessing them across the globe.

6. Ensure to Adopt Web Usability Testing:

Customers wish to navigate and make numerous actions on the application and sometimes, they might not be able to find the correct links. This sort of poor usability deeply affects the users especially on a holiday sale with so many offers on the go. Hence, it is essential to have proper Usability testing in place to ensure users have smooth sailing

7. Perform Mobile testing as a priority:

8. Anticipate your Traffic in Advance:

9. Ensure to perform Geolocation Testing:

What are the strategies to become successful for e-commerce retailers during the Black Friday sales?

1. Re-organize your online merchandise:

2. Accelerate with Social Media and Paid Campaigns:

3. Implement Gift Guides for your targeted audience:

4. Make sure to Ensure Online Support to Visitors: 

Conclusion:

With the holiday season fast approaching, all e-commerce businesses and online stores should take the utmost care to ensure their sites and applications can hold heavy traffic volumes. They should further ensure secured transactions to their online shoppers. To achieve all this, the applications should be performance-tested, load tested, and usability tested which will help them deliver a seamless shopping experience to their customers

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It is important for today’s businesses to visualize that Performance testing forms an integral part of quality assurance. Application Performance Testing is the key to deriving high-performing E-commerce applications, mobile apps, and other customer-facing apps. Performance-tested applications ensure that released software meets the agreed Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) and essentially delivers higher user satisfaction levels. Such well-tested systems perform seamlessly even under varying load conditions with concurrent users.

Content 1. 7 Performance Testing Tools 2. What are the Critical factors to consider before choosing performance testing tools? 3. Overall Benefits with Performance Testing Tools 4. Conclusion

Statistically, only applications that perform well even when the concurrent user’s access it without any glitches tend to attract and retain the customer base. Such apps help to push up their respective brands. Hence, it is vital for enterprises to take up effective performance testing strategies to maintain and protect their brands.

There are certain performance testing tools that can be used to deliver effective performance to e-commerce, mobile apps, and other systems. Some of these tools are available as open source and as paid tools, which are used to perform various types of performance testing such as Load, Stress, Spike, Volume, Capacity and Soak testing.

7 Performance Testing Tools 

LoadRunner:

It is the most widely used tool to test applications, measure system behavior and their performance under varying loads. The tool is used to simulate thousands of concurrent users and record the variations in system performance. Afterward, leveraging those results, the performance of key components of the application can be analyzed. This tool supports all advanced technologies like Ajax, Flex, HTML5.0, Java, SOAP, Citrix along with all other legacy technologies.

Tool Functionality:

Apache JMeter:

It is an important open-source tool used to test the performance of both static and dynamic applications. It is a Java-based application used for load and performance testing, which is used to test Web applications, SOAP & REST web services, FTP, databases and more. Interestingly, JMeter is also widely used performance testing tool, which is effectively used to load test web and mobile applications and measure their performance.

Tool Functionality:

Originally it was designed for testing web applications, but later on it has been expanded to test other test functions. It is also used for simulating a heavy load on a server or a group of servers and essentially checks application performance under varied load conditions.

WebLOAD:

This is a widely used tool by enterprises for testing web and mobile applications. It is an effective tool as it combines performance, scalability, and integrity as a single process for testing applications. It is an alternate to LoadRunner.

Tool Functionality:

This tool is used to create mobile load tests either by recording native mobile apps or browser-based apps, directly from the mobile handset. The ease of the tool is; the user can edit any scripts, add parameters and perform validation checks. After creating mobile scripts, it executes the mobile load tests and this tool integrates with a real mobile device.

LoadView:

Tool Overview: It is used for cloud-based load testing and empowers DevOps teams to efficiently test websites, web-apps, and application programming interfaces (API’s) with thousands of concurrent users. The agile and DevOps teams can test their website’s UX under load, verify performance and identify various bottlenecks within applications. This tool simulates API calls, validates API responses and verifies the most important SLA requirements.

Tool Functionality:

LoadView uses the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) to generate concurrent users load over the cloud during the load tests. The agile teams can test most complex applications by designing multiple test scenarios to test for. This tool tests and determines if the website (under testing) can handle spikes in traffic by generating load with a set number of concurrent users. Also, it tests the limits of infrastructure, every time by adjusting the load in real time. The test results can be seen in LoadView’s web interface and reports can be obtained either in CSV or PDF formats.

LoadUI Pro:

This tool is used for load testing REST, SOAP API’s, databases and microservices. The simplicity of this tool is, it does not require a specific skill set in load testing and any user can create and execute tests. It is used to guide in building realistic performance test scenarios.

Tool Functionality:

With LoadUI PRO, there is a flexibility to reuse all functional API tests built on the industry’s best open source tools. It helps to reduce the time taken to deploy REST and SOAP web services. It provides key insights that help to fix any performance bottlenecks. Its powerful and intuitive capabilities help to deliver scalable API’s. This tool is used to test the speed and scalability of new changes to the APIs in a short span of time. Users can gain insights from real-time API load tests and ensure that the API will handle any demand effectively.

VSTS:

VSTS stands for Visual Studio Team Services; is an extension of Microsoft Visual Studio. It is an integrated development environment (IDE) and is usually run in the cloud (Azure). The tool is used to load test mobile applications or website’s performance before their launch to check any performance bottlenecks even before it reaches the customers.

Tool Functionality:

This tool is used to run URL-based load tests with Azure DevOps and sets all the required parameters to run the test. When the test is completed, the results display the overall application performance in a separate summary page. This page displays important metrics such as average response time, user load, requests per second, failed requests, other intervening errors along with test usage. Response time pinpoints the time an application has taken to respond to requests which are the key metrics for measuring any app’s performance.

CloudTest:

This tool helps to stress the test the environment to ensure the website or an application is stable even under spikes or in heavy traffic. It generates actionable insights that help dive into the live data and effectively know any performance issues while load testing is in progress. It enables continuous testing process in the cloud (anytime without worrying about any hardware), eliminates traditional costs and gives more value to it.This tool is a useful global load testing platform that is scalable and used to run tests to receive actionable insights from the results.

However, before choosing any performance testing tool, it is important to consider certain factors such as – validate whether the tool is capable to meet the user-expectations, ability to meet the business goals, etc. This will help to build a good testing solution for the requirement.

What are the Critical factors to consider before choosing performance testing tools?

Choose a familiar tool:

It is crucial to adopt a tool that is familiar with the team. Familiarity with the tool will substantially cut down the learning time and help to implement the tool quickly and easily with less efforts for meeting the company’s needs.

Validate the tool’s test environment:

The tool should be able to work with the network and hardware resources to enhance the test environment. If the tool fails to provide the required test environment, then this may not be able to drive the required traffic for the enterprise.

The efficiency of the tool:

While choosing a tool, enterprises should validate the efficiency of the performance testing tool. If the tool is successful to generate the expected number of users with the already existing hardware, then the tool can be considered as efficient.

Check the testing options:

The user options for performance testing vary from tool to tool. So, organizations should choose a tool that is capable to meet the required testing need, and should also be able to resolve the bottlenecks.

Verify the tool license cost:

The value of the tool is an important factor for organizations. While opting for tool selection, organizations should consider the cost frequencies involved with its purchase.

Overall Benefits with Performance Testing Tools:

• Helps in testing current scale & emulate real-time usage at peak loads to validate the performance

• Gives the flexibility to test applications with millions of users and checks system performance

• Helps improve and adjust the efficiency of an application

• Evaluates quickly and effectively the performance issues of software

• Protects brand reputation as the application loads in quickly even in heavy user loads

• Improves application’s optimization and load capacity

• Enable websites and mobile applications to load quickly without any performance issues

Conclusion:

These performance testing tools play an important role in enabling businesses to avail top rated applications without any performance glitches. Businesses need to essentially get their applications tested for performance to ensure that they meet the agreed SLA’s. Performance is key to the livelihood of mobile apps and mobile-optimized e-commerce sites to function seamlessly.

Specific performance testing tools can be used to efficiently test applications and businesses can leverage independent testing service providers to get their applications tested.

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Today’s end users expect only the best from the moment they download an application. Unsurprisingly, these increased expectations are placing a great deal of extra stress on the in-house QA and testing teams. QA teams face challenges of finding bugs (and getting fixes done) on tighter deadlines, across different devices and OSs. Another challenge is the diversity of user base and levels of their ‘tech-savviness’ which makes it difficult to find the right user experience for this varied user base.

Contents 1. What, exactly, is Crowdsourced Testing? 2. Challenges involved with Crowdsourced Testing 3. How Can TestingXperts Help? 4. Conclusion

Testing an application’s compatibility with various devices, browsers, and OSs is next to impossible because of the non-availability of an array of devices, and the high cost of setting up a lab and deploying costly human resources.

For these reasons, industry is seeing a shift towards crowdsourced testing.

What, exactly, is Crowdsourced Testing?

Crowdsourced Testing is a form of testing conducted by members of the global community on their respective devices, resulting in wide testing coverage across devices/operating systems. Industries with users from different ages, professions, communities, and geographic locations are considering this solution to receive faster feedback from real users. It helps companies get feedback from real end users of the application and improve user experience of the application along with finding the functional issues.

However, hiring crowd testers from across the globe is not a foolproof solution as there are challenges involved.

Challenges involved with Crowdsourced Testing

Here is a list of challenges involved with crowdsourced testing, which can help organizations in making a wise decision.

Having the testing performed by a large group who might not have loyalty to that brand can impose huge risks on an organization. Application details exposing to strangers can also cause security damage to the brand.

It’s challenging to manage testers across the globe and working with them in different time zones.

There can be communication issues that may arise when an urgent response is needed from the resources working online.

As the payment depends on the number of bugs found, it’s difficult to guarantee that important bugs are not ignored. It, therefore, requires more managerial oversight to ensure thorough bug identification.

Motivating testers to continue testing without getting distracted is a huge task as they are not in front of you and they can’t be accountable.

The major issue that arises is ensuring the quality of testing or the quality of defects raised.

Is There a Way Out?

Enterprises that are time-pressed and want complete coverage for their testing initiatives before they launch a product MUST consider outsourcing their testing services to a specialist QA and software testing company.

A specialist software testing vendor will have experience and will also have in-house testing teams to perform all types of testing for organizations. Also, the specialist testing vendors can find resources to perform extra tasks on need basis besides their in-house teams. This provides an extensive and in-depth testing process.

How Can TestingXperts Help?

We take pride in the high standards we provide in maintaining confidentiality of the client’s IP and data. We follow complete access control and also sign NDA with clients before taking over projects.

We have developed expertise over several years working with leading companies all over the world. All our resources are career testers with specific expertise on domains, industry tools and certifications as required.

We have structured test processes with standard artifacts like test templates, checklists, tools, etc. to ensure better product quality ensuring no production defects.

We follow a proven process-oriented approach for every engagement and will execute the projects in a standard waterfall or agile methodology as per project needs.

A collaborative approach to work with clients leading to a better understanding of the client’s business and provides greater value in application testing.

Conclusion

In today’s competitive world, demand for better application quality is rising as organizations deal with pressure to focus on customer satisfaction and to deliver good quality products promptly. Crowdsourced testing might appear to be an easy and cost-effective approach that involves testers working from different geographies to cover all testing areas. However, to create a foolproof process, companies must choose specialist software testing and QA vendors for their testing initiatives.

A specialist company with an identity and reputation in the market would be a better decision for organizations to sign up for their testing demands. Crowdsourced testing maybe an ideal option for carrying out user-experience related testing. Connect with us to learn more about our QA and software testing services.

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