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How Load Testing Using Gatling May Improve Your Salesforce E-Commerce Solution
The number of online shoppers has jumped up during the pandemic and continues to grow. In 2021, over 2.14 billion buyers are purchasing services and goods online, while in 2016, the global number of online shoppers amounted to 1.66 billion.
Another trigger for the growth is the increasing use of smartphones that allow a convenient web surfing experience. Customers may shop on the go, wherever there is an internet connection, which boosts online sales and intensifies competition among e-commerce providers, as a result.
You need an advantage over competitors if you wish to attract more buyers to your platform. One of the ways is to make sure your app works well under load. This article uncovers how QA and testing engineers use one of the best load testing tools, Gatling, to help you make sure your e-commerce website enables an exceptional shopping experience.
Another trigger for the growth is the increasing use of smartphones that allow a convenient web surfing experience. Customers may shop on the go, wherever there is an internet connection, which boosts online sales and intensifies competition among e-commerce providers, as a result.
You need an advantage over competitors if you wish to attract more buyers to your platform. One of the ways is to make sure your app works well under load. This article uncovers how QA and testing engineers use one of the best load testing tools, Gatling, to help you make sure your e-commerce website enables an exceptional shopping experience.
By Dzmitry Prymudrau, Lead Test Automation Engineer at Solvd
August 13, 2021
What Is Load Testing for Web Applications?
With the accelerating tendency to shop online, you might expect an increase in your e-commerce website traffic. Load testing allows engineers to simulate a massive number of users assessing your platform, so they may see if the infrastructure and the server can handle the load without drops in performance and functionality.
There are more reasons for hiring testing professionals to load test your e-commerce application:
Also, you may need to test the user interface elements of your e-commerce by performing API testing. This aspect is as critical for improving the e-commerce conversion rate as backend and load testing.
There are more reasons for hiring testing professionals to load test your e-commerce application:
- Measure response time to see if your application reacts to queries adequately and meets your specific requirements or KPIs
- Ensure your e-commerce app's business functionality works properly under load
- Check if the app's infrastructure is scalable enough to adapt to a heavy load
- Verify if your application works just right to reduce customer churn
Also, you may need to test the user interface elements of your e-commerce by performing API testing. This aspect is as critical for improving the e-commerce conversion rate as backend and load testing.
8 Typical E-Commerce Load Testing Scenarios
To follow one or another testing scenario means simulating how users may interact with your online store shopping for fashion items, computer games, custom software, and more. Besides, different load testing scenarios imitate the number of users going up and down.
Customers usually come to your e-commerce platform and make purchases following common patterns:
Visiting. A user opens the Home Page and finishes the session.
Browsing. It starts as Visiting, and then users may open random categories, scroll for products, open some item pages, and leave.
Searching. Like the previous one, it begins with visiting the app. A user types into the search field to find some products and opens some item pages before leaving.
Add to Cart. Users may click on random categories, add products to the cart, open item pages, and abandon the platform.
Guest Checkout and Registered Checkout. These two scenarios are pretty similar. Both start as Add to Cart, and then a user goes to the checkout process and leaves without creating an order. In Registered Checkout, a user logs in before interacting further with the platform.
Guest Order and Registered Order. If a user behaves in this fashion, a shopping session ends with order placement.
Registering. A user goes through the registration process on your e-commerce website.
Crawling. This scenario simulates background noise traffic. Users click links and send requests to pages randomly.
Those scenarios are the basis for load testing various e-commerce applications. However, QA engineers may also apply smart and client-specific tests.
Customers usually come to your e-commerce platform and make purchases following common patterns:
Visiting. A user opens the Home Page and finishes the session.
Browsing. It starts as Visiting, and then users may open random categories, scroll for products, open some item pages, and leave.
Searching. Like the previous one, it begins with visiting the app. A user types into the search field to find some products and opens some item pages before leaving.
Add to Cart. Users may click on random categories, add products to the cart, open item pages, and abandon the platform.
Guest Checkout and Registered Checkout. These two scenarios are pretty similar. Both start as Add to Cart, and then a user goes to the checkout process and leaves without creating an order. In Registered Checkout, a user logs in before interacting further with the platform.
Guest Order and Registered Order. If a user behaves in this fashion, a shopping session ends with order placement.
Registering. A user goes through the registration process on your e-commerce website.
Crawling. This scenario simulates background noise traffic. Users click links and send requests to pages randomly.
Those scenarios are the basis for load testing various e-commerce applications. However, QA engineers may also apply smart and client-specific tests.
Some Custom Load Testing Scenarios Your App Might Need
Custom e-commerce applications may require profound testing scenarios. It depends on the specifics of user interactions with a particular website, web traffic scope, user interface elements, or business requirements.
For example, test engineers may use tools to simulate the case of adding a random amount of products to the bag and opting out of some items. Or they may need to open several products without adding them to the bag and just go for another product.
A wishlist scenario is also in demand for load testing websites of e-commerce providers. It starts with a customer logging into an account. Then a customer browses for products and adds some to a wishlist from four random pages, like the product listing page, quick view, product details page, and recommendations zone.
One more scenario is checking how Guest order placement works if a customer uses a promo code. Customers may add some products to the cart and enter a promo code while creating an order.
Your e-commerce solution may need other types of simulations. To identify necessary scenarios and testing tools and verify the quality of your whole solution, check how Solvd may help you.
For example, test engineers may use tools to simulate the case of adding a random amount of products to the bag and opting out of some items. Or they may need to open several products without adding them to the bag and just go for another product.
A wishlist scenario is also in demand for load testing websites of e-commerce providers. It starts with a customer logging into an account. Then a customer browses for products and adds some to a wishlist from four random pages, like the product listing page, quick view, product details page, and recommendations zone.
One more scenario is checking how Guest order placement works if a customer uses a promo code. Customers may add some products to the cart and enter a promo code while creating an order.
Your e-commerce solution may need other types of simulations. To identify necessary scenarios and testing tools and verify the quality of your whole solution, check how Solvd may help you.
Why Load Testing Web Applications Using Gatling
Continuous testing is essential and permits QA engineers to implement changes faster into a client's e-commerce app. They may run small but regular tests and fix critical bugs the moment they occur. That may save time during the debugging phase at the end of a project stage.
Gatling is one of the continuous load testing tools, open-source solutions that engineers may use separately or integrate with other tools they need. This tool makes load testing of client's e-commerce applications faster and requires fewer resources.
QA engineers prefer Gatling to simulate hundreds of thousands of requests per second and receive highly accurate metrics. The code-like scripting of Gatling eases the work with different testing scenarios and test automation. Besides, this tool helps aggregate testing results and automatically generate dynamic reports that involve colorful and easy-to-comprehend tables.
Gatling is one of the continuous load testing tools, open-source solutions that engineers may use separately or integrate with other tools they need. This tool makes load testing of client's e-commerce applications faster and requires fewer resources.
QA engineers prefer Gatling to simulate hundreds of thousands of requests per second and receive highly accurate metrics. The code-like scripting of Gatling eases the work with different testing scenarios and test automation. Besides, this tool helps aggregate testing results and automatically generate dynamic reports that involve colorful and easy-to-comprehend tables.
Gatling Load Testing Examples and Advantages
There are several reasons for using Gatling to test websites built on Salesforce:
Solvd QA and testing engineers have vast experience in employing Gatling. Last year, the team worked for a sports e-commerce brand that needed load testing of websites before the Black Friday hustle begins.
They had one month for testing an e-commerce solution that involved such architectures as a legacy SiteGen Salesforce and Storefront Reference Architecture. Solvd engineers successfully deployed load testing on four localized sites for different countries using Gatling.
Another load testing example by the Solvd team is verifying the work of a jewelry e-commerce website. The client had time and resources restrictions, and as a result, one engineer had to complete all testing activities in a week and a half. Gatling usage allowed a QA professional to meet the objectives successfully.
- It provides great HTTP protocol support. By default, Gatling supports JMS and WebSocket protocols.
- This powerful tool is ideal for continuous testing. It uses machine resources more efficiently than some other tools, like JMeter. The latter uses one thread per user, and when a virtual user is waiting for a response from the backend, it blocks the thread. That is not the way Gatling works. When a response comes back, it sends a new request asynchronously. If JMeter allows simulating a 300 user load on the load testing server, Gatling works with 1000, using the same machine capacity.
- The core engine doesn't depend on protocol, making it easier to create custom protocol support for Gatling.
- Gatling is based on the Scala language that uses JVM for execution. Engineers have Java and Scala for all utils and the application logic.
Solvd QA and testing engineers have vast experience in employing Gatling. Last year, the team worked for a sports e-commerce brand that needed load testing of websites before the Black Friday hustle begins.
They had one month for testing an e-commerce solution that involved such architectures as a legacy SiteGen Salesforce and Storefront Reference Architecture. Solvd engineers successfully deployed load testing on four localized sites for different countries using Gatling.
Another load testing example by the Solvd team is verifying the work of a jewelry e-commerce website. The client had time and resources restrictions, and as a result, one engineer had to complete all testing activities in a week and a half. Gatling usage allowed a QA professional to meet the objectives successfully.
Conclusion
As an owner of an e-commerce website, you probably faced intense competition recently. The steady growth in the usage of mobile gadgets and the pandemic and post-pandemic restrictions urged people to shop online more.
You need to focus on the quality of the shopping experience your e-commerce web platform may offer. Otherwise, it might be tough to stay afloat. You should test how your e-commerce application will work when the number of customers goes up sharply.
If you wonder how to do load testing of your e-commerce solution, ask QA and testing specialists about the starting point and methods. They would use the most efficient tools, like Gatling, and fix specific website load issues to help you increase sales and elevate the shopping experience.
You need to focus on the quality of the shopping experience your e-commerce web platform may offer. Otherwise, it might be tough to stay afloat. You should test how your e-commerce application will work when the number of customers goes up sharply.
If you wonder how to do load testing of your e-commerce solution, ask QA and testing specialists about the starting point and methods. They would use the most efficient tools, like Gatling, and fix specific website load issues to help you increase sales and elevate the shopping experience.
