#30daysoftesting

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#30DaysOfTesting - Day 30: credit cards

Find 4 different types of credit cards; learn what makes them different.

I had a bit of a double motive going into this learning exercise. They say millennials don’t have enough personal finance literacy, so I particularly enjoyed today’s topic around discovering the different types of CCs, the benefits they provide, and who they cater to. Thanks to an easy-to-follow breakdown by The Balance (a resource I encountered on Day 23), and NASDAQ which I guess is a legitimate resource on the subject matter 😏.

💳 Standard CCs aka “Plain Vanilla”

You might choose this type of credit card if you want a card that isn't complicated and you're not interested in earning rewards. Credit is used up when you make a purchase and made available again once you've made a payment. A finance charge is applied to outstanding balances at the end of each month. 

💰 Rewards CCs

Offer rewards on credit card purchases. There are three basic types of rewards cards: cashback, points, and travel. 

Source: https://www.thebalance.com/types-of-credit-cards-960255

🛠 Bad credit and/or credit repair cards

There are several options available to those who have had bad credit in the past and for those who are currently trying to repair their credit.

🌟 Specialty CCs

For consumers with unique needs for their credit use, such as business professionals and students. These credit card programs are designed specifically to meet the needs of those individuals.

Source: https://www.nasdaq.com/personal-finance/credit-card-types.stm

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#30DaysOfTesting - Day 29: SEO

Research how Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and ecommerce work together.

Shopify on what SEO is and why it matters in ecommerce:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of generating more organic (i.e. free, natural) traffic from sites like Google, Bing and Yahoo... Ecommerce SEO is all about ensuring your product pages appear among those ten organic search results.

Essentially, SEO tactics help ecommerce companies and their products index high in search results for better discoverability - both across the web, and within the ecommerce site itself. You can’t sell stuff if people never see your stuff in the first place.

Knowing what your audience is actively searching for (keyword research) and optimizing your site structure in a way that makes your ranking in the eyes of search engines high is key.

tl;dr “Basically, you want to make it easy for actual visitors and search engines to find stuff in your store.”

There are a number of techniques and tools you can use to help make your ecommerce site SEO friendly. It also helps that many of the leading ecommerce platforms (such as Shopify) already have built-in SEO features to help make things easier.

Resource: https://www.shopify.ca/blog/ecommerce-seo-beginners-guide

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#30DaysOfTesting - Day 28: ethics

Identify potential ethical issues with the use of ecommerce data. What are some public examples?

Ethical Issues

Came across this excellent resource outlining various types of ethical issues and how you can avoid them. I’ve curated the key points from 3 of varying degrees:

Failing to put up accurate product details

eCommerce is different from traditional retail. Your customers cannot touch the product they will buy. eCommerce customers don’t get to see the exact item they’ll receive. Therefore, it’s important that you make the effort to list your products accurately, completely, and honestly.

Data theft & security breaches

Hackers can do a lot of damage to your customers with [sensitive] information such as:

Credit card numbers

Personal information, like their address

Email addresses and a password, which they may share across many accounts

Purchase history (particularly important if you sell sensitive products)

Selling fake products

You need to take action to ensure you sell authentic products. You’ll get the blame if the customer finds out. (Oh yeah, it’s illegal too!)

Not abiding by online selling laws and regulations

Data compliance and privacy laws

Tax regulations (think about selling across state and national borders)

Online marketing laws like the CAN-SPAM act and laws about advertising disclosure

International regulations, like those in the European Union

Product-specific regulations (for example, you can’t sell alcohol to customers under 21)

Resource: https://www.nchannel.com/blog/ethical-issues-in-ecommerce/

Public Examples

The ones I’m most familiar with are to do with abysmal data/security breaches. Some from the hall of shame:

eBay

The breach at eBay Inc was poised to be one of the biggest data breaches in history, based on the number of accounts compromised. Around 145 million records were accessed by hackers that contained passwords as well as email addresses, birth dates, mailing addresses and other personal information. The hackers got the login credentials of a small number of employees that allowed them to gain access to eBay’s corporate network.

Target

More than 70 million credit and debit card accounts of customers were impacted by the breach that happened in the U.S stores of Target Corporation. This breach was as a result of compromised point-of-sale terminals which were hacked to get customer data during the busiest shopping season of the year.

Starbucks

Starbucks app was hacked twice in a gap of few months, where in hackers stole money from several Starbucks customers by gaining access to their credit card information through the app and using the autoload function. Criminals were using Starbucks accounts to access consumers’ linked credit cards. Taking advantage of the Starbucks auto-reload function, they could steal hundreds of dollars in a matter of minutes.

These examples were pulled from App Knox. Check out the full list, along with common cyber threats ecommerce companies should keep an eye out for: https://blog.appknox.com/top-cyber-threats-ecommerce-companies/

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#30DaysOfTesting - Day 27: data-driven testing

How can we use the analytics data from ecommerce sites to help us test?

The key metrics you’ve chosen to track can inform your testing approach to help better refine your testing focus areas. As a direct correlation to my findings from Day 26 (re: tracking user activity), here are examples of a few data points along with testing cues:

Traffic - Audience - Demographics > to identify major user personas 

Traffic - Audience - Browser/Usage > to help triage cross-platform and layout issues

Top of funnel - Browsing site > to outline primary workflows and visual testing (i.e., product page content)

Bottom of funnel - Purchasing > to outline primary workflows and key functionality (i.e., adding to shopping cart)

Email/Social media marketing > integration testing

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#30DaysOfTesting - Day 26: tracking user activity

Learn about how users are tracked on ecommerce websites/apps.

While most influencers in the world of analytics will implore you to track anything and everything (because you can), 3 focus areas seemed to emerge in my findings:

Top Level Traffic

audience and demographics

bounce rate

landing pages

Check out this introductory guide by Shopify on gleaning basic web traffic insights: https://www.shopify.ca/guides/make-your-first-ecommerce-sale/web-analytics

Conversion Funnel Analysis

Perhaps the most important user activity to be tracked has to do with events and behaviours leading up to, and including, the purchasing action.

The idea of funnel analytics is that your target audience will go through a step-by-step flow or funnel until they make a purchase on your site. 

Reference: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/intro-to-ecommerce-analytics/

External Activities 

Also important to track is the various and most effective entryways into the site via newsletters and promos.

email marketing 

social media

other external referrals

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#30DaysOfTesting - Day 25: security testing

What security concerns do you associate with ecommerce and how would you test them?

I circled back to Day 22 when we covered data security, as a starting point. I looked into how one might test common potential security risks and uncovered techniques which can be applied to the context of ecommerce platform testing:

Access to application

Authentication & Authorization

Fraudulent behaviour is a big one, and it’s important to test from various types of user accounts (especially if they have specific roles/rights within the system).

In order to test this, thorough testing of all roles and rights should be performed. The tester should create several user accounts with different as well multiple roles. Verify that every role has access to its own modules, screens, forms, and menus only and identify any conflicts.

tl;dr “you need to test about ‘who you are’ and ‘what you can do’ for distinct users.”

Data protection

Testing sensitive data as it moves throughout a system to ensure it doesn’t become exposed when it shouldn’t is critical. From the moment it’s entered into the database, throughout the stuff that happens in between, right up to the end to “ensure that the encrypted data is properly decrypted at the destination”.

Proper security measures must be adopted when the flow of sensitive or business critical data occurs. Whether this data floats between different modules of the same application or is transmitted to different applications, it must be encrypted to keep it safe.

Resource: https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/how-to-test-application-security-web-and-desktop-application-security-testing-techniques/

Also check out this quick overview of some other focus areas within the scope of security testing, and a basic security test that may get overlooked: http://softwaretestingfundamentals.com/security-testing/

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#30DaysOfTesting - Day 23: marketplace ecommerce platforms

What are examples of businesses which are marketplace ecommerce platforms?

First, a definition:

Unlike e-commerce sites that involve businesses selling their own products through a website, virtual marketplaces are where third-party sellers can do business. (via The Balance Small Business)

Check out this article explaining how exactly ecomm marketplaces work, and the advantages vs. disadvantages of adopting a marketplace model: https://www.thebalancesmb.com/virtual-marketplace-model-successful-1141741

Examples

Amazon - enough said.

Alibaba - “This Chinese company makes Amazon look tiny, racking up hundreds of billions of dollars in sales every year.”

eBay - one of the old school players. “As a seller, you can ask shoppers to bid on an item or buy it upfront.“

Etsy - mainly caters to artsy/craftsy, handmade products

Reference: https://pixc.com/blog/32-places-to-sell-online-ecommerce-marketplaces-and-platforms/

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#30DaysOfTesting - Day 22: data security

What are methods of securing ecommerce data?

Here’s a quick overview of some common security issues consumers face:

fraudulent behaviour

phishing attacks

sensitive data breach

In terms of best practices, what I found was that there are internal measures and initiatives that the company themselves can do in-house; then there are external players like 3rd party vendors, and even customers themselves, who can afford to take stronger security measures. We all must strive to do our due diligence in helping safeguard data, really. 

Generally, some best practices:

Keep up to date with payment security certifications

Analyze threats with each upgrade, app, and third-party integration

Encourage customers to use strong passwords

Verify card and address details to reduce risk of fraudulent transactions

In a nutshell, you must be well-informed, proactive, and vigilant. Tripwire said it best: Stay up to date, and create a culture of safety. 

Resources:

https://kibocommerce.com/blog/5-must-haves-data-security-ecommerce-platform/

https://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/security-data-protection/cyber-security/newbie-retailers-guide-to-ecommerce-security/

https://www.bigcommerce.ca/ecommerce-answers/why-online-security-so-important/