You’ve heard the expression quality over quantity a thousand times or more. And with most things in life, it reigns true.
You can have your web partner develop countless features for your website, but if they don’t work properly, customers won’t stick with you based on what your site is supposed to be able to do.
How do you know when it’s time to dedicate a portion of your web budget to QA?
Well, it’s pretty straightforward. If your site is still young and most of what you’ve got is templated or comes from a pre-existing extension, you may not need to worry about this yet. Between testing the site yourself and the basic testing your developer will do before pushing to live, things will probably run smoothly the majority of the time.
Once you enter the world of customization, it’s time to start thinking more about QA. If you’re building a proprietary site with lots of custom code, or having features and functions developed with a lot of varied use cases, QA becomes crucial. When we say QA we mean a dedicated portion of your web budget, to hire a QA specialist who will undoubtedly have a systematic method of testing that’ll go beyond what your developer will be able to do. Particularly when you consider timeline and budget constraints.
It’s the same deal if you’re writing an important email or proposal. Spell check is your first line of defense. Then you can read over it yourself. Maybe once, maybe ten times. And there are still things you might miss that another, fresh set of human eyes would have spotted.
According to Statista the average portion of an overall IT budget dedicated to QA is 26 percent – with some companies reporting that they spend close to 40 percent of their budget on QA.
QA experts have a methodical approach to offer in testing all possible use cases against all possible scenarios, to ensure the custom code you’ve just invested in will produce the intended result. Most times your developer will also test across multiple devices, browsers, etc. and in as many use cases as possible. But the reality is that they don’t have the bandwidth to test as in depth as you likely need, and they’re not wired to approach the process the same way a specialist is either.
In most cases development teams have QA resources they’ve worked with that they can recommend, so it’s not like you’ll have to hunt for someone who can get the job done. And when it’s time, you’ll know.
Customers will not visit your site thinking, “hmmm when I’m finally recognized as a customer living in X state and my cart is populated with the correct Y for me, it’ll be really cool.” They will go elsewhere, where the process is easiest and most convenient, immediately. This is exactly where investing in QA pays off.
When you buy a home, you know that you’ll have to pay property taxes and invest in homeowner’s insurance. It’s the same with building a website as the home for your eCommerce business. Having quality code developed is only one piece of the puzzle once you reach a certain point. Structure your budget planning accordingly, and you’ll set yourself up for long-term eCommerce success.