Blog

Will your website survive black friday and cyber monday?

a1qa specialists give the last-minute recommendations to check if your website is ready for the increased amount of visitors.
23 November 2016
Cybersecurity testing
Performance testing
Web app testing
Article by a1qa
a1qa

After Thanksgiving Thursday, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are coming. According to Deloitte’s annual survey, more consumers than ever are planning to shop online for gifts this season with many retailers bringing their deals from real stores to their cyber world websites.

a1qa specialists give the last-minute recommendations on website QA testing that helps to check if your website is ready for the increased amount of visitors.

Here are the things you can do right now to prepare for holiday shoppers and not to miss out on post-Thanksgiving revenue.

Performance management

  • Plan auto scaling of resources.

Auto scaling is a technique used in cloud computing that helps handle the unexpected traffic spikes.

Don’t wait until the influx of traffic crashes your website. It’s better to predict the days of peak data and allocate, for example, +10 virtual machines to deal with the increased and then decreased back-end capacity to meet traffic fluctuation levels.

  • Increase the website capacity.

Use the analytics to compare the current and the planned system peak loads. Address your web hosting provider and ask about the traffic limitations and how much it will cost to use an upgraded server for the given period of time. As a rule, a better server can help handle increased traffic and sustained volume.

  • Optimize speed and improve client-side performance.

Statistically, the average time for a website to display is 3.9 seconds. Your visitors may not want to wait longer to see your discount offers, especially if they are using mobile devices for shopping. So make sure that you have optimized the website speed. This may be achieved by improving the client-side performance. Shrink the size of the CSS, shorten the JavaScript, compress the images. There are many free online tools to find the possible places and recommendations for improvement: PageSpeed Insights, WebPagetest.org, etc.

Data security

Security issues are also highly important as shoppers want to be sure that their payment data will be kept safe.

  • Scan the website for viruses.

Very often the website owners think about making their resource safer when the worst has happened: the traffic has fallen and the users caught the virus. Don’t wait for this. Scan the website using one of the free online tools (VirusTotal, for example). It will help detect errors, malware, spyware, etc. It’s a tedious process but it usually gets the job done.

  • Enable SSL.

SSL is a commonly-used protocol that guarantees safe data transmission on the Internet. If SSl is encrypted, there’ll be a lock symbol in the url address line. The lock is associated with security and your visitors will know that their confidential data is safe and there is no risk of leakage.

If you haven’t enabled SSL encryption yet, address your web hosting provider and ask what SSL certificates they provide and what services go along.

  • Check the web server basic configuration.

Errors in server configuration often result in major security vulnerabilities and may be the root cause of confidential data leakage. Pay attention to the following. How does the server process the reported errors?  Are there any confidential files available (backup copies, for example) in the root directory? Explore your HTTP security headers and ensure you are keeping up with best practices.

By taking these urgent measures you’ll get better performance of your e-commerce website and get the richly deserved profit.

However, it’s always better to take such important steps in advance and address the professional QA team. They will run full-cycle testing of your web resource while you’ll have to calculate the holiday profit. Sounds great?

Happy Thanksgiving and Biggest-Ever Sales!

More Posts

Why do bugs get missed
27 September 2024,
by a1qa
7 min read
Why do bugs get missed? Learn the problems and tips to avoid them
Still, finding overlooked bugs after the app goes live? Let’s find out why this happens and how to fix it.
Performance testing
QA consulting
Quality assurance
Test automation
QA for retail software
29 August 2024,
by a1qa
4 min read
QA to address key pain points in retail 
Explore how QA helps address the main challenges that retailers face when developing software.
Cybersecurity testing
Functional testing
Performance testing
Usability testing
QA to ensure smooth migration to the cloud
15 August 2024,
by a1qa
3 min read
QA to ensure smooth migration to the cloud
Learn how effectively migrate to the cloud by implementing QA activities.
Functional testing
General
Migration testing
Performance testing
Quality assurance
Test automation
QA for fintech
7 May 2024,
by a1qa
5 min read
Navigating the fintech frontier in 2024: QA’s role in delivering high-quality financial software 
Unveil the future of fintech innovations and learn to refine their quality with the help of software testing.
Blockchain app testing
Cybersecurity testing
Quality assurance
Shift-left testing for better software performance
25 April 2024,
by a1qa
4 min read
Optimizing software performance with shift-left testing
Still in doubt whether to include performance testing from the initial development stages? Learn the benefits companies obtain with shift-left performance testing.
Performance testing
QA consulting
Quality assurance
Test automation
Telecom trends 2024
15 April 2024,
by a1qa
5 min read
QA’s role in adopting telecom trends for 2024 
Let’s dive into the transformative trends set to redefine the telco industry in 2024 and discover QA strategies to adopt them with precision.
Cloud-based testing
Cybersecurity testing
Functional testing
General
Migration testing
Performance testing
QA trends
Quality assurance
Test automation
On the pulse of 2024: optimizing the adoption of eHealth trends with QA
15 February 2024,
by a1qa
4 min read
On the pulse of 2024: optimizing the adoption of eHealth trends with QA
Generative AI, cybersecurity, AR/VR — come and explore how these trends are reshaping the future of healthcare and how QA helps implement them with confidence.
Cybersecurity testing
Functional testing
Performance testing
QA trends
Navigating the future: QA trends that will define 2024. Part 2
30 January 2024,
by a1qa
4 min read
Navigating the future: QA trends that will define 2024. Part 2
We continue exploring QA trends, helping businesses remain competitive in 2024.
Cloud-based testing
Cybersecurity testing
QA trends
Quality assurance
The year in valuable conversations: recapping 2023 a1qa’s roundtables for IT executives 
8 December 2023,
by a1qa
3 min read
The year in valuable conversations: recapping 2023 a1qa’s roundtables for IT executives 
From dissecting novel industry trends to navigating effective ways of enhancing software quality — let’s recall all a1qa’s roundtables. Join us!
Big data testing
Cybersecurity testing
Functional testing
General
Interviews
Performance testing
QA trends
Quality assurance
Test automation
Usability testing
Web app testing

Get in touch

Please fill in the required field.
Email address seems invalid.
Please fill in the required field.
We use cookies on our website to improve its functionality and to enhance your user experience. We also use cookies for analytics. If you continue to browse this website, we will assume you agree that we can place cookies on your device. For more details, please read our Privacy and Cookies Policy.