Maria Homann
If your business is built on Shopify’s ecommerce platform, and you rely on that business for revenue, you probably want to check that processes like orders and payments work as intended. For that, you can use test automation.
Automated testing can give you the confidence that your webshop is fully functioning at all times. Rather than manually testing business-critical processes like payment every now and then, you can schedule and run these tests on a regular basis with test automation.
Test automation not only removes tedious testing tasks, but also helps you assure quality. It can even give you a competitive advantage by improving customer experiences (we all know how a buggy user experience or website down time can create a dissatisfying shopping experience and keep us from coming back).
So the question is, which automation tool should you choose?
Testing Shopify with Selenium
Shopify is a web application, and there are countless options out there for web automation. Some are paid, some are free. Usually, what you pay for is what you get. And if it’s free, you can count on spending hours learning the tool, or paying expensive consultants to.
Read more: Guide to Web Automation: Everything you need to know about automating web-based tests and processes
Although Selenium test automation is a free, open-source tool, it’ll cost you down the line, and it’s therefore not always the best option.
Selenium not only has a steep learning curve, it’s also quite the monster to maintain.
Why? Because it’s code-based, and therefore requires solid programming skills in one of the supported programming languages, such as C# or Python.
Not all testers are programmers
Very few testers are programmers, meaning you will need to upskill them, hire specialist Selenium testers, or get developers to work on testing (which few developers will find appealing). All these options are quite expensive, which defeats the purpose of acquiring a free Shopify testing tool in the first place.
In addition to the start-up costs of Selenium, you can also expect sky-high maintenance costs. With a code-based solution, maintenance requires scanning through lines of code to find a glitch, not to mention the trouble of fixing code that was written perhaps months or even years ago.
Get the whitepaper: Selenium Automation? Everything you need to know to decide if Selenium is the right automation tool for you.
Finding an easy-to-use automation tool
If automation is on the broader agenda of your business, because you want to reap the benefits of increased productivity, reduced costs, and reduced risks, you might also want to consider investing in an automation tool that will meet your future needs.
Selenium doesn’t automate anything outside the browser. So that’s another reason to steer clear of this tool if you wish to automate any desktop applications, virtual applications, legacy systems or cloud platforms in the future.
With all of this in mind, Selenium is still a strong automation solution, it’s just lacking a few fundamental capabilities that will make it a good investment. The good news is that those lacking capabilities are made up for in other web automation solutions, such as Leapwork.
Codeless automation for Shopify
Leapwork can be used to automate your Shopify tests, and it doesn’t require any coding whatsoever. It uses Selenium ‘under the hood’, hiding unnecessary complexity, and instead letting you automate through an easy-to-use no-code interface.
In addition to being code-free, Leapwork also offers a series of advantages to businesses who are looking for long term gains from automation.
Learn how to build great online experiences with automated web testing in our whitepaper: Automated testing for Ecommerce.
