Two tests that online store owners should do regularly

Do you own an online store with a shopping cart?  Have you tested the online sales process to include checkout and payment?

Many business owners do not actually try their entire online store shopping experience. This is not good.

I alway recommend that store owners regularly 1) go though a complete transaction process themselves and 2) have someone who represents the target market also test the process.

These simple two steps will often be real eye openers to problems, weaknesses and ideas for improvement.

But how do you actually test checkout without using a credit card and making a purchase? Putting a shopping cart into test mode can be such a pain.  Nobody likes to do the test and void purchase process.

Well, did you know that there are special credit card numbers available for testing your store.   To get the numbers you just have to ask your online merchant account provider.

Many online stores use authorize.net as their payment processors.  If you to use authorize.net they provide the following credit card number for testing:

Card number:  4111111111111111 

Use any expiration date 

Use the security ID 111 

This card number will work with any address / zip code, so you can run several tests.

So go test your store right now and experience what your customers are experiencing.  Do you see any areas for improvement?  Yeah, I thought so.