Black Friday – a term synonymous with mass quick sales. With its origin in the U.S. during Thanks Giving, Holiday Season, it has spread far and wide to every continent due to the globalization & specifically, the expansion of U.S. retail. In 2020, U.S. Black Friday sales reached US $9 Bn on a single day – a monetary value that is far greater than many countries’ GDP. In this scenario, not many of us might think-deep on the marketing strategy in which retail giants operate; or the many ways in which software testers might have to fortify their testing strategy.

Black Friday sales or any sales in general have aspects that work in tandem to clinch conversion & sales. Let us deconstruct the usual online shopping for a better understanding of the marketing strategies that are deployed by retailers across the globe.

• Orders placed will be stored and analyzed
• Based on purchasing history, sites would automatically suggest items that are related or associated to it.
• Leads will be pushed to conversion through strategic prompting – “xx items left”, “deal ends in xx hours” etc.
• Deals must be closed in a time bound fashion.

More conversion time, not only results in consumers losing their interest, but enterprises also have an operational cost wherein, they need to beat the competition quickly. Quick turnaround is essential.

Software testers need to align their test strategies with the marketing campaign that are deployed by the retailers. The onus lies on testers to ensure that all these strategies are understood in discussions with the business and can be deployed on a real time basis. Before a sale could go live, they need to check for all the deployable sales & conversion strategies.

• Testers need to create a synthetic data on order (search & purchase) history.
• Once created, they need to keep a tab on the required and expected suggestions.
• They need to monitor the results and check for any deviations; such tasks will also let them know if the products are classified and tagged accordingly.
• Many sites have the option to compare products. Testers need to ensure that chosen products are compared in terms of features, pricing, ratings, warranty, support, etc. and this history reflects in the suggestions.
• This will greatly improve user experience which in turn will drive up the sales and conversion.

Above all testers need to first and foremost, understand the user behavior, expectations and look to simulate it while testing a site. Having a precise understanding will allow them to mimic the user pattern and this in turn will help them in a thorough end-to-end testing of the application/platform/site.

There is no point in advertising items in general since it will yield in poor conversion. The needs of one individual does not mirror the needs of another. Having a blanket sales advertisements on a single item will not work since the consumer need varies – television, mobile, kitchen appliances etc. Hence, individual experience is necessary to not just enrich customer experience & retention but also to heighten the conversion rates.

It is common for testers to concentrate on various aspects of performance during peak workloads, but very often, testers tend to overlook the basic functionalities of an application. These everyday aspects of an online shopping site will ensure that brands are able to live up to their reputation, as well as improve sales & profit.

Marketers very often undermine the value of software testing & vice versa. In reality, understanding the marketing campaign and designing the software testing effectively can give further yield in Black Friday sales. One cannot surpass the value of another; like two sides of the same coin.