Introduction
Testing is vital to providing the greatest possible user experience for your customers.
As a developer, you understand how crucial it is to keep websites safe from hackers. It is simple to click the update button and check out the new modifications that have been made to the website. However, if your client’s business has a crash at an inopportune moment, you are aware of how large a loss this represents.
If you want to improve your website’s functioning, testing out new features, plugins, and themes is a fantastic idea. However, there are risks involved if you test your live WooCommerce website, and you may break your website.
That is why having a staging site is a good idea, especially if you run an online store or develop WooCommerce sites day in and out.
WooCommerce Development And Need for Testing
Imagine you’re building a car; before you let someone drive it, you’d want to ensure it works properly, right? The same goes for your online store.
Testing a WooCommerce store in a development environment is like checking if all the parts of your store are working correctly before taking it live.
Testing for eCommerce websites is of paramount importance due to several critical reasons.
- eCommerce sites handle critical information and transactions, managing sensitive personal and financial data. Any data breach will be very damaging to the reputation of the store.
- User experience is very important, and any glitches or slow load times will negatively impact your conversion rates.
- eCommerce stores often use third-party services and many plugins. Ensuring everything is compatible with each other is crucial for smooth functionality.
The consequences of inadequate testing in eCommerce can be detrimental:
Lost Revenue: Testing helps prevent issues that lead to abandoned shopping carts, incomplete transactions, and decreased sales.
Reputation Damage: Poor user experiences, security breaches, and other issues can harm a company’s reputation, making customers less likely to return.
Legal and Financial Consequences: Data breaches can lead to legal battles, fines, and compensation to affected customers.
Operational Costs: Fixing issues post-launch is often more expensive than addressing them during testing.
Missed Opportunities: Sites that don’t perform well may lose potential customers who turn to competitors with better websites.
Testing Checklist for WooCommerce Developers
Testing is vital for eCommerce sites because they deal with sensitive transactions, complex functionality, and high traffic. Neglecting testing can result in financial losses, damage to reputation, and legal consequences that can be avoided with thorough testing procedures.
While logged out:
- Check every single product page and see if the products are being added to the cart.
- Verify the pagination on your product page.
- Check if the variable attributes are selectable.
- Check the cart page to see if the products are being added successfully.
- Check if the product counter is functioning correctly and can add more than one product.
- Please proceed to the checkout and verify if it redirects you to the page where you can input all the required details.
- Check to see if you receive all the order emails by going to your email account.
- Finalize your testing by placing a dummy order.
While Logged in:
- Check if orders are being received ultimately.
- Verify if the order confirmation emails are sent successfully to the customers.
The smartest approach is to employ a WordPress staging site, or use the WordPress sandbox tool. It acts as your safe playground for testing and rolling out significant changes.
How To Test a WooCommerce Website
Creating a staging environment used to be a time-consuming and often complex task. This is where InstaWP comes into play. InstaWP allows individuals, whether they are developers, designers, or bloggers, to efficiently create staging sites for their WordPress websites.
InstaWP allows you to merge your WordPress site (i.e., Live site and staging site) changes via the sync feature. If you test or make any changes/upgradation on the staging site, the sync process allows you to reflect changes in the live site.
InstaWP simplifies creating staging sites with just a few clicks. No matter where you host your website, you just need to create an account on InstaWP, install the InstaWP Connect plugin on your live site, and sync to create a clone of your live site on a temporary URL inside InstaWP.
How To Create a Staging of your Live WooCommerce Site
Step 1: Signup for InstaWP
InstaWP allows you to create a 15-day free trial account, and you can create staging sites easily using it. If you prefer to maintain your staging sites permanently, there is an option to upgrade your account later.
Step 2. Add a new WooCommerce site.
After logging in, you will see the dashboard as shown in the screenshot below. Click on “Add New” or “+ New Site” to begin creating a staging site.
There are many pre-defined plugins, themes, and template options we can use to create our first live WooCommerce site
Create a “New site” with one click, and now the world is open, and you can see many options here. You can select security, Social media plugins, WooCommerce, forms, etc, as pre-build installation. Choose further options, install them, and click the “Create Site” Button.
With an eye-blinking moment, your live website is ready, and you can access the newly created site instantly.
Step 3: Installing InstaWP Connect plugin on the Live Site
To connect your staging site that we just created in step 2, we must install the InstaWP Connect plugin on your live site.
To install InstaWP Connect Plugin, start by logging in to the live (Production) website
Go To Plugins and click on “Add New.” Now, you can easily find it through searching InstaWP. Once there, click “Install Now” and then click “Activate.
Go to the Plugin Section and click at “Create Staging”
You should connect this plugin and our web portal on the following screen. Click on the “Connect” button to initiate the subsequent process.
You will be taken to a window to approve the connection request.
After establishing a connection, you can create staging from the live (Production) Website.
Here is the choice of creating a staging
- Quick Staging
- Full staging
- Custom staging
After selecting your choice, you can also select what table and data you want to copy from the live website.
After selection, the choice can follow the Next Step.
Step 4: Testing your WooCommerce Site
Now,, you can see that the magic “InstaWP Connect Plugin” starts creating a copy of your live website to the InstaWP portal. Make any changes on the staging environment, even if you can migrate the existing WooCommerce website to a different domain and up to free trial around 3 staging of any e-commerce websites.
Step 5: Merging the changes to the live site using 2-way sync
Most importantly, when creating the staging website with InstaWP, and if you have done all changes on the staging site.
Use the Sync(Beta) feature to copy all changes from staging to the live website.
Benefits of Testing WooCommerce with InstaWP
Testing WooCommerce with InstaWP offers several advantages for developers who want to ensure a smooth and reliable online store.
1- It is easy to create staging from your live website without messing with your hosting.
2- Keep the live store safe from any new changes/upgrades or any testing.
3- Test any plugin on the InstaWP staging site.
4- Test on a live URL and know exactly how your site behaves.
InstaWP Features
InstaWP offers a wide range of features designed to simplify the process of creating staging sites for testing WooCommerce and other types of WordPress websites. Here are some of the key features of InstaWP:
1. Easy Site Setup: InstaWP provides a user-friendly interface that makes it simple to create staging sites for your WordPress and WooCommerce projects. It’s suitable for developers, designers, and bloggers.
2. Free Staging Sites: You can create staging sites for free, which allows you to test changes without affecting your live site. If you need permanent staging sites, you can upgrade your account.
3. Custom Configurations: InstaWP allows you to create WordPress sites with various versions and PHP settings. You can also save preset configurations for different projects.
4. One-Click Cloning: The platform lets you clone your live site with just one click, making the staging setup process quick and hassle-free.
5. Free SSL: InstaWP offers free SSL certificates for all browsers, ensuring a secure environment for your staging sites.
6. Boilerplate Websites: You can set up a boilerplate website to save time, especially if you manage multiple sites with similar configurations.
7. SFTP and SSH: InstaWP allows you to easily enable or disable SFTP or SSH access, making it convenient for developers who need to edit code or access logs.
8. Multiple Staging Sites: With InstaWP, you can create and manage multiple staging sites, each with its unique URL, offering flexibility for different projects.
9. Migration Support: You can migrate staging sites to different domains or hosts, simplifying the process of moving changes to your live website.
10. Git Integration: InstaWP lets you connect to Git repositories, whether they are public or private, making it easier to manage version control for your projects.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, making minor changes to your WooCommerce website might seem easy until it results in massive damage to your website. Even the slightest wrong code will disrupt the whole live website, and you face great loss.
Therefore, Instawp, a sandbox for WooCommerce in this case, comes to the rescue and allows the developer a platform where they can use and test different themes and plugins before making changes on the live website.
Comprehensive testing is required to provide a glitch-free user experience and a seamless transaction procedure due to the sophisticated nature of WooCommerce development.
FAQ’s
1. How can I test a WooCommerce store in staging with the least effort?
You can effortlessly test your WooCommerce store in a staging environment by using InstaWP. With just a few clicks, InstaWP allows you to create a clone of your live site on a temporary URL, ensuring that your testing efforts are both efficient and hassle-free.
2. How can I test a client site (WooCommerce) without affecting the live site?
When it comes to testing a client’s WooCommerce site without any risk to the live website, InstaWP is your solution. By creating a staging site using InstaWP, you can perform comprehensive testing, make necessary changes, and provide your clients with a secure and risk-free environment for evaluating their WooCommerce site.
3. How does InstaWP simplify the process of testing WooCommerce sites compared to other methods?
InstaWP simplifies the testing process for WooCommerce sites by offering a user-friendly interface that enables you to create staging sites with just a few clicks. Unlike traditional methods that often require complex setup and maintenance, InstaWP allows you to sync your live site with a staging environment seamlessly, saving you time and effort in the testing process.
4. Can I use InstaWP to test WooCommerce stores with complex features and multiple plugins?
Yes, InstaWP is an excellent choice for testing complex WooCommerce stores. It allows you to create a staging site that mirrors your live site, including all the features and plugins you’ve installed. You can thoroughly test your WooCommerce store confidently, ensuring that even the most intricate features and third-party plugins work harmoniously in the staging environment before applying changes to your live site.
