SurfStich Case Study

THE CLIENT

SurfStitch Group is an industry leading online global action sports and youth culture network that has evolved from a pure-play online retailer to become a destination for customers to connect with everything action sports related. Together, SurfStitch Group’s websites serve a unique customer audience of over 6 million, representing a digital ecosystem capable of capturing and influencing all points of the surf and action sports lifestyle cycle.

BUSINESS CHALLENGES

SurfStitch Group’s online retail business serves clients in Europe, Asia, and North America, and needs to be able to process transactions in multiple currencies, handle deliveries and returns, as well as requiring daily updates to display promotions and new products. With regression testing needed across all of the leading browsers and devices, effort levels began to skyrocket as the business rapidly grew. SurfStitch needed a QA partner to balance their testing loads and after searching globally, selected XBOSoft to augment their regression testing QA team.

THE XBOSOFT SOLUTION

Partnering with XBOSoft enabled SurfStitch to benefit from a wide range of XBOSoft’s software testing solutions and expertise, such as:

Full Regression and Test Management

Serving customers globally with complex retail offerings that changed daily imposed strict performance tolerances. This made targeted regression testing imperative even for small releases. XBOSoft’s experience in test management and processes significantly compressed the testing time while still ensuring the appropriate feature coverage depending on the release contents.

Payment Testing

Testing payments is one of the most critical functions in E-commerce, yet probably one of the most difficult elements because there are so many potential mistakes that a user can make. XBO employed a negative testing strategy along with security and confirmations to ensure a positive and interruption-free experience along the payment process.

Mobile and Website Testing

The SurfStitch user E-commerce experience starts and stops with a mobile device and/or website. These ecosystems have diverse hardware, software, and network configurations under constant change as new devices, browsers, and operating system versions are being constantly updated. XBO developed a mobile testing strategy utilizing a matrix QA model that successfully ensured proper coverage and quality control.

Usability Testing

This often-overlooked facet of testing is taken for granted by many companies that don’t realize that any friction or slightest confusion could cost them a sale. XBO utilized ‘Click-oriented’ heuristic tests and error prevention analysis to reduce friction while keeping customers on the path to completing their purchase.

Compatibility Testing

XBO had to address browser compatibility, operating system compatibility, mobile compatibility, printing options and the possibility of a user starting the purchase path on one device and completing it on another.

THE RESULTS

Software Type	Platform or Tools Used	What We Did	Type of Testing	Results
Website	Desktop: IE, Chrome, Firefox on Windows Safari on Mac OS Mobile: Safari on iOS Chrome on Android	Execute Positive and negative testing to ensure site functionality Ensure the compatibility of websites across a matrix of browser and operating system combinations Ensure the usability of websites for critical user scenarios including payment, product search, and cart operations Wrote test cases and executed selective and targeted regression tests on each release version depending on the change content Reported and tracked quality metrics to gauge test effectiveness and overall quality improvement of the testing process and product quality.	Manual Testing	Increased test coverage to over 90% of website functionality 11% decline in customer service issues Improved Conversion Rate by 7% Through well-designed test cases addressing usability, compatibility, and robustness, many issues adversely affecting the user experience were identified and corrected

Software Type

Platform or Tools Used

What We Did

Type of Testing

Results

Website

Desktop:

IE, Chrome, Firefox on Windows
Safari on Mac OS

Mobile:

Safari on iOS
Chrome on Android

Execute Positive and negative testing to ensure site functionality
Ensure the compatibility of websites across a matrix of browser and operating system combinations
Ensure the usability of websites for critical user scenarios including payment, product search, and cart operations
Wrote test cases and executed selective and targeted regression tests on each release version depending on the change content
Reported and tracked quality metrics to gauge test effectiveness and overall quality improvement of the testing process and product quality.

Manual Testing

Increased test coverage to over 90% of website functionality
11% decline in customer service issues
Improved Conversion Rate by 7%
Through well-designed test cases addressing usability, compatibility, and robustness, many issues adversely affecting the user experience were identified and corrected

CLIENT TESTIMONIALS

“XBOSoft delivered way more than we ever expected. They really did set up a structured QA process that has allowed us to scale while still delivering quality software for our retail site and mobile app.”

QA Manager, SurfStitch

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