Ensuring Seamless Transactions: Your Guide to Overcoming Payment Testing Complexities

Arpita Goala , Content Marketing Manager

August 9th, 2024

“Sorry, we couldn’t process your payment. Please try again.”

It’s probably the most frustrating issue customers encounter. After all, they took the time to search for a product they wanted to purchase, made it all the way to checkout, and entered their information, only to have the transaction fail. If they’re like most online shoppers, chances are this experience left them frustrated enough to take their business elsewhere. 

This scenario is all too common and incredibly costly. Payment failures can erode customer trust, damage your brand’s reputation, and lead to significant revenue losses. In fact, 1 in 10 digital transactions fail, resulting in a staggering $1.1 trillion in lost revenue annually. But why is payment testing so complex, and how can you ensure your payment systems are seamless and reliable?

In this blog, we’ll explore why payment testing is challenging and what you can do to make it more efficient and effective. 

What Makes Payment Testing Challenging? 

Payment testing involves validating both visible elements (payment methods, banks, devices, and locations) and hidden technicalities (payment processors and gateways). Depending on your customers, visible and hidden parts of your payment flow can vastly differ by geography and preferences.

Unlike other testing types, all payment system components must be tested thoroughly to ensure various combinations function as intended, making it a multifaceted and often overwhelming task.

However, there are strategies you can incorporate to make testing payments less tedious. 

Navigating Payment Testing Complexities

What are some things you can do to transform your payment testing and ensure seamless transactions? Here are a few recommended approaches: 

1. Understand Testing Types: 

To ensure a more effective payment testing process, it’s first essential to understand various testing types and methodologies. In addition to traditional testing types like functional, regression, smoke testing, etc, payment testing also includes: 

Payment Gateway Testing

Testing payment gateways ensures seamless integration between the merchant’s system and various payment gateways. It involves evaluating the processing of various transaction types, including negative scenarios like refunds and returns. This type of testing also validates a payment gateway’s ability to handle different payment methods, route transactions, and verify data security.

Payment Method Verification

With the growing diversity of payment methods, it’s critical to ensure that your payment testing verifies that each method works correctly across all devices and platforms. Payment method verification checks both traditional forms of payment, such as bank cards, and new, alternative payment methods, like mobile wallets.

Payment Processing Testing

This testing takes an end-to-end approach to verify that the entire payment process functions correctly, from initiation to settlement, including testing POS systems, payment hardware functionality, software accuracy, and ensuring system reliability under various conditions.

Payment Validation Testing

Payment validation testing ensures the system correctly validates payment details, such as card numbers, expiration dates, and CVVs. This type of testing is crucial for preventing fraudulent transactions and ensuring data accuracy.

Localized Payment Testing

A global audience introduces unique regional regulations and preferences. Localized payment testing is the process of testing regional compliance with local payment regulations, tax calculations, and preferences, including accurate currency exchange rates and correct symbols for different currencies.

Cryptocurrency Testing

As cryptocurrencies become more mainstream, this testing type verifies the accuracy of blockchain transactions, ensures secure storage and transfer of digital assets, and validates compliance with evolving regulatory standards.

Subscription Testing

For businesses that rely on subscription models, ensuring accurate and timely billing is crucial to maintaining customer trust and steady revenue streams. Subscription testing verifies the functionality of recurring payment systems and ensures correct subscription processing, accurate billing cycles, and timely notifications.

Onsite Testing

Onsite testing ensures that physical payment systems, such as those used in retail stores, function correctly, providing a reliable and seamless in-person payment experience.

Payment API Verification

Payment APIs are critical for integrating various payment functionalities. This testing type ensures API integrations’ reliability for inbound and outbound transactions. It involves testing for data accuracy, security, and performance, including Pay-In verification (payments through apps/web links) and Pay-Out verification (receiving funds through banking or wallet systems).

2. Prioritizing Test Cases Based on Criticality

Not all test cases are created equal. Since testing everything isn’t ideal or the best use of your time,  focus on the most critical aspects of your payment system first:

• High-Risk: Prioritize scenarios that, if failed, could have significant impacts, such as large transactions or sensitive data transfers.
• Business-Critical: These scenarios are core to your business and can cause significant disruptions.
• Highly Regulated: Situations that impact your compliance are critical to test to ensure customer trust. 

3. Using Real Devices, Methods, and Users

While many companies see simulators and device clouds as a way to make testing efficient, the truth is that simulated environments often fall short of capturing real-world payment variables such as network latency and localized security issues. By using real devices, methods and users, you can significantly enhance the accuracy and relevance of your payment testing.

Benefits of testing in real-world conditions include: 

• Replicating the Actual User Environment: Different devices have varying hardware capabilities, operating systems, screen sizes, and network conditions, all of which can impact how payment processes are executed. Real devices allow you to test how your payment system performs in the exact conditions that your customers will experience. 
• Accurately Representing Transaction Flows: Using real payment methods and performing actual transactions during testing can give you better insights into your transaction flows and the challenges your users might encounter. 
• Capturing Real-World Variables: Real users interact with payment systems in unpredictable ways and can uncover issues that may be missed in simulated environments. Testing with real users helps identify and understand how usability issues and edge cases affect the payment process. 
• Ensuring Security and Compliance: Testing with real devices also helps identify potential vulnerabilities that might not be apparent in controlled environments.
• Improving User Experience: Real users provide invaluable feedback on the user experience, highlighting areas where the payment process may be confusing or cumbersome. This insight allows you to improve the overall customer journey, leading to higher satisfaction and lower abandonment rates.

4. Leveraging External Expertise

Payment testing demands specialized and niche skill sets that can be difficult to maintain in-house. Leveraging external expertise from partners like Testlio can provide significant advantages:

• Specialized Skill Sets: Payment testing requires a deep understanding of various payment technologies, regulations, and security standards. External experts often keep up with new methodologies and technologies, ensuring thorough and effective testing. 
• Diverse Testing Environments: External partners provide you access to a wide range of devices, operating systems, and network conditions to ensure your testing meets consumer needs and preferences.
• Global Reach: Some partners can offer global, in-location testers to help you test your payment systems across different regions and markets, ensuring compatibility and compliance with local regulations and payment methods.
• Scalability: By leveraging a crowdsourced or outsourced testing vendor, you can quickly scale your testing efforts to handle peak times or major product launches without additional in-house resources.
• Fresh Perspective: External testers bring a fresh perspective, often spotting issues that in-house teams might overlook due to familiarity with the system.

Final Advice: Build a Comprehensive Payment Testing Strategy

The success of the best practices mentioned above hinges on your overall approach to payment testing. Without a well-thought-out and comprehensive strategy, you risk missing critical errors in your payment flow and frustrating your customers. 

So, what does an effective payment testing strategy include? Download our ebook, “From Glitch to Gold: Advanced Payment Testing Strategies for Engineering Leaders,” and discover how you can create a payment experience that customers will love and trust.