Performance Check: Quality assurance for long-term composable commerce success

Composability promises to be the solution to many challenges in the e-commerce and digital industry. However, those who aim for a MACH architecture and want to be successful with the concept of composable commerce need more than a modular tech stack. In our five-part series, experts shed light on the potential and often overlooked hurdles of composable commerce projects from a business, user and technology perspective.

Part 1: From buzzword to business strategy

In the third edition, we show what is important in the quality assurance (QA) of composable commerce systems and how you can gain a long-term competitive advantage through continuous quality assurance.

Quality assurance: core discipline for composable commerce success

Hardly any newly implemented system runs completely error-free and smoothly from the start. The larger the digitalization project and the resulting system landscape, the more extensive the potential sources of error. Accordingly, the pitfalls in a modular, often granular tech stack of composable commerce projects are diverse.

If you want to gain more speed, efficiency and future security in the long term via a customized composable architecture, there is no way around careful quality assurance.  

With strategy to quality assurance of your composable commerce system

QA measures in the form of software tests aim to identify and eliminate errors and potential security vulnerabilities that were overlooked in the development phase at an early stage. They therefore contribute to the long-term stability, performance and reliability of the systems.

However, the quality assurance of a composable commerce architecture entails special requirements resulting from the modular nature of the system landscape. All newly implemented functions, services and APIs must undergo quality assurance – both before go-live and during subsequent extensions and updates. Due to the multitude of components alone, QA in composable commerce requires a well thought-out test strategy that is carefully planned and executed.

What is important for the quality assurance of composable commerce

To minimize the risk of errors during testing, a comprehensive test plan is developed at the beginning that covers all components and interfaces of the composable commerce architecture. Subsequent QA measures include a series of automated and manual tests along all development and implementation phases – from integration tests that check the connections between services to end-to-end tests that map the customer experience from the front-end interface to the back-end system.

By combining automated and manual tests, it is ensured that each service functions smoothly not only on its own, but also in conjunction with other services.

5 tests for consistent performance, efficiency and reliability

The most important steps and measures of quality assurance for composable commerce systems include the following test areas:

1. Integration tests
   As composable commerce is based on the integration of various microservices and APIs, integration tests are essential. Scenarios that mimic relevant user interactions are played out for this purpose. This ensures that the individual components communicate smoothly with each other, data is transferred correctly, and all processes run as planned.
   
2. Performance and load tests
   Scalability, responsiveness and performance are critical aspects of composable commerce systems. To meet these requirements in the long term, the entire system is checked in performance and load tests under various load scenarios. This ensures that the system functions efficiently and reliably even under peak loads. The tests help to identify bottlenecks at an early stage and adjust the infrastructure accordingly to ensure consistently high performance.
   
3. Test automation
   Given the complexity and dynamics of composable commerce systems, test automation is a key factor in saving time, minimizing errors and increasing testing efficiency. Automating QA and DevOps processes enables constant testing and updating of individual services. The advantage: new functions and updates can be introduced promptly without jeopardizing the stability of the overall system or even risking outages.
   
4. End-to-end tests
   Despite the separation of front-end and back-end in composable commerce systems, end-to-end tests must be conducted to verify the entire user experience. This includes testing the applications on various end devices.
   
5. Monitoring and logging
   Central monitoring and logging ensure that all activities and performance data of the services are recorded. This allows problems to be identified and resolved quickly. At the same time, IT teams gain valuable insights for further optimization of the system. A comprehensive monitoring and logging process should be set up during the development or testing phase.