[intro] When you have completed this Guide, you will have successfully processed a Test Order on your EKM online shop, allowing you to fully experience the customer journey and check for any issues that may need addressing along the way. [/intro]

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Why do I need to place a Test Order?

There are lots of reasons you need to place a Test Order. These include:

  1. Checking that your Products and Categories are displaying correctly;
  2. Ensuring hyperlinked content redirects to the correct destination;
  3. Locating the URL of the Order Complete page;
  4. Customising the Checkout Flow;
  5. Checking that discounts trigger as intended;
  6. Ensuring that a third-party payment gateway works correctly.

[tips] If you are placing a Test Order which requires you to see an order through to completion - if you require the URL of the Order Complete page for example - then before you begin, you need to add an offline payment gateway to your EKM online shop if you do not have one added already. This ensures that you can ‘complete’ the order without having to use your own details to pay for anything.

The Fax offline Payment Gateway is ideal for this purpose as very few people use fax machines, so there’s less chance of customers choosing this in error should they be purchasing items from your EKM online shop at the same time as you completing your Test Order. When you have finished your Test Order, simply uninstall the Fax payment method. [/tips]

How to place a Test Order

To place a test order, you need to open an incognito/in-private browser tab. This ensures that any cookies saved in your current browser don’t affect the Test Order.

When you have opened the incognito/in-private browser, visit your EKM online shop via the domain name, as a customer would. Doing this allows you to check that your Products, Categories, Design Images and other content is displaying correctly. This is also a good opportunity to check any hyperlinked images or text take the visitor to the right place when clicked and that any third-party code is displaying correctly.

Customising the Checkout Flow

1. If you are in the process of customising the Checkout Flow on your EKM online shop, place an item in the Cart, visit the Cart Page and click the Checkout Securely button:

2. This will take you to the first page of the Checkout Flow where you can review the Checkout Steps, Logo size, colours and any backgrounds you’ve applied:

Order Complete Page URL

If you need to find out the URL of the Order Complete Page to use with analytics platforms - such as Google Analytics - then you need to have at least one offline Payment Gateway added to your EKM online shop before you begin.

[tips] If you do use an offline Payment Gateway on your EKM online shop normally, apply the Fax Payment Gateway for this purpose. [/tips]

1. Visit your shop using an incognito/in-private browser tab, place a Product into the Cart and navigate your way through the Checkout Flow, selecting the offline Payment Gateway as the chosen payment method, which will allow you to visit the Order Complete Page:

2. Once on this page, you need to copy the first part of the URL - which is not specific to your Test Order - from the address bar of the browser:

3. The URL in the example is:
evestestshop.com/index.asp?function=PAYMENTCOMPLETE&ordernumber=46%2F030119%2F13&ordertype=FAX&hash=84a71731a449d00fea4494701212914f&UN=ffcfab&M=0

4. You need to remove the parts of the URL which are specific to your Test Order, which is everything before the ‘PAYMENTCOMPLETE’ part. This will leave you with a URL which will look similar to this (but will include the domain name of your own EKM online shop):

evestestshop.com/index.asp?function=PAYMENTCOMPLETE

This URL above is the address of the Order Complete Page which you can then paste into an analytics platform of your choice.

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[contact] If you need our help with your EKM online shop, contact your Ecommerce Expert or the Customer Support Team, who will be able to point you in the right direction. We're open from 8am-6pm weekdays and 9am-5.30pm weekends. If you'd like to suggest a feature or an upgrade on any of the EKM platforms, please let us know on the EKM Suggestions Board. If you have a non-account-specific question to ask the EKM Team, join us in the EKM Community. [/contact]