[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.

Testing Discounts

1. To test if any discounts you have created within the Discount Management feature work correctly, you need to place items into the Cart (especially if the discount is item specific) and navigate your way to the Cart Page.

2. If you have ticked the Promo Codes box on the Cart Page within the Settings of your EKM online shop, like this:

3. You will be able to add your coupon code on the Cart Page to quickly see if it works 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:

Testing a third-party Payment Gateway

If you have installed a third-party Payment Gateway - such as Paypal or ClearAccept for example - it’s essential that you test it out to ensure that it works and everything has been configured properly.

1. Before you begin, it’s a good idea to create a Test Product on your EKM online shop that is a small amount as you will need to pay for this item in order to test out the Payment Gateway - you can always delete the item once your testing is completed.

2. You then need to visit your EKM online shop using an incognito/in-private browser tab and purchase the Test Product, as if you were a real customer. Make sure you use don’t use any details which pertain to you as the shop owner (using your own Paypal email address to pay using a Paypal Payment Gateway set up with the same email address, for example).

Ideally, have a friend or partner in the same room complete the purchase using their own details - which provides a more realistic experience and allows you to see exactly what your customers will experience when using that same Payment Gateway themselves.

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 Account Manager or Customer Support, who will be able to point you in the right direction. We're open from 8am-6pm weekdays and 9am-5.30pm on the 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 ask the EKM Team, join us in EKM Community.  [/contact]