Applause Announces the 2019 Retail Quality Report

Includes best practices to help retailers thrive in peak holiday season Company finds 65 bugs cost retailers more than $60 million in lost holiday sales

Applause, the worldwide leader in digital quality and crowdsourced testing, today released its new report highlighting the digital and omnichannel mistakes that plagued some of the world’s top retailers during the holiday season. The report, titled The 2019 Retail Quality Report: Global Insights from the Holiday Shopping Season, provides retailers with six key recommendations and best practices to prepare for the 2019 season.

The report leverages primary research from Applause’s industry-leading community of software testers and usability experts. Testing took place from Black Friday through December of 2018. Applause’s community completed functional and user experience testing on more than 50 top global retail ecommerce sites. In addition, the testers went through a specific omnichannel journey (buy online, return in store) in the US, UK, and Germany to compare the omnichannel experiences of each country.

Applause identified more than 3,000 software bugs and UX issues, many of which impacted retail revenues during peak shopping periods. In fact, just 65 bugs cost retailers more than $60 million in holiday sales.

“These results show retailers aren’t doing enough to meet customer expectations, especially during key junctures of the holiday season,” said Kristin Simonini, VP of Product at Applause. “We see this as a global problem. Retailers aren’t designing digital experiences with customers in mind and the overall quality of these experiences is lacking. Learning from these mistakes and putting more emphasis on testing will help retailers prepare for peak periods this year.”

Other key findings from the report include:

• A single severe bug cost, on average, $915,240 when left in production for 14 days
• Over half (53%) of all bugs found were classified as severe
• Communication breakdowns threatened omnichannel experiences, and many shoppers weren’t able to find in-store areas to return items bought online
• The most dangerous bugs were found in shopping carts, product pages, and account pages

Additional Resources:

• Download the full report
• Visit Applause’s Retail Resource Center
• Read the blog about the report
• Watch the webinar for more on the results

To request more information about the report, its findings, and methodology, contact pr@applause.com.

About Applause

Applause is a world leader in testing and digital quality. Brands today win or lose customers through digital interactions, and Applause delivers authentic feedback on the quality of digital assets and experiences, provided by real users in real-world settings. Our disruptive approach harnesses the power of the Applause platform and leverages the uTest community of more than one million independent digital testers worldwide. Unlike traditional testing methods (including lab-based and offshoring), Applause responds with the speed, scale and flexibility that digital-focused brands require and expect. Applause provides insightful, actionable testing results that can directly inform go/no go release decisions, helping development teams build better and faster, and release with confidence. Digital-first brands rely on Applause as a best practice to deliver the digital experiences their customers love.

Learn more at www.applause.com.