New Retail Quality Report Finds More than 3000 Bugs on Top Ecommerce Sites

With the 2018 holiday shopping season in the books, retailers are already turning their attention to this year’s peak periods. The 2019 Retail Quality Report: Global Insights from the Holiday Shopping Season, a new report from Applause, found top retailers left plenty of money on the table because of poor digital and omnichannel experiences in 2018, something they’ll want to fix this year.

1 bug can cost almost $1 million in 14 days

The research report, which leveraged testing and feedback from Applause’s community of digital quality experts, evaluated the functional, user experience (UX), and omnichannel maturity of the world’s top retailers.

In total, Applause found more than 3,000 software bugs during the testing. What’s more, the cost of these bugs was unexpected and, in some cases, extremely high. In fact, for 10 of the top US retailers, more than $60 million in holiday season sales were potentially lost because of just 65 high-severity bugs.

65 bugs cost retailers $65 million in sales

The UK had the most problems with bugs as 45% of all bugs were found there. Germany didn’t offer as robust features and so didn’t leave itself open to as many functional issues. The chart below shows the percentage of bugs found in each country by severity level.

Chart comparing US, Germany, and UK bug severity breakdown

Each country was rated on its performance during the December Shopping period, receiving a score based on the amount and severity of bugs, as well as the feedback given by shoppers.

United States: 7.8. The US was strongest in UX but was weaker than Germany in functional maturity, having minor bugs in its advanced functionality.
Germany: 7.4. Germany was very strong in functionality but weak in UX. It also had the lowest rated score for mobile apps and some key features were missing.
United Kingdom: 6.6. UK retailers struggled to meet customer demands in both UX and functionality, particularly when it came to product pages and mobile apps.

Overall, functionality was a key concern for retailers in all countries, with errors in functionality occurring at a high rate, as shown in the graphic below.

functionality bug severity; US 49%, Germany 25%, UK 49%

Usability experts also completed omnichannel journeys across the three countries, focusing specifically on buy online, return in store (BORIS) capabilities. Testers found there were similar breakdowns in communication across all countries.