As an entrepreneur who relies on Shopify to sell online, you want your customers to have an amazing experience anytime they visit your store – but with thousands of device and browser combinations out there, delivering a flawless shop across them all can feel downright impossible!
Not to worry, friend. I‘ve personally tested over 3500 device and browser configurations in my 10+ years ensuring sites work perfectly. This retail pro is going to explore everything you need to know to nail cross browser Shopify testing and keep your buyers happily purchasing on any platform. Let‘s dive in!
Understanding Your Key Browser Targets
Shopify powers over 1 million merchants globally. With that much traffic, optimizing for the most popular desktop and mobile browsers is crucial. Here are the big ones you‘ll want to focus testing efforts on with their current worldwide market shares:
| Desktop Browsers | Market Share |
| Google Chrome | 65.38% |
| Apple Safari | 18.84% |
| Mozilla Firefox | 7.86% |
| Microsoft Edge | 4.53% |
| Mobile Browsers | Market Share |
| Google Chrome | 62.99% |
| Apple Safari | 22.85% |
| Samsung Internet | 8.59% |
With over 90% coverage, focusing testing on latest versions of Chrome, Safari, Firefox for desktop and Chrome and Safari for mobile will cover most of your users. However, don‘t neglect Edge and Samsung Internet – they still account for millions of visits!
Now Shopify hasn‘t published specifics on browser traffic breakdowns. However, based on the broader ecommerce category stats above and experience with retailer clients we know Chrome tends to dominate, especially on mobile. Safari has a strong presence thanks to Apple device popularity. Firefox, Edge, Samsung round out the rest.
Bottom line: comprehensive testing across all these options is vital to catch rendering issues that could lose sales!
Real Devices and Manual Testing Are a Must
While simulators and emulators have improved greatly, nothing beats physically viewing and interacting with your Shopify store on actual user hardware combined with real-world testing scenarios for finding issues.
Through manually accessing your site on various iPhones, Samsung phones, iPads, Chromebooks yourself you gain tremendous insight. Dedicated device cloud services like BrowserStack and LambdaTest make this far more viable by granting instant access to thousands of units.
Pair human driven real-device testing with test automation tools leveraging Selenium scripts for maximum coverage across browser and device types. The combo uncovers all types of bugs missed by only manual or only automated testing alone.
Conquering Cross Browser CSS and JavaScript Challenges
Now down to the nitty gritty! The two core areas you‘ll want to scrutinize for cross browser inconsistencies:
Cascading Style Sheets
With CSS powering visual presentation, browser deviations lead to render disorders. Key culprits include:
- Default browser style sheet differences
- Divergent interpretations of standards
- Varying levels of CSS feature support
Thoroughly validating CSS code using tools like the W3C CSS Validator reduces these risks. Also manually checking important pages across browsers helps spot issues. Fix by adding browser specific style overrides.
JavaScript Execution Errors
Since JavaScript handles dynamic interactions, glitches here seriously degrade experiences:
- Using newer JS features lacking browser support
- iOS Safari limits for performance management
- Third party script conflicts
Enable error logging in console tools during testing. Analyze stack traces to pinpoint and address sources. Transpile down to ES5, add polyfills as needed.
Additional Cross Browser Testing Tips
Here are some bonus best practices for tackling browser variability beasts:
- Sign up for browser maker developer programs granting early access to test preview builds when updates launch – Safari Technology Preview, Firefox Beta/Nightly builds, Edge Canary releases.
- Actively engage in Shopify and browser bug bounty programs submitting discovered defects. This helps improve the platform and recognition.
- Rigorously check responsiveness across device sizes using resizing and simulation in DevTools. Mobile first responsive design is key for Shopify.
- Closely monitor analytics for traffic changes and weird patterns indicating emerging cross browser problems.
- Extensively test third party apps and themes to avoid conflicts degrading performance.
- Follow web standards and use feature detection for better multi-browser tolerance.
In Closing
Phew, that was quite the crash course on hardening your online Shopify store against browser gremlins! As you can see, successfully selling across the array of user devices and platforms requires continuous testing effort. But stick to those best practices outlined and you‘ll keep customers happy regardless of how they access your wares.
If at any point you find browser bugs hindering business and need specialized help, don‘t hesitate to reach out! My expert services combine cutting edge cloud testing tools with battle-hardened experience squashing Storefront inconsistencies. Let‘s talk optimization and take that revenue to the next level!
