Building Quality from Zero
How a complete QE programme was established for a growing wholesale marketplace — 300+ test cases, mobile coverage, and automation the client never asked for.
Quality engineering for a fast-growing wholesale marketplace.
The client is a reputation-based wholesale automotive auction platform, built by dealers for dealers. It enables automotive professionals to buy and sell vehicles through a streamlined online marketplace that brings accountability back to wholesale — with dealer ratings, direct chat on live auctions, advanced search and filters, and instant notifications. The platform spans web and mobile (iOS & Android) and supports complex workflows including dealer onboarding, vehicle creation and management, bidding, offer management, payment processing, and admin tools. The platform recently entered a major acquisition agreement with a leading automotive marketplace group — underscoring its growth trajectory and the importance of platform quality.
The team stepped in and built the full practice — then went further, delivering automation the client never asked for.
The numbers.
Test Cases Created
WORKFLOWS COVERED
E2E Flows Automated
Defects Raised in Q3
QE from scratch on a live marketplace.
When the QE team joined DealerClub, there was no quality engineering process in place. No test cases, no documentation, no defect tracking, no regression structure, and no mobile testing — for a complex, multi-platform product operating in a live wholesale automotive marketplace.
No QE Process or Documentation
There was no quality engineering process in place when the team joined — no test cases, documentation, defect tracking, regression structure, or mobile testing — for a platform shipping new features regularly across web and mobile.
No QE Process or Documentation
No test cases, feature matrix, test plans, or regression checklists existed. Every quality artefact had to be created from the ground up while testing was already needed.
No Defect Tracking Structure
There was no established workflow for logging, triaging, or tracking defects to closure. Coordinating bug resolution with the client team required building a new reporting discipline from day one.
Complex Multi-Platform Product
The application covers web and native mobile (iOS & Android) with deeply interconnected flows — onboarding, listings, live auctions, bidding, offers, payments, admin, and notifications.
No Automation Coverage
All quality assurance was done manually, with no automation in place. As the platform grew, manual-only regression became increasingly time-consuming and created risk during high-velocity feature delivery.
Documentation first, then automation nobody asked for.
The team built the entire QE function from scratch — starting with documentation and process, then establishing structured execution cycles, and finally introducing automation proactively to reduce manual effort as the test suite matured.
Built the QE Documentation Layer
Created a complete Feature Matrix and authored 300+ structured test cases from scratch — covering onboarding, vehicle creation & management, auction bidding, offer management, payment flows, admin tools, and notifications.
Established Structured Testing Cycles
Introduced daily sanity testing to catch breakages early, and weekly regression cycles to validate stability across the full application after each feature delivery, aligned to the client's release cadence.
Defect Management & Client Coordination
Set up a defect tracking workflow — initially in Trello, later migrated to Jira — with a process for logging, reproducing, prioritising, and retesting all issues in close coordination with the client-side QA manager.
Mobile App Testing via BrowserStack
Implemented cross-platform mobile testing on iOS and Android, covering the full native app experience — onboarding, vehicle browsing, bidding, and notification behaviour across real device configurations.
Proactive Playwright Automation
Without being asked, the team identified the highest-value E2E flows and initiated Playwright automation independently — 28 automated test cases targeting the most critical, regression-prone journeys.
Ongoing Feature Coverage Expansion
As new features shipped — auction workflows, inspector/dealership relationships, vehicle status management, bundle calculations — test cases were updated and the feature matrix kept current for full traceability.
What the work delivered.
A complete QE function built from zero
test cases, feature matrix, regression structure, defect tracking, and client coordination all established where none existed before.
300+
structured test cases authored, covering 75+ workflows across onboarding, vehicle management, bidding, offers, payments, admin tools, and notifications — web and mobile.
Daily sanity testing and weekly regression cycles put in place, ensuring platform stability is validated continuously alongside active feature delivery.
54+ defects raised and tracked across two quarters, with detailed reproduction steps and triage coordination
providing clear visibility into platform quality that previously didn't exist.
iOS and Android mobile app fully brought into QE scope via BrowserStack cross-platform testing, covering the complete mobile user journey across real device configurations.
28 E2E Playwright automation scripts delivered proactively — not requested by the client
targeting the highest-value regression flows and directly reducing recurring manual test effort.
QE process maturity established over two quarters: from no documentation to a structured, traceable, and continuously expanding quality engineering practice ready to scale with the platform.
The stack.
With no prior QE process, no documentation, and no automation, the team established the full practice from nothing and then delivered proactive Playwright automation on top. The result: a platform that ships faster, breaks less, and has the test infrastructure to scale confidently into the future.