ECOM6013 E-Commerce Presence

Basic Knowledge of E-Commerce Presence

Imagine your e-commerce presence

what is the idea
- your mission
- target audience
- intended market space
- strategic analysis
- marketing matrix
- development timeline
- preliminary budget
where is the money
- business model
- revenue model
who and where is the target audience
- demographics
- lifestyle
- consumption patterns
characterize the marketplace
- size
- growth
- demographics
- structure
where is the content coming from
know yourself - SWOT analysis
develop an e-commerce presence map
develop a timeline: milestones
how much will this cost
- e.g. US estimate, different in other countries
- small website: up to US$5000
- small setup: US$25,000 to US$50,000
- large corporate website: US$100,000+ to millions

Building an e-commerce site

a systematic approach
- most important management challenges
  - developing a clear understanding of business objectives
  - knowing how to choose the right technology to achieve those objectives
- main factors to consider
  - management
  - hardware architecture
  - software
  - design
  - telecommunications
  - human resources
the systems development life cycle
- methodology for understanding business objectives of a system and designing an appropriate solution
- five major steps
  - system analysis/planning
    - business objectives
      - list of capabilities you want your site to have
    - system functionalities
      - list of information system capabilities needed to achieve business objectives
    - information requirements
      - information elements that system must produce in order to achieve business objectives
    - example
    - consideration for quality
      - navigation
      - accessibility, e.g. payment
      - scalability
      - reliability
      - maintainability
      - usability
      - compatibility and interoperability
      - security
      - readability
  - system design
    - definition
      - description of main components of a system and their relationship to one another
    - 2 components
      - logical design
        
        data flow diagrams, processing functions, databases
      - physical design
        
        specifies actual physical, software components, models, etc.
  - building the system
    - building
      - build own
      - outsourcing
        
        requires team with diverse skill set
        
        choice of software tools
        
        both risks and possible benefits
    - hosting
      - host own
      - outsourcing
        
        hosting company responsible for ensuring site is accessible 24/7, for monthly fee
        
        firm purchases or leases web server (with control over its operation), but server is located at vendor’s facility (co-location)
  - testing
    - unit testing
    - system testing
    - acceptance testing
    - A/B testing (split testing)
    - multivariate testing
  - implementation -> the first step, a circle
    - maintenance
      - systems break down unpredictably
      - maintenance is ongoing
      - maintenance costs are similar to development costs
      - benchmarking
    - optimization
- best practices
  - continuous availability 99%
  - design for scalability
  - build in management for end-to-end delivery
  - plan for growth
  - design system for high-speed performance
  - understand and optimize workload on system

Web Site Architecture

Simple vs multi-tiered

system architecture
- arrangement of software, machinery, and tasks in an information system needed to achieve a specific functionality
two-tier
- web server and database server
multi-tier
- web application servers
- backend, legacy databases

Useful tools

web server software examples
- Apache
  - leading web server software
  - works with UNIX, Linux operating systems
  - reliable, stable, part of open software community
- Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS)
  - second major web server software
  - windows-based
  - integrated, easy-to-use
basic functionality
site management tools
- basic tools included in all web servers
  - verfify that links on pages are still valid
  - identify orphan files (no links to the page)
- third-party software for advanced management
  - monitor customer purchases
  - marketing campaign effectiveness
  - keep track of hit counts and other statistics
  - e.g. Webtrends Analytics 10
dynamic page generation tools
- dynamic page generation
  - contents stored in database and fetched when needed
- common tools
  - CGI, ASP, JSP, ODBC, JDBC
- advantages
  - lower menu costs
  - permits easy online market segmentation
  - enables cost-fee price discrimination
  - enables content management system (CMS)
personalization tools
- personalization
  - ability to treat people based on personal preferences and prior history with site
- customization
  - ability to change the product to better fit the needs of the customer
- cookies
  - primary method to achieve personalization

Choosing software

web application servers
- provide specific business functionality required for a website
- type of middleware
  - isolate business applications from web servers and databases
- single-function applications being replaced by integrated software tools that combine all functionality needed for e-commerce site
e-commerce merchant server software
- provides basic functionality for sales
  - online catalog
    - list of products available on website
  - shopping cart
    - allows shoppers to set aside, review, edit selections, and then make purchase
  - credit card processing
    - typically works in conjunction with shopping cart
    - verifies card and puts through credit to company’s account at checkout
merchant server software packages
- also called e-commerce software platform
- integrated environment that includes most of functionality needed
  - shopping card
  - merchandise display
  - order management
- different options for different-sized businesses
  - small and medium-sized businesses
    - Yahoo Small Business
    - open-source solutions
  - mid-range
    - IBM Web Sphere Commerce Express
    - Sitecore Experience Commerce
  - high-end
    - IBM Web Sphere Professional/Enterprise
    - SAP Hybris
    - Oracle ATG Web Commerce
  - many now also available as cloud-based SaaS solutions
  - key factors in selecting a package
    - functionality
    - support for different business models, including m-commerce
    - business process modeling tools
    - visual site management and reporting
    - performance and scalability
    - connectivity to existing business systems
    - compliance with standards
    - global and multicultural capability
    - local sales tax and shipping rules

Choosing hardware

hardware platform
- underlying computing equipment needed for e-commerce functionality
objective
- enough platform capacity to meet peak demand without wasting money
important to understand the factors that affect speed, capacity, and scalability of a site
right-sizing hardware platform
- the demand side
  - customer demand
    - most important factor affecting speed of site
  - factors in overall demand
    - number of simultaneous users in peak periods
    - nature of customer requests (user profile)
    - type of content (dynamic versus static web pages)
    - required security
    - number of items in inventory
    - number of page requests
    - speed of legacy applications
- the supply side
  - scalability
    - ability of site to increase in size as demand warrants
  - ways to scale hardware
    - vertically
      - increase processing power of individual components
    - horizontally
      - employ multiple computers to share workload
    - improve processing architecture
    - outsource hosting, use content delivery network

Improvement

some factors may annoy customers
improving the processing architecture
8 most important factors in successful e-commerce site design
the information policy set
- privacy policy
  - set of public statements declaring how site will treat customers’ personal information that is gathered by site
- accessibility rules
  - set of design objectives that ensure users with disabilities can effectively access site

Mobile Website and Mobile Applications

Types of m-commerce software

mobile website
- responsive web design
mobile web app
- can be used in browsers on mobile phone
- the speed is faster than mobile website, but slower than native apps
- rely on OS, screen size, finger navigation, etc.
- can use camera and other components of mobile phone
native app
hybrid app
- runs inside native container
- app distribution
- based on HTML5, CSS, JavaScript

Planning and building a mobile persence

identify business objectives, system functionality, and information requirements
must consider when developing
choice
- mobile website or mobile web app
  - less expensive
- native app
  - can use device hardware, available offline
design considerations
- platform constraints
  - graphics, file sizes
- mobile first design
  - desktop website design after mobile design
- responsive web design (RWD)
  - CSS site adjusts layout of site according to device screen resolutions
- adaptive web design (AWD)
  - server delivers different templates or versions of site optimized for device
performance and cost considerations
- mobile first design
  - most efficient
- mobile website
  - resizing existing website for mobile access is least expensive
- mobile web app
  - can utilize browser API
- native app
  - most expensive
  - requires more programming
- progressive web app (PWA)
  - latest and likey to become most popular (more later)
system analysis