Topic 5
Topic 5
Topic 5
5 E-commerce
Website
Development
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1. Explain the processes involved in developing an e-commerce website;
2. Examine the major considerations involved in choosing a web server
and e-commerce merchant server software;
3. Describe the issues involved in choosing the most appropriate
hardware for an e-commerce site; and
4. Identify additional tools that can be used to improve website
performance.
X INTRODUCTION
Do you know that developing a successful e-commerce website requires a keen
understanding of business, technology, and social issues? In many firms today,
e-commerce is just too important to be left totally to technologists and
programmers.
In order to prepare for the above task, it is vital for you to take into consideration
the following two most important management challenges in building a
successful e-commerce site:
(a) Developing a clear understanding of the business objectives which requires
managers to build a plan for developing their firms site; and
(b) Knowing how to choose the right technology to achieve those objectives which
requires the manager to understand some of the basic elements of e-commerce
infrastructure.
You must be aware of the main areas where you will need to make decisions
such as:
Let us look at the definitions for the following three terms shown below.
Business objectives are simply a list of capabilities you want your site
to have.
You will need to provide the above lists to system developers and
programmers so that they know what you as the manager expect them to
do.
A logical design includes a data flow diagram that describes the flow of
information at your e-commerce site, the processing functions that
must be performed, and the databases that will be used. The logical design
also includes a description of the security and emergency backup
procedures that will be instituted, and the controls that will be used in the
system.
SELF-CHECK 5.1
What are the differences between the logical design and physical
design?
You also have a second decision to make: Will you host or operate the site
on your firms own servers or will you outsource the hosting to a web host
provider? These decisions are independent of each other, but they are
usually considered at the same time. There are some vendors who will
design, build, and host your site, while others will only either:
x Build; or
x Host.
x Pre-built Templates
Templates that merely require you to input text, graphics, and
other data. If you choose the template route, you will be limited to
the functionality already built into the templates, and you will not
be able to add to the functionality or change it. Very small mom
and pop firms seeking simple storefronts will use templates.
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ACTIVITY 5.1
You can also choose to co-locate. Let us look below in order to find
out what is meant by co-locate.
SELF-CHECK 5.2
(d) Testing
Once the system has been built and programmed, you will have to engage in
a testing process. Depending on the size of the system, this could be fairly
difficult and lengthy. Testing is required whether the system is outsourced or
built-in house. A complex e-commerce site can have thousands of pathways
through the site, each of which must be documented and then tested.
The processes involved in e-commerce sites are never finished. They are always
in the process of being built and rebuilt. They are truly dynamic; much more so
than the payroll systems.
ACTIVITY 5.2
Most companies are not very keen to build an e-commerce site due to
high implementation and maintenance cost.
Do you agree with the above statement? Discuss with your course
mates.
x http://ecommerce.snowseed.com/
x http://www.ecommerce-digest.com/ecommerce-web-site-design-
portal.html
x http://build-website.com/
ACTIVITY 5.3
EXERCISE 5.1
In the remainder of this section, we will describe basic web server software
functionality and the various types of web application servers.
Unix is the original programming language of the Internet and the Web. Apache
is free and can be downloaded from many sites on the web, and comes
installed on most IBM Web servers. Literally, thousands of programmers have
worked on Apache over the years. Thus, it is extremely stable and there are
thousands of utility software programmes written for Apache that can
provide all the functionality required for a contemporary e-commerce site. In
order to use Apache, you will require staffs that are knowledgeable in the
operation of the Unix operating system or its PC variant, Linux.
Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) is the second major web server
software available, with about 35% of the market. IIS is based on the Windows
140 X TOPIC 5 WIRELESS E-COMMERCE WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT
operating system and is compatible with a wide selection of Microsoft utility and
support programmes. There are also at least 100 other smaller providers of web
server software, most of them are based on Unix or Sun Solaris operating system.
Note that the choice of web server has little effect on users on your system.
The pages they see will look the same regardless of the development
environment. There are many advantages to the Microsoft suite of development
tools; they are integrated, powerful, and easy to use. The Unix operating system,
on the other hand, is exceptionally reliable and stable. There is a worldwide open
software community that develops and tests Unix-based web server software.
Basic functionalities provided by all web servers (refer to Figure 5.2) are as
follows:
(f) Mail
E-mail makes it possible to send, receive and store e-mail messages.
Let us look at the different types of tools used in the management of a web
server:
Links to URLs that have moved or been deleted are called as dead links and
these can cause error to messages for users trying to access that link.
Regularly checking that all links on a site are operational helps prevent
irritated users who may take their business elsewhere to a better-
functioning site.
E-commerce sites must intensively interact with users, who not only
request pages, but also request product, price, availability, and inventory
information. One of the most dynamic sites is eBay.com, in which the
content will be changing minute by minute. E-commerce sites are dynamic,
just like the real markets.
When the user requests a webpage, the contents for that page are then
fetched from the database. The objects are retrieved from the database
using CGI (Common Gateway Interface), ASP (Active Server Pages), JSP
(Java Server Pages) or other server-side programmes. This technique is
much more efficient than working directly in HTML code. It is much easier
to change the contents of a database than it is to change the coding of an
HTML page.
Menu costs are the costs incurred by merchants for changing product
descriptions and prices.
Dynamic page generation also permits easy online market segmentation the
ability to sell the same product to different markets. The same capability
makes it possible for nearly cost-free price discrimination, which is the
ability to sell the same product to different customers at different prices.
For instance, you might want to sell the same product to corporations and
government agencies but use different marketing themes. Based on a cookie
you placed on client files, or in response to a question on your site that asks
visitors if they are from a government agency or a corporation, you would
be able to use different marketing and promotional materials for corporate
clients and government clients. You might want to reward loyal customers
with lower prices and charge full price to first-time buyers.
Web application servers are software programmes that provide the specific
business functionality required of a website. The basic idea of
application servers is to isolate the business applications from the details
of displaying web pages to users on the front end and the details of
connecting the databases on the back-end. Application servers are a kind of
middleware software that provides the glue connecting traditional
corporate systems to the customer as well as providing all the
functionality needed to conduct e-commerce.
being replaced by integrated software tools that combine all the needed
functionality for an e-commerce site into a single development environment, a
packaged software approach.
Some of the wide varieties of application servers (as shown in Figure 5.3)
available in the marketplace are as follows:
(a) Catalogue display provides a database for product descriptions and prices;
(b) Transaction processing accepts order and clears payments;
(c) Proxy server monitors and controls access to main web server; implements
firewall protection;
(d) Mail server manages Internet e-mail;
(e) Databases server stores customer, product and price information; and
(f) Auction server provides a transaction environment for conducting online
auctions.
There are several thousand software vendors that provide application server
software. For Linux and Unix environments, many of these capabilities are
available free on the Internet from various sites. Most businesses faced with this
bewildering array of choices, choose to use integrated software tools called as
merchant server software.
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Let us look at Figure 5.5 which illustrates the three functionality of e-commerce
merchant server software.
Function Description
Online A company that wants to sell products on the web must have an online
Catalogue catalogue, which lists all of its products available on its website. Merchant
server software typically includes a database capability that will allow
construction of a customised online catalogue. The complexity and
sophistication of the catalogue will vary depending on the size of the
company and its product lines.
Let us look at the definition provided for the term Merchant server software
package.
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E-commerce server suite is easier, faster and more cost-effective that a collection of
disparate software applications. Generally, there are three types of e-commerce
suite based on price and functionality and they are:
You can visit these websites to get more information about server software:
ACTIVITY 5.4
EXERCISE 5.2
(a) What are the main differences between single-tier and multi-
tier website architecture?
(b) Name five basic functionalities that a Web server should provide.
(c) What is a dynamic server software?
The next section will discuss the hardware you will need to handle the demands
of the software.
To answer the following questions, you will need to understand the various
factors that affect the speed, capacity, and scalability of an e-commerce site:
(a) How much computing and telecommunications capacity is enough to meet
peak demand?
(b) How many hits per day can your site sustain?
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In the following sections, you will look at the demand and supply sides of the
hardware platform.
Below we discuss some of the steps you can take to ensure you stay within
an acceptable service quality. One step is to simply purchase a server with
faster CPU processors or more CPU processors, or larger hard disk drives.
However, the improvement that results is not linear and at some point
becomes cost ineffective.
An Intel study founds that nearly 80% of visitors to the typical e-commerce site
simply browse requesting static web pages.Web servers can be very efficient at
serving static web pages. However, as customers request more advanced
services, such as searches of site, registration, order-taking via shopping carts,
or downloads of large multimedia audio and video files, all of which require
more processing power, performance can deteriorate rapidly.
For example, if your connection to the Web is a 150 Kbps, just like the DSL
line, the maximum number of visitors per second for 1 kilobyte files is
probably about ten. Most businesses host their sites at an ISP or other
providers that contractually is (or should be) obligated to provide enough
bandwidth for their site to meet the peak demands. However, there are no
guarantees and ISPs can blame web congestion for their own bandwidth
limitations. Check your ISPs bandwidth and your site performance daily.
While server bandwidth connections are less a constraint today with the
wide spread deployment of fibre optic cables, the connection to the client is
improving. This means they will be able to make far more frequent requests
and demand far richer content and experiences from your site. This
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demand will translate quickly into dynamic content and the need for
additional capacity.
There are three steps you can take to meet the demands for service at your site:
x Scale hardware vertically;
x Scale hardware horizontally; and
x Improve the processing architecture of the site.
For instance, you can change your hardware from a single processor
Pentium III, to a dual processor with two Pentium Ills or Xeon processor.
You can keep adding up to 20 processors to a machine and changing chip
speeds as well.
However, when your site grows from a single machine to perhaps ten to
twenty machines, the size of the physical facility required increases and
there is added management complexity.
Taking these steps can permit you to reduce the number of servers required
to service 10,000 concurrent users from 100 down to 20, according to one
estimate.
First of all, let us look at the elements which produce worst e-commerce sites:
(a) Make it difficult to find information about products;
(b) Complicate the process to make a purchase;
(c) Have missing pages and broken links;
(d) Have confusing navigation structures; and
(e) Have annoying graphics or sounds that you cannot turn off.
In order to create a successful e-commerce site design, which does not have the
elements mentioned earlier, the following important factors need to be taken into
consideration (refer to Figure 5.6):
(a) Functionality
Functionality pages that work, load quickly, and point the customer toward
your product offerings.
(b) Informational
Informational links that customers can easily find to discover more about
you and your products.
Let us concentrate on the tools used in e-commerce and they are divided into the
following:
x Tools for interactivity and active content; and
x Personalisation tools.
Let us look into the explanations and examples provided for each of the tools.
x Widgets
Widgets, also called as gadgets or plug-ins or snippets, are small,
pre-built chunk of code that execute automatically in a HTML
webpage. They are mostly free and available for download on the
web such as Google Gadgets and Yahoo Widgets. Millions of
social network and blog pages use widgets to present users with
the content drawn for the web.
x Mashups
Another application of Web 2.0 is mashups, which involve pulling
functionality and data from one programme and including it in
another. For example, the use of Google Map data and combine it
with other data. If you are running a budget guesthouse website,
you can download Goggle Map to your website so visitor can get
a sense of the neighbourhood. The purpose of this application is to
enhance users interactivity with your site.
The programme can then generate all the output required to make up
the return page (HTML, script code, text, etcetera) and send it back to
the client via the Web server. CGI programmes can be written in
nearly any programming languages as long as they conform to CGI
standards. Generally, CGI programmes are used with Unix servers.
For instance, if the user clicks on the button Display the Contents of
My Shopping Cart, the server receives this request and executes a
CGI programme. The CGI programme retrieves the contents of the
shopping cart from the database and returns it to the server. The
server sends a HTML page that display the contents of the shopping
cart on the users screen.
x Java
Java is a programming language that allows programmers to
create interactivity and active content on the client machine,
thereby saving considerable load on the server. Java programmes
(known as Java applets) could be downloaded to the client over
the Web and executed entirely on the clients computer.
x JavaScript
JavaScript is a programming language invented by Netscape that
is used to control the objects on a HTML page and handle
interactions with the browser. It is most commonly used to handle
verification and validation of user input, as well as to implement
business logic.
Let us look at the definitions provided for both of the elements mentioned
above.
The customers prior history can be accessed from a database when the user
returns to the site, or goes further into the site. Information gathered on prior
visits can then be used to personalise the visit and customise the products.
For instance, when a user returns to a site, you can read the cookie in order to
find the customers ID, look the ID up in a database of names, and greet the
customer, such as Hello Mary! Glad to have you return.
158 X TOPIC 5 WIRELESS E-COMMERCE WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT
You can visit the following websites to get more information about
hardware and various tools for E-commerce website:
SELF-CHECK 5.3
EXERCISE 5.3
1. Define scalability.
2. Describe the various scaling methods.
3. What are the eight most important factors in website design?
x The factors that must be considered when building an e-commerce site are:
(i) Hardware architecture;
(ii) Software;
(iii) Telecommunication capacity;
(iv) Website design;
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x There are various additional tools that can improve the website performance
such as Common Gateway Interface, Active Server Pages, Java, Java Script
and ActiveX.