BUILDING AN E-COMMERCE WEBSITE

An e-commerce website that is high-sales, high-traffic, reliable, useful and

successful has characteristics that include the following:
 Visually pleasing as well as usable and quick-loading
 Incorporate all the features and functionality that customers need for a pleasing
site experience that is conducive to customer retention and conversion
 Friendly Search Engine
 Integrate seamlessly with business operations applications and product catalog
 Give the reports and statistics needed to measure performance and optimize the
business
 Easy to update and maintain by staff.

CAPABILITIES / FEATURES OF AN E-COMMERCE SITE

Features which will probably help to improve a web store usability and increase its
profitability include:

1. Clear Logo

A clear and remarkable logo is a business card for both startup shops and branded
stores. When it comes to online shopping, a recognizable logo is a reassuring
symbol and an element of trust of the company or organization.

2. Deals and free shipping

People usually decide very quickly whether they like a website or not, that’s why
their interest should be grabed in a matter of seconds upon their entry to the site;
Some are attracted by free shipping— but almost everybody is interested in one
kind of promo or another. Thus, discounts and special deals are usually the first
things that website visitors look for. So, it makes sense to position eye-catching
banners with discount offers on the upper part of the home page of an online
store.

3. Latest news and most popular products

When there are news, a sales period or upcoming events that buyers should know
about the product, the home page is the best place to house them. Do not make it
too hard for buyers to find exclusive deals and prices.

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4. Brand Products: It’s not always possible to predict what the next customer
will be looking for, but it doesn’t mean that you should place all your products
directly on the home page. What you can do is have the most eye-catching and
interesting offers readily accessible.

5. Shopping Cart, Login Box and Search Box

The shopping cart, login box and search box features are usually placed together
at every eCommerce site. It’s almost impossible to imagine a store without a
shopping-cart function included. Many stores also provide their customers with
private accounts where it’s possible to check all their previous and current orders.
Every customer who signs up can choose a personal login and password for further
access. Besides, owners of such accounts can receive special discount offers from
the store owners and participate in different promotions or sales.

6. Payment Systems Icons: ECommerce websites deal with many customers

from all over the world and they each have their own preferred payment system.
Moreover, there may be technical limitations to a payment method or option, and
that’s why it would be better to clarify payment options in advance. For instance,
some eCommerce websites don’t accept international credit cards. Others require
the customer billing address and the delivery address to be in the same country as
the official store’s location.

7. Social Media Links: Some online purchases are accomplished after surfing
through social media sites. People are inclined to take in public opinion. Social
media websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, are the best, if not fastest, source
to get the info you need on just about everything.

8. Phone numbers and online chats: With online shopping, buyers interact
with sellers via computer networks making transactions that are no longer
geographically bound. When there is a problem however, customers would more
likely prefer to have someone they can talk with. This is the core of the need for a
store support team; 24/7 hotlines and live chats are highly appreciated forms of
value-added customer service.

9. Show the advantages of your products

Product Listing ads allow you to include an image, title, price, promotional
message, and your store or business name inside your ads, without the need for
you to create unique ads for each product you sell. Product Listing Ads show a set
of relevant products for a given search. The ads appear in their own box separate
from text ads.
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A list of product categories can be the perfect thing to help your online store. You
probably know that there is a huge chunk of online surfers who don’t know what
they want exactly; they just want to hang around. As an online seller, tap online
surfers who don’t know what they want exactly and show them what they are
missing.

10. Trustmarks: Trustmarks are small images or logos that show a security
guarantee by an external party indicating that it is safe to shop on the site. Some
of these trustmarks come from Network solutions, McAfee, Verisign, BBB, TRUSTe,
GeoTrust, etc. Such accreditation certificates give customers a sense of security
and gives them confidence in sharing their private information. Visitors would be
more inclined to make a purchase if they know that their payment details are safe.
Apart from trustmarks, a clear design, convenient menus, detailed product
descriptions and user reviews are also important for creating better online
reputation. Just note that trust plays an important role in a customer’s willingness
to part with their money.

Also note that:

A beautiful web site requires graphic design talent, a clear understanding of the
technology available and search engine registration techniques, and knowledge
about the way a user browses a site. However, most web designers are happy if
they can achieve the single purpose of making a site “attractive” to the paying
customer let alone the user. This is the major difference between a graphic artist
that designs web sites and a professional web site designer.

A professional web site designer understands that there is more to designing a

web site than a good looking graphic design. A good web site design must:

 Present a professional image (the design part)

 Provide a logical structure that allows easy navigation
 Be effective
 Provide the infrastructure necessary for search engines to do their job

It’s easy to see why a professional web designer is almost required to have
multiple personalities to be good at their job. They have to be creative, artistic,
visual, logical, technical, factual, analytical, organized, detailed, emotional,
supportive, reliable, realistic, and process driven.

The point is, if you want to build an effective web site you have to look at more
than the graphic design. You have to take into account multiple purposes for each
individual section of the site. You must then design each individual web page from
the ground up to meet those multiple purposes.

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WEBSITE SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE (SDLC)
Five major steps in SDLC
1. Systems analysis/planning
2. Systems design
3. Building the system
4. Testing
5. Implementation

SYSTEMS ANALYSIS/PLANNING

In the stage of system analysis/planning, the following are formulated:

(a) Business objectives, which list the capabilities of the website;

(b) System functionalities, which list the information system capabilities

needed to achieve the business objectives;

(c) Information requirements, which list the information elements that the
system must produce in order to achieve business objectives.

The emphasizes in the stage analysis/planning are defining business objectives

then “formulating” system functionalities and information requirements based on
those objectives.

Business goals & objectives

A goal is a general statement of achievement while an objective is a specific step

or action you take to reach your goal. Goals and objectives are important to the
entrepreneur, as they clarify the purpose of the business and help identify
necessary actions. Goals can involve areas such as profitability, growth and
customer service:

a) Profitability: A common business goal is to run a profitable operation,

which typically means increasing revenue while limiting expenses. Revenue
objectives could consist of increasing annual sales by 10 percent.

b) Customer Service: Examples of customer service goals are to develop a

perception that your company is easy to do business with or to improve your
response time to customer complaints. Objectives to help meet these goals could
be increasing your customer service staff from one to three workers by the end of
the year.

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c) Efficiency: Another goal could be to become more efficient in your
business operation as a way to increase productivity. If you distribute a product,
you might consider implementing a new shipping procedure that improves your
delivery time from four days to two.

d) Growth: Perhaps your goal is to grow your business operation. If you own
a one unit, for example, your objective might be to open three more units within a
five-year period.

Examples of business objectives for e-commerce site

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System Design phase
 System design specification: Description of main components of a
system and their relationship to one another
 Logical design: Data flow diagrams, processing functions, databases
 Physical design: Specifies actual physical, software components,
models, etc.

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Logical Design for a Simple Web Site

Graphic design, page layout, color and typeface choice

These are important to presenting the image you want. Loud or primary colors
may be great for a teen site but doesn’t fit well for a professional service.

 Are the graphics clean and well balanced?

 Do the colors match?
 Is the typeface consistent?
 Is the layout pleasing to the eye?
 Does the overall look of the design appear professional?
 Is the primary content no more than one click away from the home page?

Another consideration is content. A description of this has to be closely tied to the

basic “purpose” of the site. Your web site should focus on providing all content
that clearly supports the “purpose” of the site in a way that makes it easy for the
user to tie the information together. Secondary and supporting content can be
“further” away from the main navigation.
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A description of the structure that makes it easy for site users to find what they
are looking for is extremely important to site success. This requires technical
expertise and, preferably, loads of experience building and surfing web sites.

 Is the contact information easy to find?

 Is the privacy statement easy to understand? (Do they quickly say what they
will do with any information you give them?)
 Is it easy to navigate to different sections of the site and back to the home
page?
 Are the links logically organized?
 If there is a “Search” option, does it return anything remotely focused on
what you were searching for?
 Are the site sections easily recognized? (Can you tell which section you are
in?)
 Is the location of the navigation buttons/links consistent from page to page
and section to section?

Providing the infrastructure necessary for search engines to correctly classify your
site and to have your site show up well in keyword search results is the most
technical aspect of designing your web site. People may understand the emotional
and logical purpose of an image. Search engines, however, work solely on words.
If your page is nothing but images, flash, multimedia or other non-language based
design you will have a difficult time receiving top search engine position for a
particular key phrase simply because there are no words in your page for the
search engine to read. Some designers apply header (meta) tags to these
multimedia pages without understanding that only a few search engines read meta
tags other than the title tag.

Examples of the basic requirements for search engine placement.

Unique titles, meta tags, headlines, image alternative text, at least three
body copy paragraphs on every single page of the site.
Highly focused keyword phrases in the titles and body copy of the page.
No more than 5 focused keyword phrases per page.
At least one navigation scheme based on text links.
A call-to-action on every page.

Building the system: In-house vs. outsourcing

What is Outsourcing?

Refers to hiring an outside consultant, service provider or agency to manage the

project.

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Today's digital marketing world is always changing. A client may ask for a site that
includes features that are beyond the capabilities of in-house team. The E-
commerce site requires specialized skills and resources to succeed. For instance:

 Website design and development. A moving target, with new

releases, design trends, new products and categories, and seasonal
promotions.
 Search engine marketing. Search engine optimization and pay-per-
click campaign management.
 Content marketing. Developing content for products, blogs. and your
website.
 Graphic design. Banner ads, promotional banners, newsletters, flyers.
 Social media marketing. Developing relationships, conversations, and
content that engage with your customers and prospects.
 Customer service. Managing your customer relationships, order issues,
phone orders, dealing with returns.
 Human resources. Compliance expertise, recruiting skills.
 Information technology. Managing your networks, computers, and
telecommunications devices.
 Accounting. Keeping track of orders, vendors, merchant accounts,
PayPal accounts. Plus, there’s cash flow, budgeting, and tax reporting.
 Operations. Inventory, stocking, and fulfillment.
 Supply chain. Selecting products and vendors, managing inventory,
lead times.

Why Outsource?

 Specialized skills. The task is highly specialized and requires expert skills
or systems, such as graphic design, website development, payroll, PPC
campaigns, human resource compliance.
 Specialized equipment. The task requires a large facility, specialized
equipment, or operational efficiencies. Fulfillment operations are
frequently outsourced because of the need to stock large amounts
inventory and manage it efficiently.
 Seasonal needs. The task is seasonal or may need to scale up or down
quickly. Customer service is frequently outsourced because those
providers are better equipped to handle high volumes of calls on
demand.
 Limited needs. The cost of hiring in-house is prohibitive for the amount
of work. This is usually because the task is not fulltime and you simply
can’t afford to hire a highly skilled person for a part time position. I
found this to be true with graphic design.
 Temporary needs. The operation or task is temporary or short term. You
may need the task done for the short term, such as seasonal fulfillment,
tax preparation, a website redesign, upgrading your infrastructure.

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  Cost -Effective - Maintaining a website in-house can trigger your overhead
costs. Hiring new staff is likely to increase expenses such as benefits and
even payroll taxes.
 Quality work in time - Outsourcing helps you to get the best quality web
development services because your work will be done by skilled
professionals.
 Use of latest technology - We come across new technologies every day.
Keeping up with these can be a challenge. But when you outsource, you can
rest assure that your website will make use of the latest technologies.
 Synergizing your business- Merely outsourcing doesn't mean that you're
completely done on your part rather it means you're synergizing with your
strategic partner.

What is web hosting?

A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals
and organizations to make their website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web
hosts are companies that provide space on a server owned or leased for use by
clients, as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center.

Getting a website online means putting it on a web server connected to the

internet, which will make it available online. The server will give your site a unique
Internet Protocol (IP) address, keeping your files maintained so users can access
them. The hosting solution you choose will also govern the speed at which your
users can access the site. The different forms of web hosting are:

 Colocation
 Dedicated hosting
 Managed hosting
 Shared hosting

(i) Co-location: Colocation refers to the practice of housing your servers and
devices in a professional datacenter in order to access economies of scale,
advanced infrastructure, greater bandwidth, lower latency, specialist services and
systems, constant security and a whole host of additional advantages. A
colocation provider will rent out space in a data centre in which customers can
install their equipment, but will also provide the power, bandwidth, IP address and
cooling systems that the customer will require in order to successfully deploy their
server.

Colocation Services

Colocation services are offered by datacenters equipped and configured to allow

secure client access to private servers. Colocation services include leasing server
cabinets and cages, connecting to the ISP's network and physical infrastructure,
and monitoring server status. Each cabinet and cage is securely locked and
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inaccessible to other colocation clients. Hardware is administered by the client
without any ISP involvement, except manual server restarts upon request. Some
ISPs offer additional professional services as well.

Colocation services let clients take advantage of superior datacenter infrastructure,

while maintaining control over their servers. The benefits to colocation customers
include:

i. Environmental control, such as constant temperature and humidity

maintenance, and particulates filtration
ii. Fire suppression systems
iii. Redundant power sources and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) backup
iv. Large capacity of multi-homed quality bandwidth
v. Around-the-clock physical security such as card entry and video monitoring
of the facilities
vi. Monitoring and technical services such as central data storage, backups,
firewall and DDoS attack mitigation.

Using colocation services is an effective way to obtain business continuity,

scalability and minimal network latency at a fraction of the cost it takes to
accomplish the same things in a private datacenter. Yet at the same time you can
maintain complete control over the physical server, the operating system and the
applications.

(ii) Dedicated hosting: Service provider makes a Web server available to a

client

A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service

is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an entire server not shared
with anyone else. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organizations have
full control over the server(s), including choice of operating system, hardware, etc.

A dedicated hosting service is sometimes referred to as a dedicated server and can

be set up in-house or externally as a service from within a data center. Some
benefits of the dedicated hosting.

Customisation – Dedicated hosting grants a certain freedom and control that

other hosting solutions are unable to provide. The fact that the server is dedicated
to one client and there are no cohabitants means that the server (and overall
hosting solution) can be tailored to the specific needs of that client. This ensures
that they can select and pay for the features that they require.

Uptime – In a world where convenience is everything and consumers aren’t used

to waiting, it is vital to ensure that a website, for example, is functional at all
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times; site downtime could lead to customers moving on to competitors. Dedicated
hosting allows for high performance and stability to ensure that websites and other
business functions are operational virtually 100%. Providers should offer server
monitoring and back-up facilities alongside support services to keep functions
running as seamlessly as possible.

Congestion – Server congestion is much less of an issue with a dedicated server,

especially when compared to shared hosting options. With the latter, you often run
the risk of congestion due to the traffic and usage levels of other websites or
applications hosted on the same server, competing for bandwidth, disk space and
CPU usage. The very nature of dedicated hosting ensures that this isn’t an issue.
Additionaly; if the website in question is resource heavy then dedicated hosting
may be the answer to ensure that other websites aren’t disrupted.

Security – Clients using a dedicated platform will be able to deploy security

measures, such as anti-virus and firewall configurations, that are more tailored to
their own functions; whilst also avoiding the security vulnerabilities that can
otherwise be introduced by the activities of neighbouring clients on shared hosting
platforms. In addition, dedicated servers located within data centers can benefit
from the physical security measures that such facilities often put in place,
including, for example, biometric authentication, security guards and mantraps.

Support – Some dedicated hosting services come with a certain level of support.
This is important as a high percentage of dedicated hosting customers use the
service to host mission critical or important computing functions or websites.
Effective support ensures that site disruption is kept to a minimum.

(iii) Managed hosting is a hosting in which a service provider leases a dedicated

server and associated hardware to a single client. The equipment is at the hosting
provider's facility and managed by the service provider.

Managed hosting differs from other dedicated hosting in that the service provider
administers the hardware, operating systems and system software. The client
usually has administrative access but as a rule rarely uses it, instead interacting
with the leased system through a Web-based interface. Typically, the hosting
provider is responsible for setting up and configuring hardware, installing and
configuring software, technical support, patch management, system maintenance,
monitoring and updates.

Other services that may be available either as part of the hosting package or as an
add-on include backups, load balancing and disaster recovery, as well as security
processes including vulnerability scans, intrusion detection (ID) and DDoS
(distributed denial of service) prevention and mitigation.

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E-COMMERCE SOFTWARE

Customers use a web browser to connect to a company’s web site, which is run off
of its web server. After navigating through product offerings, customers can
either download information directly from the site (if ordering soft goods, such as
software or research reports) or complete order forms for desired products (if
ordering goods such as clothing or consumer electronics).

The web server is linked to several back-end software components that include:

 Relational database – holds information like product specifications, user

profiles, purchase histories and pricing data.
 Merchant Server – a key component of the system connecting the web
server to order fulfillment, inventory and other back-office systems. The
merchant server processes payments and can exchange critical information
such as invoicing, tax, shipping, payment authorization.
 Application Server – a merchant server may be a part of this system that
performs other functions such as database querying, user profiling, real-time
Web page composition and targeting of content based on individual users’
interest and purchase history.

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Additional software components include:

o Middleware
o Enterprise application integration
o Web services
o Integration with enterprise resource planning (ERP) software
o Supply chain management (SCM) software
o Content Management Software
o Knowledge Management Software

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Basic Functions of Electronic Commerce Software
The specific duties that electronic commerce software performs range from a few
fundamental operations to a complete solution - from catalog display to fulfillment
notification. All electronic commerce solutions must at least provide:
i. A catalog display
ii. Shopping cart capabilities
iii. Transaction processing

Catalog Display
A small commerce site can have a very simple static catalog. A catalog is a listing
of goods and services. A static catalog is a simple list written in HTML that appears
on a Web page or a series of Web pages. To add an item, delete an item, or
change an item’s listing, the company must edit the HTML of one or more pages.
Larger commerce sites are more likely to use a dynamic catalog. A dynamic
catalog stores the information about items in a database, usually on a separate
computer that is accessible to the server that is running the Web site itself. A
dynamic catalog can feature multiple photos of each item, detailed descriptions,
and a search feature that allows customers to search for an item and determine its
availability.

Shopping Cart
In the early days of electronic commerce, shoppers selected items they wanted t o
purchase by filling out online forms. Using text box and list box form controls to
indicate their choices, users entered the quantity of an item in the quantity text
box, the SKU (stock-keeping unit) or product number in another text box, and the
unit price in yet another text box. This system was awkward for ordering more
than one or two items at a time. The forms-based method of ordering has given
way to electronic shopping carts. Today, shopping carts are a standard of lectronic
commerce. A shopping cart, sometimes called a shopping bag or shopping basket,
keeps track of the items the customer has selected and allows customers to view
the contents of their carts, add new items, or remove items. To order an item,
the customer simply clicks that item. All of the details about the item, including its
price, product number, and other identifying information, are stored automatically
in the cart. If a customer later changes his or her mind about an item, he or she
can view the cart’s contents and remove the unwanted items. When the customer
is ready to conclude the shopping session, the click of a button executes the
purchase transaction.

Transaction Processing
Transaction processing occurs when the shopper proceeds to the virtual checkout
counter by clicking a checkout button. Then the electronic commerce software
performs any necessary calculations, such as volume discounts, sales tax, and
shipping costs. At checkout, the customer’s Web browser software and the seller’s
Web server software both switch into a secure state of communication.
Transaction processing can be the most complex part of the online sale.
Computing taxes and shipping costs are important parts of this process, and site
administrators must continually check tax rates and shipping tables to make sure
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they are current. Some software enables the Web server to obtain updated
shipping rates by connecting directly to shipping companies to retrieve
information.

Middleware
Larger companies usually establish the connections between their electronic
commerce software and their existing accounting system by using a type of
software called middleware. Some large companies that have sufficient IT staff
write their own middleware; however, most companies purchase middleware that
is customized for their businesses by the middleware vendor or a consulting firm.
Thus, most of the cost of middleware is not the software itself, but the consulting
fees needed to make the software work in a given company. Making a company’s
information systems work together is called interoperability and is an important
goal of companies when they install middleware.

Enterprise Application Integration and Databases

A program that performs a specific function, such as creating invoices, calculating
payroll, or processing payments received from customers, is called an application
program, application software or, more simply, an application. An application
server is a computer that takes the request messages received by the Web server
and runs application programs that perform some kind of action based on the
contents of the request messages. The actions that the application server software
performs are determined by the rules used in the business. These rules are called
business logic. An example of a business rule is: When a customer logs in, check
the password entered against the password file in the database. Application
servers are usually grouped into two types: page-based and component-based
systems. Page-based application systems return pages generated by scripts that
include the rules for presenting data on the Web page with the business logic.
Larger businesses often prefer to use a component-based application system that
separates the presentation logic from the business logic. Each component of logic
is created in its own module.

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