eCommerce Application Thesis Application

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Gadget Works is located at Kabankalan City. The said establishment is selling products

such as computers, laptops, hard disks and other related computer gadgets.

Despite the fact, that the company has been well-known for selling electronic devices,

they are using traditional marketing or advertising strategies for them to market their business

because they lack knowledge in today’s technology. They have been accepting orders manually

between their clients which utilizes much of their time.

Thankfully, nowadays people live in a time where searching for information only takes a

few seconds. We live in a time where one can contact anyone virtually any minute anywhere in

the world, as long the connection exists. We live in the time of the internet, where all

transactions are made as quick as a blink of the eye and as easy as pie. One can find virtually

anything that can think of online, and if necessary currencies are traded, receive the product or

service.

Based on the information gathered, the researchers motivated to conduct a research to find

out if it is efficient to establish an e-commerce website with an online catalog system that can

endorse Gadget Works to a wider range for more customers.

E-commerce or Online Store is fast gaining ground as an accepted and used business

paradigm. More and more business houses are implementing web sites providing functionality

for performing commercial transactions over the web. It is reasonable to say that the process of

shopping on the web is becoming commonplace.

The objective of this project is to develop a product catalog where any product of Digitial

Works (such as Laptops, computers, mobile phones, electronic items, and many more) can be

view and users can request items online using their laptops, desktops and even your mobile smart

phones.

An online store is a virtual store on the Internet where customers can browse the catalog

and select products of interest.. The customer will then contact the company’s contact details to

confirm and complete the transaction.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The general objective of the study is to design and develop an online store system for

Digital works in Kabankalan City that will help the company and employees to become more

popular by marketing their business to the internet world.

The study has the following specific objectives:

1. Develop an online catalog of products for Digital Works.

2. Provide the customers of a hustle free transaction without going to the store for

buying an item or products.

Management of Digital Works. The one who will benefit the most is the owner and the

management of Digital Works, with this technology they can promote their products not only

here in Kabankalan but also in the whole Philippines.

Consumers. They can now browse, and inquire products from Digital Works without having to

go to the store. They can also use their smartphones to view the online store.

SCOPE AND LIMITATION

The study will only focus on the development of ecommerce site for Digital Works. The

web application is capable of managing products information including its details and price. The

application will be develop using HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and MySQL as its core

development tools.

A complete E-commerce-based website will be developed based on Content Management

technology which will have following features:

 Allow Customers to search Electronic devices of their choice (for ex: Laptops,

computers, mobile phones, electronic items, etc).

 Products Management. The administrator of the system is capable of adding,

modifying and deleting of products.

DEFINITION OF TERMS
eCommerce - Electronic commerce, commonly known as E-commerce or eCommerce, is

trading in products or services using computer networks, such as the Internet. Electronic

commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply

chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange

(EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern

electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web for at least one part of the transaction's

life cycle, although it may also use other technologies such as e-mail.
CHAPTER II

Literature Review

Electronic Commerce (e-commerce) applications support the interaction betweendifferent parties

participating in a commerce transaction via the network, as well as themanagement of the data

involved in the process.

The increasing importance of e-commerce is apparent in the study conducted byresearches at the

GVU (Graphics, Visualization, and Usability) Center at the GeorgiaInstitute of Technology. In

their summary of the findings from the eighth survey, theresearchers report that “e-commerce is

taking off both in terms of the number of usersshopping as well as the total amount people are

spending via Internet based transactions”.

Over three quarters of the 10,000 respondents report having purchased items online. Themost

cited reason for using the web for personal shopping was convenience (65%),followed by

availability of vendor information (60%), no pressure form sales person(55%) and saving time

(53%).

Although the issue of security remains the primary reason why more people donot purchase

items online, the GVA survey also indicates that faith in the security of ecommerceis increasing.

As more people gain confidence in current encryptiontechnologies, more and more users can be

expected to frequently purchase items online.

A good e-commerce site should present the following factors to the customers for better

usability:

Knowing when an item was saved or not saved in the shopping cart.
Returning to different parts of the site after adding an item to the shopping cart.

 Easy scanning and selecting items in a list.

 Effective categorical organization of products.

 Simple navigation from home page to information and order links for specific products.

 Obvious shopping links or buttons.

 Minimal and effective security notifications or messages.

 Consistent layout of product information.

Another important factor in the design of an e-commerce site is feedback. Theinteractive cycle

between a user and a web site is not complete until the web site respondsto a command entered

by the user. According to Norman [5], "feedback--sending back tothe user information about

what action has actually been done, what result has beenaccomplished--is a well-known concept

in the science of control and information theory.

Imagine trying to talk to someone when you cannot even hear your own voice, or tryingto draw a

picture with a pencil that leaves no mark: there would be no feedback".

TECHNICAL BACKGROUND

This project deals with developing a product catalog website for Digital Gadgets. It

provides the user with a catalog of different gadgets available for purchase in the store. In order

to facilitate online purchase the customer will contact the company’s contact detail in order to

facilitate their orders. The system is implemented using a 3-tier approach, with a backend

MySQL database, a middle tier of web server (Apache), and a web browser as the front end

client.

In order to develop an e-commerce website, a number of Technologies must be studied

and understood. These include PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS.

This is a project with the objective to develop a basic website where a consumer is

provided with a product catalog application and also to know about the technologies used to

develop such an application.