CSE-409

E-Commerce & Web Engineering

Lecture -07

Sahab Uddin Rana

Lecturer, Dept. of CSE, DIU
Feature of E-Commerce:
• Non-Cash Payment− E-Commerce enables use of credit cards, debit
cards, smart cards, electronic fund transfer via bank's website and
other modes of electronic payment.
• 24x7 Service availability− E-commerce automates business of
enterprises and services provided by them to customers are
available anytime, anywhere. Here 24x7 refers to 24 hours of each
seven days of a week.
• Advertising / Marketing− E-commerce increases the reach of
advertising of products and services of businesses. It helps in better
marketing management of products/services.
Feature of E-Commerce (Cont.):
• Improved Sales− Using E-Commerce, orders for the products can
be generated any time, anywhere without any human intervention.
In this way, dependencies to buy a product reduce at large and
sales increase.
• Support− E-Commerce provides various ways to provide pre-sales
and post-sales assistance to provide better services to customers.
• Communication improvement− E-Commerce provides ways for
faster, efficient, reliable communication with customers and
partners.
Basic business and system functionalities an e-commerce
site should contain include:
• Digital catalog—allows a site to display goods using text and graphics.
• Product database—provides product information, such as a
description, stocking number, and inventory level.
• Customer on-site tracking—enables a site to create a site log for each
customer visit, aiding in personalizing the shopping experience and
identifying common customer paths and destinations.
• Shopping cart/payment system—provides an ordering system, secure
credit card clearing, and other payment options.
• On-site blog—engages customers in conversation.
• Customer database—includes customer information such as the
name, address, phone number, and e-mail address.
• Sales database—contains information regarding the customer
ID, product purchased, date, payment, and shipment to be able
to provide after-sale customer support.
• Ad server—tracks the site behavior of prospects and customers
that come through e-mail or banner ad campaigns.
• Site tracking and reporting system—monitors the number of
unique visitors, pages visited, and products purchased.
• Inventory management system—provides a link to products and
suppliers in order to facilitate order replenishment.
Additional tools that can improve website performance:
Commonly used software tools for achieving high levels of website interactivity and
customer personalization include:
• Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts—a set of standards for communication
between a browser and a program on a server that allows for interaction
between the user and the server.
• Active Server Pages (ASP)—a Microsoft tool that also permits interaction
between the browser and the server.
• Java applets—programs written in the Java programming language that also
provide interactivity.
• JavaScript—used to validate user input, such as an e-mail address.
• Cookies—text files stored on the user’s hard drive that provides information
regarding the user and his or her past experience at a website.
Technology concepts behind the Internet:
The Internet’s three key technology components are:
• Packet switching: which slices digital messages into packets, routes the packets
along different communication paths as they become available, and then
reassembles the packets once they arrive at their destination.
• TCP/IP: This is the core communications protocol for the Internet. TCP establishes
the connections among sending and receiving web computers and makes sure that
packets sent by one computer are received in the correct sequence by the other,
without any packets missing. IP provides the addressing scheme and is responsible
for the actual delivery of the packets.
• Client/server technology: which makes it possible for large amounts of information
to be stored on web servers and shared with individual users on their client
computers (which may be desktop PCs, laptops, netbooks, tablets, or smartphones).
 Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce)
• Very simply put M-commerce entails the e-commerce transactions done
with a mobile phone. So M-commerce is the use of mobile phones to
conduct any type of business transaction. It takes the help of the e-
commerce background and WAP technology.

• The use of wireless technology (WAP) to conduct sales of goods, provide

services, make payments and other financial transactions, exchange of
information, etc. are the basis of mobile commerce.

• M-commerce is actually a rapidly growing sector of e-commerce. Nearly

70% of the online transactions that occur in India happen from mobile
phones. Globally it is a 700 billion dollar industry.
 Applications of M-commerce
 Mobile Banking: Using a mobile website or application to perform all your
banking functions. It is one step ahead of online banking and has become
commonplace these days.
 Mobile Ticketing and Booking: Making bookings and receiving your tickets
on the mobile. The digital ticket or boarding pass is sent directly to your phone
after you make the payment from it. Even in India now IRTC and other services
provide m-ticketing services.
 E-bills: This includes mobile vouchers, mobile coupons to be redeemed and
even loyalty points or cards system.
 Auctions: Online auctions have now been developed to be made available via
mobile phones as well.
 Stock Market Reports and even stock market trading over mobile applications.
 Advantages of M-commerce
 It provides a very convenient and easy-to-use system to conduct business
transactions.
 Mobile commerce has a very wide reach. A huge part of the world’s population
has a mobile phone in their pocket. So the sheer size of the market is
tremendous.

 M-commerce also helps businesses target customers according to their

location, service provider, the type of device they use and various other
criteria. This can be a good marketing tool.

 The costs of the company are also reduced. This is due to the streamlined
processes, now transaction cost, low carrying cost and low order processing
cost as well.
 Disadvantages of M-commerce

 The existing technology to set up an m-commerce business is very expensive.

It has great start-up costs and many complications arise.

 In developing countries, the networks and service providers are not reliable. It
is not most suitable for data transfer.

 Then there is the issue of security. There are many concerns about the safety
of the customer’s private information. And the possibility of a data leak is very
daunting.
Q: What are the differences between e-commerce and m-commerce?

Ans: Some of the differences are as below,

 E-commerce came into existence in the 1970s. Whereas, M-commerce was

invented later during the 1990s
 Electronic commerce has a narrower reach than M-commerce, due to a large
number of mobile users globally.
 E-commerce is generally a less costly method. The set up of the website and
the use of the internet is both relatively cheaper methods. M-commerce, on the
other hand, is more expensive due to the creation of the mobile app and the
need to use cellular data (for the customers)
Thank you!