E-Transaction: Shopping Carts Comparison

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E-Transaction Shopping CartsComparison

• INBS 510
• Amazon.com VS BarnesandNoble.com
• Presenter Clementina Imobhio

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Introduction

• The method of trading or offering services has
  changed over the years. Businesses has made
  transition to e-business.
• Past Markets
• Goods For Goods
• Goods For Humans
• Open Markets
• Merchants
• New Era
• Goods for cash, credit basis, checks, etc
• Open and Close Markets
• Brick and Mortar Stores
• Era of Technology
• Internet Markets
• Brick and Click Stores
• Shopping Carts
• Credit Cards/Checks/Debits Payments

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E-CommerceDefinition

• E-Commerce means doing business online or selling
  and buying products and services through Web
  storefront. Products maybe physical or services
  such as consultation. It is similar to catalog
  shopping or shopping on cable TV. Electronic
  commerce is not limited to buying and selling
  products online. The electronic commerce began
  more than two decades ago with the introduction
  of electronic data interchange (EDI) between
  firms (sending and receiving order, delivery and
  payment information, etc.)

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E-Business

• Businesses asset management treats specific
  business entities as assets and look at ways to
  better manage those assets in order to reach
  business goals faster, cheaper, and more
  effectively. Business assets are those entities
  that support the achievement of business goals.
• Five Key Assets of E-Business
• People
• Partners
• Processes
• Knowledge
• Technology

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What is E-Transaction?

• E-transaction processing is the technology that
  enables advanced e-business. It permits the
  intelligent integration of complete business
  processes.
• The Key Elements of E-Transaction
• Customer Authentication
• Task Authorization
• Order Processing
• Inventory Checking
• Locating Finishing Goods
• Factory build instructions
• Parts allocations
• Credit checking, payments acceptance, shipping
  setup
• Tracking number assignment
• Abstract.. Closing of a transaction at websites
  is one important e-commerce goal, companies
  should not lose site of the continuing importance
  and power of their website as information and
  communication as well. Taken from
• Shopping online for Freedom, Control and Fun, by
  Mary Gilly and Mary WolFinbarger 2000

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E-Transaction Shopping Carts

• In an intermediate e-business system,
  transactions begin to become interactive. The
  process of most e-transactions are completed with
  the use of the Shopping Carts. Customers can
  browse relatively complete catalogs and place
  different items in shopping carts for checkout.
• The shopping carts in e-transaction processing
  logs in volumes increase, which is the number of
  events that happen in a single intermediate
  transaction ranging from five to ten as a user
  enters the site, puts something in the shopping
  cart, checks are run against inventory, and
  shipping costs are calculated.

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Definition of Shopping Carts

• Shopping cart keeps track of all items that a
  customer wants to buy, allowing the shopper to
  pay for the whole order at checkout. Most
  shopping carts are free. Check these free
  shopping carts at
• www.onlineorders.net/links/free/.
• In the "shopping cart" model, consumers can
  select items while browsing the site that are
  then added to their virtual shopping carts. When
  consumers are finished selecting items, they must
  proceed to "check-out" where the purchases are
  confirmed and billing and shipment information is
  supplied or confirmed.

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Shopping Cart Functions

• In e-commerce, a shopping cart is very essential.
  The use of shopping carts enables your customers
  to
• Place order on the same page where its pictured
  and described.
• The customer is able to buy more than one
  products at a time and choose different colors
  and sizes
• It calculates and tallies all items in the carts
  at one time, giving the shopper a running total
  of what is in his or her cart and what charges
  might be.
• The customer is able to view the final order,
  which includes all charges that will be made to
  customers credit card, including taxes,
  shipping, and handling.

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Choosing a Shopping Cart

• It is very important to take certain questions
  into consideration before designing a shopping
  cart
• Is the package easy to set up?
• Do you have to place it on your server?
• Do you just bolt it on to your site?
• How long does it takes to to set up the shopping
  cart?
• Can products be added and deleted easily and
  quickly?
• Is the shopping cart connected directly to your
  credit card service and automatically processed
  or do you have to process the cards yourself?
• Will the shopping cart software compute taxes,
  shipping, and handling?
• Can it compute international shipping rates and
  tariffs?
• When the order is confirmed will it send out a
  confirmation e-mail to the customers?

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Shopping Carts Cash Register

• The shopping cart or the shopping basket is only
  one of two parts of a shopping cart. The second
  part is the cash register. The shopping cart
  keeps track of and tallies the order the cash
  register records, processes, and charges the
  customers credit card. The information is
  transmitted through Secure Socket Layer (SSL).
• Shopping Cart Diagram

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Effective Shopping Cart

• A successful shopping cart should have the
  following elements
• Acceptability
• Convertibility
• Efficiency
• Flexibility
• Integration
• Reliability
• Scalability
• Security
• Usability

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Websites with Shopping Carts

• Amazon.com
• BarnesandNoble.com
• Yahoo.com
• BestBuy.com

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Amazon.com Vs BarnesandNoble.com

• The two websites shopping cart to be compared
  are
• Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com

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Amazon.com

• Amazon.com has become the leading online
  bookstore, billing itself as the "largest
  bookstore" on earth not by opening numerous
  branch stores but via the Internet. The
  Amazon.com is a Click store.

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BarnesandNoble.com

• The "biggest bookstore", BarnesandNoble.com with
  a towering share of revenues and physical book
  stores, has been forced to respond to
  Amazon.com's challenge by opening its own Web
  store. This is a Brick and Mortar store.

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Similarities of Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com

• Similarities
•  
• When a description of an item is given, Amazon
  and Barnes and Nobles both place the shopping
  cart option prominently displayed to the upper,
  right portion of the screen. This makes it very
  efficient, and useable for the viewer and they do
  not have to search around the page for this
  button.
•  
• In pricing, both Amazon.com and
  Barnesandnobles.com display the average price for
  their items above their own discounted rates so
  that the users feel as though they are saving
  money.
•  

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Similarities, Cont.

• Both sites are Flexible, there is an option of
  buying things at a later date and placing them in
  the shopping cart temporarily. This option is
  called the wish list and it is displayed just
  beneath the Add to Cart button. Users can
  access this saved information and access it on
  their next visit.
•  
• Both sites offer Security that provides safe
  shopping, privacy and efficiency by requiring
  customers to join as members at a certain point
  during a transaction. Membership is free and
  requires an email address, full name, home
  address and phone number. It also makes shopping
  faster, allowing customers to maintain an order
  status and helps provide a history of what they
  bought. The use of https in most online business
  in processing their transactions.
•  
• Both sites are very Scalable, allowing for a
  huge selection of items to be added to the
  product catalog or taken away. Field sizes is
  accommodated in the database.
•  

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Differences Amazon.com

• Amazon.com
• In Amazon.com, you have to become a member first
  before you conduct a transaction on the website
  by proving key information before you can add
  anything to your cart.
• Upon adding items to your cart, amazon.com
  immediately offers a multitude of suggestions
  based upon a very extensive database that tracks
  customer activities. The items suggested closely
  match the items purchased according to subject
  matter and to books bought in conjunction with
  previous customers.

• BarnesandNoble.com
• In Barnesandnoble.com account to add information
  to your cart. However, I had problems adding
  items to my cart on Barnesandnoble.com. The
  items were not saving after multiple attempts
  which means there may be software problems, thus,
  lower usability and reliability for the
  customers.
• Barnes and Noble also offers suggestions for
  other items to buy, but the criteria doesnt seem
  to be as wide. It is mainly based on similar
  items with the same keywords as opposed to a
  tracking of past customer activity.

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Advantages Shopping Carts

• It helps to maximize customers' satisfaction, and
  provide a faster, more convenient purchasing
  method.
• The consumers dont have to leave the comfort of
  their homes to make purchases.

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Disadvantages Shopping Cart

• The shopping cart model can be tedious.
• Time consuming for single purchases.
• The final check-out procedure appears to be large
  to consumers.
• Shopping carts are frequently filled but left
  unpurchased in virtual aisles.
• The shopping carts are abandoned at or before
  check-out.
• These unconsummated sales represent a
  significant loss of revenue to on-line merchants
  and a huge waste of consumer time.

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Summary
Overall, shopping carts are helping to
revolutionize the way Companies do businesses
and Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and other
online stores recognize the value and untapped
revenue shopping carts present. By applying
important elements, such as usability,
reliability, accessibility and security,
businesses can learn to gain consumer confidence
and have successful online Stores. Barnes and
Nobles and Amazon.com are competing, but both
stores and other online stores recognize what
works and are studying one another often
duplicating one anothers business strategies.
This has resulted in them having more
similarities than differences and it helps the
consumers find similarities across the Web.
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References

• Frank Fiore and TechTV.Starting an Online
  Business.Que Corporation, Indiana 2001
• Stewart McKieE-Business Best Practices.John
  Wiley Sons, Inc. 2001
• Efraim Turban
• Electronic Commerce A Managerial Perspective
• Pearson Education, 2002