CIM277 Intro to ECommerce

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CIM277 Intro to E-Commerce

• Week 1

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Introducing E-Commerce

• On the Internet, you can buy a hot stock, order
  the latest paperback novel, sell your Beatles
  bubblegum cards, buy a set of antique Georgian
  silver, print postage stamps, book a flight, or
  find and pay for that perfect romantic hideaway
  in the Tuscan hills. In fact, just about any
  activity that involves buying and selling has
  moved from the corner store, the shopping mall,
  and the office tower to your desktop by way of
  e-commerce and the Internet.

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E-Commerce Characteristics

• In theory, the Internet knows no geographical
  boundaries, political boundaries, or time
  boundaries.
• You can order a toaster at three oclock in the
  morning, or sell lavender-scented beauty soap to
  a consumer who lives 10,000 miles away.
• The universality of the Internet has resulted in
  the worlds largest level playing field.
• As a one-person company operating from a log
  cabin in the mountains, you can compete with the
  worlds multinational corporationsso long as you
  have a reliable Internet connection, products or
  services to sell, and the means of delivering
  them to customers.
• In fact, if you sell a product such as software
  or learning materials that consumers can download
  directly from a Web
• site, you dont even need to worry about delivery
  systems.

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E-Commerce Defined

• The term commerce refers to all the activities in
  which a company or individual engages to complete
  a transaction. When you use the Internet to
  engage in some or all of these activities,
  commerce becomes e-commerce.
• Therefore, you can define e-commerce as using the
  Internet to assist in the trading of goods and
  services. Other terms that refer to doing
  business over the Internet include e-business,
  e-tailing, and e-trading.

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E-Commerce Benefits

• Some of the benefits of doing business over the
  Internet include the ability to engage in the
  following activities
• Conduct business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Sell products to anyone in the world.
• Respond quickly to customers.
• Build a one-on-one relationship with customers.
• Provide customers with up-to-the-minute
  information.
• Reduce the overhead costs associated with
  maintaining a brick and mortar retail outlet.
• The term brick and mortar refers to retail
  locations in the real world, as opposed to the
  electronic world of cyberspace.
• Companies that sell products or services both in
  the real world and online are referred to as
  click and mortar companies.
• Automated business operations to save time and
  money.
• In addition, you can use the Internet to explore
  new business opportunities, and perhaps build an
  e-commerce site that meets customer demand for a
  product or service that no one else has even
  identified yet!

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FIGURE A-1 Summary of an e-commerce transaction

• FIGURE A-1 Summary of an e-commerce transaction

• FIGURE A-2 E-Commerce Business Activities

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Understanding the Electronic Marketplace

• There are many tools that e-commerce developers
  can use for analyzing their markets
• Demographics
• Competition Research
• Traffic Patterns
• Trends
• Surveys
• Emergent Products
• There is no magic bullet in e-commerce. No one
  tool can ever get an accurate enough picture on
  its own.
• Numbers and statistics are also an inaccurate
  metric because they rarely can tell where the
  market is going, only where it is.

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Composite Measurements

• Ranking Systems often deal with old statistics
  provided from SEC filings.
• The burden of disclosure is based on company and
  often is based on soft estimations.

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Framework for Global E-Commerce

• The Global E-Commerce Market further complicates
  things because of the differences in currency,
  culture, and national policies.
• The U.S. government developed the five principles
  listed below as guidelines for conducting
  e-commerce transactions over the Internet. These
  principles recognize that the Global Information
  Infostructure (GII) is beginning to transform how
  people live and work.
• The private sector should lead.
• Government should avoid undue restrictions on
  electronic commerce.
• Where government involvement is needed, its aim
  should be to support it and enforce a
  predictable, minimalist, consistent, and legal
  environment for commerce.
• Government should recognize the unique qualities
  of the Internet.
• Electronic commerce over the Internet should be
  facilitated on a global basis.
• These principles are discussed in detail on the
  governments e-commerce Web site at
  www.ecommerce.gov

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Understanding Software Options

• You can modify an existing Web site by adding
  e-commerce capabilities such as a shopping cart
  and order transaction processing, or you can
  build an e-commerce Web site from the ground up.
• Many companies use Web page development software
  to create a Web site, and then use storefront
  software to organize and run an online store.

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Web Page Design Software

• You can create a Web site yourself by using any
  number of off-the-shelf software packages such as
  Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe/Macromedia
  Dreamweaver, or any everyday text editor like MS
  Notepad. The internet browser, Mozilla FireFox,
  has a number of free extensions that provide
  robust web design tools.
• These Web page design programs are also referred
  to as HyperText Markup Language (HTML) editors.

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Using HTML

• You can use most HTML editors to create
  attractive Web sites even if you are not familiar
  with HTML.
• However, the more you know about HTML, the more
  you can fix little quirks that affect the
  formatting of a Web page in even the best HTML
  editors.
• Fortunately, most programs allow you to switch
  back and forth between a screen showing HTML
  codes, and a screen showing the page as it
  appears in the Web browser, which allows you to
  become more familiar with HTML.
• You also can buy software that optimizes your
  HTML code so that your Web page loads quickly.

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Modifying an Existing Web Site

• Many companies build a Web site that initially
  provides visitors with information about products
  and services.
• Then after building an adequate customer base,
  those companies provide a secure environment in
  which customers can purchase products online.
• You can buy storefront packages that modify a Web
  site you created using Web page design software

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Portal Design for E-Commerce

• Designing for E-Commerce requires a streamlined
  page that is accessible to a wide audience.
• There are many E-Tailers that share a similar
  design approach and content flow.
• Top/Left Navigation for Primary and Secondary
  links is utilized by over 80 of the E-Commerce
  Marketplace
• Providing a similar navigation minimizes the
  learning curve for using your site.
• Amazon.com pioneered the Tabbed Navigation that
  is popular among web designers.
• Amazon has since partnered with many would-be
  competitors and allowed them to use Amazons
  design style, warehouses, and payment gateways.
• A small sample of Amazons partners are
• Borders
• Toys R Us/Babies R Us
• Office Depot
• Target
• Wine.com

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Portal Design Technology

• The most often utilized tools (outside of
  XHTML/HTML) for E-Commerce Design are Image
  Manipulation Tools and Cascading Style Sheets.
• Image Manipulation Tools like Adobe
  Photoshop/Illustrator and Adobe/Macromedia
  Fireworks provide a tremendous amount of power
  for creating and optimizing images for the web.
• Any Image Manipulation Tool can be used to
  optimize photos or create simple buttons.
• Some popular consumer-oriented tools are
• Jasc PaintShop Pro
• Adobe Photoshop Elements
• GIMP (Open Source/Free Image Tool)
• Apple iPhoto
• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are used in
  conjunction with every popular web language (HTML
  to PHP and beyond).
• CSS is used by E-Commerce Developers to
  standardize the design of a web site.
• Page Layout, Color Schemes, Link Decoration, etc.
  often use CSS to keep page designs uniform
  throughout E-Commerce websites.
• CSS can even be used by Multimedia Authoring
  tools like Flash to keep text in Flash styled the
  same as plain HTML content.

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Accessibility for E-Commerce

• The key to any successful web design for
  E-Commerce is to cater to the widest possible
  customer base.
• If the navigation is difficult to use or the flow
  of content is off-putting, customers will leave
  and look for an alternative.
• Accessibility issues are also critical for users
  with disabilities.
• The American Disability Acts are a series of
  by-laws to meet the needs of those with
  disabilities.
• ADA 508 is the specific by-law that governs web
  design for public spaces like education and
  government services and requires web content to
  meet that criteria within a specific statute of
  time.
• ADA 508 compliancy is not mandatory for corporate
  sites, but meeting the guidelines provides a
  virtual guarantee that a website is accessible
  for those with disabilities.
• Using CSS for Layouts and Typography, Alt Text
  tags for images, and minimizing the usage of
  Flash or other non-accessible media tools is an
  easy to way towards ADA 508 compliancy.