Chapter 9

E-Commerce Software

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Before we start … we need to ask …

1. What’s the expected size of the enterprise and its projected traffic and sales?

2. Budget?

3. What’s your target audience?

4. Use a full-service ISP or host the electronic commerce site in-house?

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Electronic Commerce Requirements

1. A catalog display

2. Shopping cart capabilities

3. Transaction processing

4. Tools to populate the store catalog and to facilitate storefront display choices

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1. Catalog Display

• A small commerce site can have a simple catalog, which is a static listing of goods and services

• Larger catalog has photos of items, descriptions, and a search feature

• For example, “MP3.com” is a large commerce site and “Women in Music” is a small site

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2. Shopping Cart

• Online forms were used for online shopping

• A new way of online shopping is through shopping carts

• QuickBuy is one company that makes this type of shopping cart software

• Cookies are bits of shopping information stored on a client computer

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3. Transaction Processing

• Transaction processing occurs when the shopper proceeds to the virtual checkout counter

• Software needs to calculate price, volume discounts, sales tax, and shipping costs

• Sales tax may vary in different regions, countries, etc

Questions

• Which online site was the easiest to use?• Which has the best catalogue display?• Which is the best shopping cart?• Do you return to that shop because of

functionality?• Do you avoid any shops because of

functionality?• What are the best features which such a site

should have?

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4. Electronic Commerce Tools

• Inexpensive (monthly rate + per transaction) storefronts that are offered by established portals, such as Yahoo!

• Robust software suites that run on large, dedicated computers and interact with database systems such as Oracle @ $1000-$5000

• B2B systems must be able to connect to existing legacy systems, including ERP software packages

Web Services

• Software tools that let application software in one organisation communicate with other applications

• SOAP– Simple Object Access Protocol

• UDDI– Universal Description, Discovery and Integration

• WSDL– Web Services Description Language

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What is ERP?

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Enterprise Resource Planning

• Large systems integrating– planning– manufacturing– sales– marketing

• Losing grounds to B2B via Web– e-procurement– supply chains– e-marketplaces– vortals

• Vertical industry portals providing information and resources for a particular industry (www.webopedia.com)

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Do you need to market your site?

• Visibility of Web sites is important

• Registering your own domain name helps visibility

• Also, including a META tag in your store’s home page

• Submitting your website via submitting services such as Submitit!

• Any more ideas?

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Some marketing tips …

• Search Engines – Use other tools www.ineedhits.com

• Directories – Manual submission

• Exchange links• Publish your eZine on eZine directories• Write an article

– Publish it on someone else’s website (and include links)• Free classified• Banner Exchange• Signature file in your email (with link)• Buy advertisement• Pop-up or Pop-under windows

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How to check popularity?

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Hosting Services

• The total costs of setting up your own in-house Web commerce site are expensive

• Web hosting services allow businesses to start electronic commerce inexpensively

• Web hosting services provide all the services that an ISP does.

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Types of hosting services

• What’s the difference? What are the pros and cons?

• Self-hosting

• Shared hosting– With other sites

• Dedicated hosting– A server just for you

• Collocated hosting– Your server in our premises

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Implications of Self-hosting

• The online business owns and maintains the server and all its software

• It implies full control, instant hardware access, and complete flexibility

• Business must have additional staff, Web expertise, expensive equipment, and a high-speed direct Internet connection

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Implications of Shared Hosting

• Your Web or commerce site resides on the same server as several other sites

• It is inexpensive, requires very little of an online store’s time to maintain

• It has a very high-speed connection to the Internet

• Fewer options might be available• Security concerns arise from unrelated online

businesses sharing the same server

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Implications of Dedicated Hosting

• A Web host provides a server for your Web site alone

• More Web and commerce software options, a good high-speed connection, more control to site’s design become available

• Higher software costs and maintenance costs can be incurred

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Implications of Collocated Hosting

• The server is owned by the online store but is located at the Web host’s site

• The Web host provides maintenance based on the level of service the online business requires

• Maintenance costs are higher than self-hosting

• “ValueWeb” is an example of a Web hosting service– It provides services of shared hosting, dedicated hosting, and

collocation services

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Comparison of Web Hosting

• Electronic commerce stores get a variety of services for a low monthly fee

• Web hosting customers have their own domain name and IP address

• Advantages of a shared web host over dedicated hosting or self-hosting:– Low setup fee– No staff and capital costs– Free technical support

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Web Host Services

1. Basic Packages

2. Midrange Packages

3. Enterprise Packages

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Basic Packages

• Basic packages are free or low-cost electronic commerce software supplied by the Web host for building Web sites

• The host makes money from advertising banners placed on the storefront’s Web pages

• B-City, BizLand.com and HyperMart are examples of these types of hosts

• Customer purchase transactions are handled by e-mail in this host service

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Banner Advertising Exchange Sites

• Banner exchange sites (BESs) are Web sites that help electronic merchant promote their stores online

• The BES organizes the banner exchange among members, enforces rules, and collects statistics of banner advertisement

• Examples of BESs are BannerExchange.com, Eurobanner, Exchange-it, LinkExchange, etc

• click-through count– #visitors who access site through a link

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Full-Service, Shared Mall-Style Hosting

• Full-service shared hosting sites provide online stores with good service, good Web creation tools, and little or no banner advertising clutter

• Costs– one-time setup fees – a monthly fee– customer transaction fee

• Yahoo! Store, GeoShops, ShopBuilder, and Virtual Spin Internet Store are examples of this type of Web hosts

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Yahoo! Store

• Yahoo! Store is a good value among full-service shared hosting sites

• Merchants can create, change, and maintain their Yahoo! storefronts through a Web browser

• On its own site, Yahoo! Holds all the stores’ pages in a proprietary format

• Yahoo’s management page contains many management, reporting, and global site setting tools

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Bigstep.com

• Bigstep.com provides a well-designed storefront package without charging hosting fees

• Bigstep enables merchants to create, change, and maintain a storefront through a Web browser

• Bigstep’s reports provide data mining capabilities– Looking for hidden patterns in data

• Data mining can help business find customers with common interests

• Free service– Optional add-on services at a cost (e.g. CardService)

• Let’s see how it works …

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Step 1 – Build Pages using Templates

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Step 2 – Customise them

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Step 3 – Use HTML (if you like)

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Step 4 – Create the catalogue

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Step 5 – Add a shopping cart

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Step 6 – Advertise it!

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Step 7 – Don’t forget your customers!

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Step 8 – Business E-mail

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Step 9 – Evaluate it!

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Step 10 – Relax

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Estimated Operating Expenses

• The first-year operating cost can vary depending on the Web host selected

• A good guideline for processing fees is to multiply your expected annual gross sales by 3%

• Setup and Web site maintenance costs– equipment– communications– physical location– Staff

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Midrange Packages

• Midrange packages allow the merchant to have explicit control over merchandising choices, site layout, internal architecture, and remote and local management options

• Midrange software has connectivity with database systems and store catalog information– Web Development Tools

• DreamWeaver MX• Microsoft FrontPage + Visual Studio .NET

– Intershop Enfinity– WebSphere– Commerce Server 2000

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InterShop Enfinity

• Intershop enfinity is produced by Intershop Communications Inc

• This software provides:– search and catalog capabilities– electronic shopping carts– online credit card transaction processing– connection to existing business systems and databases, such as DB2

and Oracle

• It has setup wizards and catalog and data management tools

• Automated email facility for order confirmation

• Secure Transaction support

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Intershop Enfinity Transactivity Server

• Intelligent Merchandiser– B2C Interface

• Remote XML Interface– B2B interface

• Transaction Engine– Secure processing of business logic

• Pipeline Orchestrator– Integration of e-commerce flows

• Cartridge API– Third party API products

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Enfinity Example

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WebSphere Commerce Suite• IBM produces the WebSphere Commerce Suite

• It comes complete with catalog templates, setup wizards, and advanced catalog tools

• It can be used both for B2B and B2C applications

• This system runs on Solaris, and Windows

• Works on a progressive store model– One Stop Shop– Personal Delivery Store– Business-to-Business Store

• Customizable through coding – Skills or consultants needed!

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Microsoft Commerce Server 2009

• Commerce Server 2009 provides tools for:– User profiling and management– Transaction processing– Product and service management– Target audience marketing– Reporting

• Wizards for– Administration– Store Construction

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Microsoft Commerce Server 2009

• Microsoft pipelines model a series of business processes:– The Commerce Interchange Pipeline for B2B – The Order-processing Pipeline for B2C

• Commerce Server has tools for– Advertising– Promotions– cross-selling– customer targeting and personalization.

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Enterprise Solutions for Large Firms

• Enterprise-level commerce software is called e-business software

• E-business software interacts with a wide variety of existing back office systems– Database– Accounting– Fulfillment (inventory)– Certificate Servers– Payment Servers– ERP systems.

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Enterprise Solutions for Large Firms

• An enterprise-scale solution requires:– A Domain Name Server (DNS)– An SMTP system to handle e-mail– An HTTP server– An FTP server for upload and download capabilities– A database server

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Enterprise Solutions for Large Firms• Examples of e-business systems:

– IBM’s WebSphere Commerce Suite, Pro Edition

– Oracle’s e-Business Suite

– BroadVision One-to-One Commerce

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Customer Relationship Management ($200,000+)• Helping customized a service or product to the customer’s needs

• Needs data from– sales automation– customer service center operations– marketing campaigns– customer activities on web site– other points of customer contact

• to help managers in– analytical activities– gathering business intelligence– planning marketing strategies– customer behavior modeling– product and service customization

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Supply Chain Mgmt

• Software to help coordinate planning and operations with industry partners

• Eg. i2 Technologies– demand planning– supply planning– demand fulfillment

• Eg. Manugistics– constraint-based master planning system controlling transport

management, replenishment management, manufacturing planning, scheduling, purchase planning and materials control

• Cost based on number of stores:– 500: $4-10 million– 4: $1 million

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Content Management Software

• Software to help share information between employees, customers, suppliers and partners

• Provides ability to add/change online information, online

• Costs between $200,000 - $500,000

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Knowledge Management

• Conversion of written documents into electronic form

+• Ability to search through the documents• Support for a variety of document formats• Costs between $50,000 and $1 million• Eg. – IBM Lotus Discovery– Microsoft Sharepoint Technologies

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Case Studies (1)

• Will help us see …

– the ways in which different eCommerce solutions can be implemented within real-life organizations

– the business benefits that such solutions can deliver

– the positive impact that effective eCommerce solutions can have on the customer/supplier relationship

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Case Studies (2)

• The pitfalls

– Not all the information might be available• Companies don’t like to disclose details • Especially on things which give them a competitive edge

– Normally maintained by the supplier of the solution• Generally biased towards a tool

– Most of the important lessons are learnt when things go wrong• But no one likes to highlight his own errors!

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Case Studies (3)

• Identify …

– how a business or organization identified the need to implement an eCommerce solution (was it reactive or proactive?)

– how it reacted to this need in terms of assessing its business?– how it chose the particular solution?– how it implemented the solution?– what impact/s the solution had on its business?– which eCommerce tools were used?– which communications options were used?– Suggest any improvements …