Building An E-Commerce Presence: Web Sites, Mobile Sites, and Apps

Chapter 7
Building an E-commerce Presence: Web Sites, Mobile

Sites, and Apps
Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

Imagine Your E-commerce Presence
 What’s the idea?
 Vision
 Mission statement
 Target audience
 Intended market space
 Strategic analysis
 Internet marketing matrix
 Development timeline and preliminary budget
Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Slide 4-2
Imagine Your E-commerce Presence (cont.)
 Where’s the money?
 Business model(s):
 Portal, e-tailer, content provider, transaction broker,
market creator, service provider, community
provider
 Revenue model(s):
 Advertising, subscriptions, transaction fees, sales,
and affiliate revenue
 Who and where is the target audience?
 Describing your audience
 Demographics
 Age, gender, income, location
 Behavior patterns (lifestyle)

 Consumption patterns (purchasing habits)
 Digital usage patterns
 Content creation patterns (blogs, Facebook)
 Buyer personas
 Characterize the marketplace
 Demographics
 Size, growth, changes
 Structure
 Competitors
 Suppliers
 Substitute products
 Where is the content coming from?

 Static or dynamic?
 Know yourself—SWOT analysis
 Develop an e-commerce presence map
 Develop a timeline: Milestones
 How much will this cost?
 Simple Web sites: up to $5000
 Small Web start-up: $25,000 to $50,000
 Large corporate site: $100,000+ to millions
SWOT Analysis
Figure 4.1, page 189
E-commerce Presence Map
Figure 4.2, page 190
Building an E-commerce Site:
A Systematic Approach
 Most important management
challenges:
Developing a clear understanding of
business objectives
Knowing how to choose the right
technology to achieve those objectives
Pieces of the Site-Building Puzzle
 Main areas where you will need to
make decisions:
 Human resources and organizational
capabilities
 Creating team with skill set needed to build and
manage a successful site
 Hardware/software
 Telecommunications
 Site design
The Systems Development Life Cycle
 Methodology for understanding business
objectives of a system and designing an
appropriate solution
 Five major steps:
 Systems analysis/planning
 Systems design
 Building the system
 Testing
 Implementation
Web Site Systems Development Life Cycle
Figure 4.5, Page 194
System Analysis/Planning
 Business objectives:
 List of capabilities you want your site to have
 System functionalities:
 List of information system capabilities needed
to achieve business objectives
 Information requirements:
 Information elements that system must
produce in order to achieve business objectives
Table 4.2, page 195
Systems Design:
Hardware and Software Platforms
 System design specification:
 Description of main components of a system and
their relationship to one another
 Two components of system design:
 Logical design
 Data flow diagrams, processing functions, databases
 Physical design
 Specifies actual physical, software components, models,
and so on
Logical Design for a Simple Web Site
Figure 4.6 (a), Page 197
Physical Design for a Simple Web Site
Figure 4.6 (b), Page 197
Build/Host Your Own vs. Outsourcing
 Outsourcing: Hiring vendors to provide
services involved in building site
 Build own vs. outsourcing:
 Build your own requires team with diverse skill set; choice of
software tools; both risks and possible benefits
 Host own vs. outsourcing

 Hosting: Hosting company responsible for ensuring site is accessible
24/7, for monthly fee
 Co-location: Firm purchases or leases Web server (with control
over its operation), but server is located at vendor’s facility
Choices in Building and Hosting
Figure 4.7 Page 198
Testing, Implementation, and
Maintenance
 Testing
 Unit testing
 System testing
 Acceptance testing
 Implementation and maintenance:

 Maintenance is ongoing
 Maintenance costs: Similar to development costs
 Benchmarking
Factors in Web Site Optimization
Figure 4.10, Page 205
Simple vs. Multi-tiered
Web Site Architecture
 System architecture
 Arrangement of software, machinery, and tasks in an
information system needed to achieve a specific
functionality
 Two-tier
 Web server and database server
 Multi-tier
 Web application servers
 Backend, legacy databases
Two-Tier E-commerce Architecture
Figure 4.11(a), Page 207
Multi-Tier E-commerce Architecture
Figure 4.11(b), Page 207
Web Server Software
 Apache
 Leading Web server software (52% of market)
 Works with UNIX, Linux operating systems
 Microsoft’s Internet Information Server

(IIS)
 Second major Web server software (20% of
market)
 Windows-based
Table 4.4, Page 208
Site Management Tools
 Basic tools
 Included in all Web servers
 Verify that links on pages are still valid
 Identify orphan files
 Third-party software for advanced

management
 Monitor customer purchases, marketing campaign
effectiveness, and so on
 WebTrends Analytics 10, Google Analytics
Dynamic Page Generation Tools
 Dynamic page generation:
 Contents stored in database and fetched when needed
 Common tools:
 CGI, ASP, JSP, ODBC
 Advantages
 Lowers menu costs
 Permits easy online market segmentation
 Enables cost-free price discrimination
 Enables content management system (CMS)
Application Servers
 Web application servers:
 Provide specific business functionality required
for a Web site
 Type of middleware
 Isolate business applications from Web servers and
databases
 Single-function applications being replaced by
integrated software tools that combine all
functionality needed for e-commerce site
E-commerce Merchant Server Software
 Provides basic functionality for sales
 Online catalog
 List of products available on Web site
 Shopping cart
 Allows shoppers to set aside, review, edit selections,
and then make purchase
 Credit card processing
 Typically works in conjunction with shopping cart
 Verifies card and puts through credit to company’s
account at checkout
Merchant Server Software Packages
 Integrated environment that includes most of
functionality needed
 Key factors in selecting a package
 Functionality
 Support for different business models
 Business process modeling tools
 Visual site management and reporting
 Performance and scalability
 Connectivity to existing business systems
 Compliance with standards
 Global and multicultural capability
 Local sales tax and shipping rules
Web Services and Open-Source Options
 Options for small firms
 Hosted e-commerce sites
 Offer site building tools and templates
 Example: Yahoo’s Merchant Solutions
 Open-source merchant server software

 Enables you to build truly custom sites
 Requires programmer with expertise, time
The Hardware Platform
 Hardware platform:
 Underlying computing equipment needed for
e-commerce functionality
 Objective:
 Enough platform capacity to meet peak demand
without wasting money
 Important to understand the factors that
affect speed, capacity, and scalability of a
site
Right-Sizing Your Hardware Platform:
The Demand Side
 Customer demand:
 Most important factor affecting speed of site
 Factors in overall demand:

 Number of simultaneous users in peak periods
 Nature of customer requests (user profile)
 Type of content (dynamic vs. static Web pages)
 Required security
 Number of items in inventory
 Number of page requests
 Speed of legacy applications
Right-Sizing Your Hardware Platform:
The Supply Side
 Scalability:
 Ability of site to increase in size as demand warrants
 Ways to scale hardware:

 Vertically
 Increase processing power of individual components
 Horizontally
 Employ multiple computers to share workload
 Improve processing architecture
Table 4.8, Page 219
Table 4.9, Page 220
Other E-commerce Site Tools
 Web site design: Basic business considerations
 Enabling customers to find and buy what they need
 Tools for Web site optimization
 Search engine placement
 Metatags, titles, content
 Identify market niches, localize site
 Offer expertise
 Links
 Search engine ads
 Local e-commerce
Table 4.10, Page 221
Tools for Interactivity and
Active Content
 CGI (Common Gateway Interface)
 ASP (Active Server Pages)/ASP.NET
 Java, JSP, and JavaScript
 ActiveX and VBScript
 ColdFusion
 Web 2.0 design elements:
 Widgets, mashups
Personalization Tools
 Personalization
 Ability to treat people based on personal
qualities and prior history with site
 Customization
 Ability to change the product to better fit the
needs of the customer
 Cookies
 Primary method to achieve personalization
The Information Policy Set
 Privacy policy
 Set of public statements declaring how site will
treat customers’ personal information that is
gathered by site
 Accessibility rules
 Set of design objectives that ensure disabled
users can affectively access site
Developing a Mobile Web Site and
Building Mobile Applications
 Three types of m-commerce software
 Mobile Web site
 Responsive Web design
 Mobile Web app

 Native app
 Planning and building mobile presence

 Use systems analysis/design to identify unique
and specific business objectives
Developing a Mobile Web Presence
 Design considerations
 Platform constraints: Smartphone/tablet
 Performance and cost

 Mobile Web site:
 Least expensive
 Mobile app:
 Can utilize browser API
 Native app:
 Most expensive; requires more programming

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Chapter 7

Building an E-commerce Presence: Web Sites, Mobile

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

 Behavior patterns (lifestyle)

 Where is the content coming from?

Figure 4.1, page 189

Figure 4.2, page 190

Figure 4.5, Page 194

Figure 4.6 (a), Page 197

Figure 4.6 (b), Page 197

 Host own vs. outsourcing

Figure 4.7 Page 198

 Implementation and maintenance:

Figure 4.10, Page 205

Figure 4.11(a), Page 207

Figure 4.11(b), Page 207

 Microsoft’s Internet Information Server

 Third-party software for advanced

 Open-source merchant server software

 Factors in overall demand:

 Ways to scale hardware:

 Improve processing architecture

 Mobile Web app

 Planning and building mobile presence

 Performance and cost

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