Developing E-Commerce Steps

1. IT8005 – Electronic Commerce
IV Year / VIII Semester

2. UNIT II BUILDING AN E-COMMERCE
WEBSITE, MOBILE SITE AND APPS
Systematic approach to build an E-Commerce:
Planning, System Analysis, System Design,
Building the system, Testing the system,
Implementation and Maintenance, Optimize Web
Performance – Choosing hardware and software –
Other E-Commerce Site tools – Developing a
Mobile Website and Mobile App.

3. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Building a successful e-commerce presence requires a
keen understanding of business, technology, and social
issues, as well as a systematic approach.
 Challenges:
 developing a clear understanding of business objectives
 knowing how to choose the right technology to achieve
those objectives.

4. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach

5. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Be aware of the main areas where you will need to make decisions.
 On the organizational and human resources fronts, to bring together
a team of individuals who possess the skill sets needed to build and
manage a successful e-commerce presence.
 This team will make the key decisions about business objectives
and strategy, technology, design, and social and information
policies.
 To make decisions about hardware, software, and
telecommunications infrastructure.

6. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Planning: The Systems Development Life
Cycle:
 Next step in building an e-commerce website will
be creating a plan document.
 To tackle a complex problem - To proceed
systematically through a series of steps.

7. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Planning: The Systems Development Life Cycle:
 The systems development life cycle (SDLC) is a
methodology for understanding the business objectives
of any system and designing an appropriate solution.
 The SDLC method also helps in creating documents
that communicate objectives, important milestones,
and the uses of resources to management.

8. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Planning: The Systems Development Life Cycle:
 Steps:
 Systems analysis/planning
 Systems design
 Building the system
 Testing
 Implementation

9. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Planning: The Systems Development Life
Cycle:

10. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Systems Analysis/Planning:
 Identify business objectives,
 System functionality, and
 Information requirements

11. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Systems Analysis/Planning:
 To identify the specific business objectives for
your site, and then develop a list of system
functionalities and information requirements.
 Business objectives are simply capabilities you
want your site to have.

12. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Systems Analysis/Planning:
 System functionalities are types of information
systems capabilities you will need to achieve your
business objectives.
 The information requirements for a system are the
information elements that the system must produce in
order to achieve the business objectives.

13. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Systems Analysis/Planning:
Business Objective System Functionality Information Requirements
Display goods Digital catalog Dynamic text and graphics
catalog
Provide product information Product database Product description,
stocking numbers, inventory
Levels
Personalize/customize
product
Customer on-site tracking Site log for every customer
visit
Engage customers in
conversations
On-site blog; user forums Software with blogging and
community forum
functionality

14. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Systems Analysis/Planning:
Business Objective System Functionality Information Requirements
Execute a transaction Shopping cart/payment
system
Secure credit card clearing;
multiple payment options
Accumulate customer
information
Customer database Name, address, phone, and
e-mail
Coordinate
marketing/advertising
Ad server, e-mail server, e-
mail
customers linked to e-mail
and banner ad campaigns
Understand marketing
effectiveness
Site tracking and reporting
system
Number of unique visitors,
pages visited, products
purchased,

15. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 System Design: Hardware and Software
Platforms:
 A system design specification—a description of the
main components in the system and their relationship
to one another.
 The system design itself can be broken down into two
components: a logical design and a physical design.

16. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 System Design: Hardware and Software Platforms:
 A logical design includes a data flow diagram that describes the flow
of information at your e-commerce site.
 A physical design translates the logical design into physical
components.
 For instance, the physical design details the specific model of server to
be purchased, the software to be used, the size of the
telecommunications link that will be required, the way the system will
be backed up and protected from outsiders, and so on

17. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 System Design: Hardware and Software
Platforms:

18. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 System Design: Hardware and Software
Platforms:

19. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Building the System: In-house versus Outsourcing:
 Outsourcing means that hire an outside vendor to provide
the services involved in building the site rather than using
in-house personnel.
 Second decision to make: will you host (operate) the site
on your firm’s own servers or will you outsource the
hosting to a web host provider?

20. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Building the System: In-house versus
Outsourcing:

21. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Build Your Own versus Outsourcing:
 If elect to build your own site, there are a range of
options.
 Unless you are fairly skilled, you should use a pre-
built template to create the website.
 WordPress is a website development tool with a
sophisticated content management system.

22. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Build Your Own versus Outsourcing:
 A content management system (CMS) is a database
software program specifically designed to manage
structured and unstructured data and objects in a
website environment.
 A CMS provides web managers and designers with a
centralized control structure to manage website
content.

23. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Build Your Own versus Outsourcing:
 WordPress also has thousands of user-built plug-ins and widgets
that you can use to extend the functionality of a website.
 Websites built in WordPress are treated by search engines like
any other website: their content is indexed and made available to
the entire web community.
 Revenue-generating ads, affiliates, and sponsors are the main
sources of revenue for WordPress sites.
 Tools: Google Sites, Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly.

24. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Build Your Own versus Outsourcing:
 The decision to build a website on your own has a
number of risks.
 The complexity of features such as shopping carts,
credit card authentication and processing, inventory
management, and order processing, the costs involved
are high.

25. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Host Your Own versus Outsourcing:
 Most businesses choose to outsource hosting and pay a company
to host their website, which means that the hosting company is
responsible for ensuring the site is “live,” or accessible, 24 hours
a day.
 With a co-location agreement, your firm purchases or leases a
web server (and has total control over its operation) but locates
the server in a vendor’s physical facility.

26. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Host Your Own versus Outsourcing:
 Co-location has expanded with the spread of
virtualization where one server has multiple
processors (4 to 16) and can operate multiple
websites at once with multiple operating systems.

27. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Host Your Own versus Outsourcing:
 While co-location involves renting physical space for your
hardware, you can think of using a cloud service provider as
renting virtual space in your provider’s infrastructure.
 Cloud services are rapidly replacing co-location because they
are less expensive, and arguably more reliable.
 Cloud service providers offer a standardized infrastructure,
virtualization technology, and employ a pay-as-you-go billing
system.

28. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Testing the system:
 As much as 50% of the budget can be consumed by
testing and rebuilding.
 Unit testing involves testing the site’s program
modules one at a time.
 System testing involves testing the site as a whole, in
the same way a typical user would when using the site.

29. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Testing the system:
 Acceptance testing requires that the firm’s key
personnel and managers in marketing, production,
sales, and general management actually use the system
as installed on a test Internet or intranet server.
 This acceptance test verifies that the business
objectives of the system as originally conceived are in
fact working.

30. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Testing the system:
 Another form of testing is called A/B testing (or split
testing).
 This form of testing involves showing two versions (A and
B) of a web page or website to different users to see which
one performs better.
 A template test compares the same general page content
using two different layouts and or design treatments.

31. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Testing the system:
 A new concept test compares a control page with one
that is very different.
 A funnel test compares the flow through a series of
pages (such as a product page, to a registration page, to
shopping cart page, versus skipping the registration
page) to see which one results in a higher percentage
of conversions.

32. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Testing the system:
 Multivariate testing involves identifying specific
elements, or variables, on a web page, such as a
headline, image, button and text, creating versions
for each element, and then creating a unique
combination of each element and version to test.

33. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Implementation and Maintenance:
 The long-term success of an e-commerce site will depend
on a dedicated team of employees (the web team) whose
sole job is to monitor and adapt the site to changing market
conditions.
 The web team must be multi-skilled; it will typically
include programmers, designers, and business managers
drawn from marketing, production, and sales support.

34. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Implementation and Maintenance:
 One of the first tasks of the web team is to listen to
customers’ feedback on the site and respond to that
feedback as necessary.
 A second task is to develop a systematic monitoring
and testing plan to be followed weekly to ensure all the
links are operating, prices are correct, and pages are
updated.

35. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Implementation and Maintenance:
 Other important tasks of the web team include
benchmarking (a process in which the site is
compared with those of competitors in terms of
response speed, quality of layout, and design) and
keeping the site current on pricing and promotions.

36. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Factors in Optimizing Website Performance:

37. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Factors in Optimizing Website Performance:
 Using efficient styles and techniques for page design
and content can reduce response times by two to five
seconds.
 Simple steps include reducing unnecessary HTML
comments and white space, using more efficient
graphics, and avoiding unnecessary links to other
pages in the site.

38. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Factors in Optimizing Website Performance:
 Page generation speed can be enhanced by segregating
computer servers to perform dedicated functions (such as
static page generation, application logic, media servers, and
database servers), and using various devices from vendors
to speed up these servers.
 Using a single server or multiple servers to perform
multiple tasks reduces throughput by more than 50%.

39. E-Commerce Presence – A Systematic Approach
 Factors in Optimizing Website Performance:
 Page delivery can be speeded up by using
specialized content delivery networks or by
increasing local bandwidth.