Building An E-Commerce Web Site

Building An E-Commerce Web Site

The two most important management challenges in building a successfull e-commerce site are:

1. Developing a clear understanding of your bussiness objectives and

2. Knowing how to choose the right technology to achieve those objectives

Planning: The Systems Development Life Cycle

One methodology for developing an e-commerce site plan is the systems development life cycle. The system development life cycle (SDLC) is a methodology for understanding the business objectives of any system and designing an appropriate solution. The five major steps involved in the systems development life cycle for an e-commerce site are:

1. Systems Analysis/Planning

2. Systems Design

3. Building the System

4. Testing

5. Implementation

Factors In Optimizing Web Site Performance

The purpose of a Web site is to deliver content to customers and to complete transactions. The faster and more reliably these two objectives are met, the more effective the Web site is from a commerce perspective.

Web Site Budgets

While how much you spend to build a Web site depends on how much you can afford, and, of course, the size of the opportunity. Web site costs according to a survey of 125 Web site managers. About 75% of the costs of Web sites involved technology cost-development, software licenses, and hardware. About 18% of costs will be for design and development, and 6% for marketing the site. (Source: Jupiter Media Metrix, 2002)

Choosing Server Software

What you able to do at an e-commerce site is largely a function of the software. As a business manager in charge of building the site, you will need to know some basic information about e-commerce software.

Simple Versus Multi-Tiered Web Site Architecture

Web site software was appropriately quite simple-it consisted of a server computer running basic Web server software. We might call this arrangement a single-tier system architecture. System architecture refers to arrangement of software, machinery, and tasks in an information system needed to achieve a spesific functionality (much like a home’s architecture refers to arrangement of building materials to achieve a particular functionality).

In two-tier architecture, a Web server responds to requests for Web pages and a database server provides backend data storage. In a multi-tier architecture, in contrast, the Web server is linked to a middle-tier layer that typically includes a series of application servers that perform specific, tasks, as well as to a backend layer of existing corporate systems containing product, customer, and pricing information.

The nine basic business and system functionalities an e-commerce site should contain include:

· Digital catalog-allows a site to display goods using text and graphics.

· Product database-provides product information, such as a description, stocking number, and inventory level.

· Customer on-site traking-ebables a site to create a site log for each customer visit, aiding in personalizing the shopping experience and identifying common customer paths and destination.

· Shopping cart/payment system-provides an ordering system, secure credit-card clearing, and other payment options.

· Customer database-include customer information such as the name, address, phone number, and e-mail address.

· Sales database-contain information regarding the customer ID, product purchased, date, payment, and shipment to be able to provide after-sale customer support.

· Ad server-tracks the site behavior of prospects and customer that come through e-mail or banner ad campaigns.

· Site tracking and reporting system-monitors the number of unique visitor, page visited, and product purchased.

· Inventory management system-provides a link to production and suppliers in order to facilitate order replenishment.

Describe the major issues surronding the decision to outsource site development and/or hosting.

Advantage of building a site in-house include:

· the ability to change and adapt the site quickly as the market demands, and

· the ability to build a site that does exactly what company needs.

Disadvantage of building a site in-house include:

· the costs may be higher;

· the risks of failures may be greater, given the complexity of issues such as security, privacy, and inventory management;

· the process may be more time-consuming than if you had hired an outside specialist firm to manage the effort; and

· staff may experience a longer learning curve that delays your entry into the market.

Identify and understand the major considerations involved in choosing Web server and e-commerce merchant server software.

Early Web sites used single-tier system architecture and consisted of a single-server computer that delivered static. Web pages to users making requests through their browsers. When choosing Web server software, companies are also choosing what operating system the site will run on; Apache, which runs on the UNIX system, is the market leader.

Web server provide a host of services, including

· processing user HTML requests

· security services

· file transfer protocol