Dimensions Enterprise Ecommerce Platform

Dimensions Enterprise Ecommerce Platform provides an end-

to-end ecommerce solution for your business. Dimensions comprises 3 core components that can
be implemented separately or as part of a complete ecommerce solution.

Dimensions Ecommerce Platform - Data Management

Dimensions empowers you to create enterprise-class ecommerce websites with ease. The
Dimensions ecommerce software features sophisticated data optimisation and management
functionality which adds value to raw product data by automatically translating it into customer
ready information.

Dimensions allows for the import and export of catalogues, categories and product data from
ERP systems, web services, CSV files and many other formats. Automated rules can then be
applied to clean the data with the option to edit and synchronise product information offline.

The Data Management component of Dimensions can easily integrate with your existing systems
to ensure your business gets a single view of all its critical business information. Dimensions
ecommerce software is unique and powerful in its ability to maximise the potential of your data.

Dimensions Ecommerce Platform - User Experience

The User Experience (Presentation Layer) component of Dimensions enterprise ecommerce
software provides all the functionality your business needs to ensure an exceptional shopping
experience for your customers.

We use our understanding of online shopping behaviour to inform the digital strategy, navigation
and architecture of your ecommerce website and ensure these elements work in harmony with
your brand. Dimensions ecommerce software incorporates advanced Search, Merchandising,
Web 2.0, User-Generated Content and Personalisation capabilities to ensure a consistent and
convenient customer journey.

Built for SEO, the Dimensions platform drives shoppers who are ready to buy, to your website.
Dimensions enterprise ecommerce provides ecommerce solutions that give you flexibility and
the customer insights you need to create an exceptional shopping experience.

Dimensions Ecommerce Platform - Shop Front

The Shop Front (Ecommerce) component of Dimensions enterprise ecommerce platform is
designed for optimal conversion of your website visitors into buyers. The Shop Front facilitates
the highest quality customer service throughout the entire shopping experience, from shopping
cart and order processing to shipping and return/refund management. Rich, out-of-the-box
ecommerce tools provide a simple and efficient checkout process with the ability to offer
various shipping options and rates, as well as multiregional capabilities.

The integrity and security of customer data is of paramount importance to any ecommerce
solution. The Dimensions platform meets the strictest security standards with fraud protection
and secure payment processing systems as well as PCI DSS compliance. The Dimensions Shop
Front performs for your business by providing customers with a personalised and satisfying
shopping experience.

Ecommerce is changing the traditionally accepted economic practices and making competition even fiercer
than it has ever been in the past. As the internet opens up larger markets to take advantage of, more and
more flexible competitors are entering the market, all offering better priced value propositions in order to
steal market share.The business parameters have changed and so have the risks & payoffs.

E-commerce is becoming critical in three dimensions: C2C business interactions, intra-business interactions
and B2B interactions. In C2B dimension, e-commerce is enabling the customers to have an increasing say in
what products are made, how products are made and how services are delivered.E-commerce is also a
catalyst for dramatic changes in internal organizational functioning as evidenced by the rapid proliferation of
intranets.

Some common applications related to electronic commerce are the following:

 Email
 Enterprise content management
 Instant messaging
 Newsgroups
 Online shopping and order tracking
 Online banking
 Online office suites
 Domestic and international payment systems
 Shopping cart software
 Teleconferencing
 Electronic tickets

History

Over the last 30 years, the definition of Electronic Commerce has changed. Initially, in the late 1970's,
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) were used as the basic technology
to facilitate electronic commercial transactions. This was what electronic commerce originally meant, the use
of technological innovations like EDIs and EFTs in doing commercial businesses electronically. EDIs and EFTs
allowed businesses to electronic sending of commercial documents such as purchase orders or invoices.

In 1979, an English inventor named Michael Aldrich invented online shopping. He did this by connecting a
customized 26-inch color domestic television to a computer with real time transaction processing system
through a domestic telephone line.

During the 1980's, forms of electronic commerce such as credit cards, Automated Teller machines (ATM)
and telephone banking grew and were accepted. The Airline Reservation System typified by Savre in the
USA and Travicom in the United Kingdom was also considered another form of e-commerce. Curiously,
online shopping has been present even before IBM, Microsoft, Apple Inc. and the Internet. In the mid-
1980's, CompuServe, one of the first popular networking services for home PC users, which provide tools
like e-mail, message boards and chat rooms, added a service called Electronic Mall. In the Electronic Mall,
users could purchase items directly form 110 online dealers. While this service did not succeed, we know it
today as one of the first examples of e-commerce.

In the year 1990, at the European Organization for Nuclear research (CERN), Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher,
proposed hypertext-based web information that a user can explore using s simple interface called a browser.
The researcher called it the World Wide Web. Furthermore, in the year 1991, Web-based e-commerce
emerged and became more alive due to the lifting of the ban on commercial business operating over the
Internet by the National Science Foundation. In 1993, Marc Andreesen introduced the first widely distributed
web browser called Mosaic at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). In 1994,
Netscape 1.0's release included Secure Socket Layer (SSL), an important security protocol that encrypts
messages in an online transaction, which includes both the sending and receiving side. One of the functions
of SSL is to ensure encryption of personal information such as names, addresses and credit card numbers as
they pass over the Internet.

The first third-party services for processing online credit card sales began to appear in the years 1994 and
1995. Two of the most popular among these third-party services were First Virtual and CyberCash. Also in
1995, a company called Verisign began developing digital IDs, or certificates, that verified the identity of
online businesses. Before long, Verisign shifted its focus from verifying the identity of online businesses to
certifying that the e-commerce servers of a particular web site were properly encrypted and secure.

How ecommerce is adding value to people?

With the globalization, flood gates have opened for the companies who bring in rich experience and heritage
in form of technological advanced products across the borders.With rising in purchasing power ,more people
are lured by the big brands and extensive products.With passage of time, comfort is playing the main role.
With more and more people flocking to the malls and outlets, problems like parking is inevitable. Here
comes E-commerce for rescue. With websites like ebay, amazon for online shopping, makemytrip, cleartrip
for buying tickets, booking taxis/hotels, people can now buy anything form anywhere.

Ecommerce has given banking industry a new domain. With core banking solutions,people can now transfer
or receive funds from any part of the world. Gone are the days when a father in New Delhi wanted to
deposit his son's college fees in Orissa has to go physically to Orissa and deposit the fees. With EFT,he can
do so with the click.Gone are the days when a guy in America could not send his girlfrind a box of chocolates
on Valentine's day. With ecommerce, he can win her love.

Websites like makemytrip.com has revolutionize the whole travel industry. Who would have though of
booking tickets online for the flight as per wish. Who would have though that one can not only book online
tickets but also taxi and hotels .Yes, this is possible and only through e-commerce.

With e-commerce students can now purchase books online thereby averting the physical copy.This is having
a huge impact on environment,only in positive way.With less papers,means less cutting of trees.

In the below section some of the most popular sites practicising e-comerce across the globe have been
analyzed vis-a vise.We will see how e-commerce have boosted their business practise.

E-Bay

A company that has emerged unscathed from the recent dot-com bust with profits soaring to almost 400%
and revenues doubling in the past one year. It has transformed auctions that were limited to garage sales
and flea markets into highly evolved e-market places. Selling just about anything, from antiques and jewelry
to computers, automobiles and even auto insurance, it has 29.7 million registered users today.

Adopting an amazing and unique culture, where buyers and sellers of all items are allowed to post their
comments online, where credit-card payment facilities are secure and easy, the company projects a
trustworthy and reliable image.
Apart from bidding, certain high quality goods can be sold at prices fixed by the seller. This site also offers

professional services for all kinds of business needs. A widespread global reach makes its easy for a buyer in
Hong Kong to bid and buy a product from a seller in Paris while the regional sites in North America are able
to offer hard to ship merchandise.

Person-to-person trading and a barter economy have established the company on a secure B2B and B2C
platform. Other companies like Yahoo! and Excite have been quick to catch on and incorporate auctions into
their sites. Priceline.com, a site that offers airline tickets on discount has begun experimenting quite
successfully with this business model.

To summarize, their business model can be elucidated thus:

•          Automation of traditional methods of selling unique items

•          Reliability in mode of payments

•          Customer friendly company

•          Professional services in addition to just plain selling of goods

•          Global reach

•          Regional diversification

•          Successful advertising

Naukri.com

Naukri.com is a job site operating in India founded by Sanjeev Bikhchandani in March 1997. This website
brings a prospective job hunter close to the recruiter. With naukri.com a job seeker can post his/her resume
online and can get the job interviews scheduled from the prospective company if the candidate's skills match
with that of the job description.

There are many a time when the resume of the candidate is not a professional one and he primarily looses
the opportunity on this basis.Naukri.com also provides services in which a candidate, as per his job skills ,
can request for a crafted resume developed by a professional buy paying the required fees on-line.

Thus, with e-commerce,the candidate can not only get a professionally crafted resume at home but also
saves a lot of time & cost which could have gone in way otherwise.

Their revenue model:-

 Major

–        Job listing and Employer Branding/ Visibility

–        Resume Database Access

 Others:- Job Seeker Services, Google Ad sense, Advertising other than for jobs, Mobile

revenues, Resume short listing and screening

AMAZON.COM

The customer is King here! Amazon pampers their customers, tracks their tastes and uses this information
to create a unique customer experience. This e-tailer cultivates relationships that lead to customers liking
and trusting them. This kind of service surpasses the most brilliant technology in use today. Amazon
brought in the world of successful one-to-one marketing, a personal touch from another era.

Recently though, they have suffered heavy losses, proving that any successful e-business strategy will
survive provided it is based on a solid brick and mortar foundation, a la Barnes and Noble, another famous
online bookseller. Although barnesandnoble.com and Barnes the Noble Ltd. are run separately, a customer
tends to associate trust and comfort in a known and established brand.

To summarize, exemplary customer service, successful online advertising and special discounted offers
made Amazon and books synonymous terms today.

Paypal.com

PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the
Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to traditional paper methods such as
checks and money orders.

A PayPal account can be funded with an electronic debit from a bank account or by a credit card. The
recipient of a PayPal transfer can either request a check from PayPal, establish their own PayPal deposit
account or request a transfer to their bank account.

PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, for
which it charges a fee. It may also charge a fee for receiving money, proportional to the amount received.
The fees depend on the currency used, the payment option used, the country of the sender, the country of
the recipient, the amount sent and the recipient's account type. In addition, eBay purchases made by credit
card through PayPal may incur extra fees if the buyer and seller use different currencies.

E-commerce & its increasing role in Banking & Finance

Electronic commerce is associated with IT as an enabler, facilitator, and even inhibitor of business activities
both within and among all types of organizations .

It is thus creating enormous interest in the world of IT, banking and finance as well as many other
industries. There is little doubt that growth in this area will continue as more organizations join in the fun,
establishing and cultivating business relationships, performing business transactions, distributing knowledge,
and implementing competitive strategy.  Corporate  life, particularly in America, is being transformed by the
Internet. Banks and financial firms are currently operating in such a new business environment, and they
are responding to the changes in myriad ways.

Banks and financial firms are sailing into new water that holds both promises and dangers. On one hand
they have the know-how specific to banking and financial, and for the large players, they enjoy the trust of
their customers. But they are burdened with legacy systems consisting of their management structures,
reward systems and computer systems. They would certainly have to prepare themselves properly for the
cut and thrust of life in the brave new world. 

ADOPTING THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF E-COMMERCE

According to a research, the internet penetration in India was around 5mn in 2000 and is 63 mn in 2009.It
is estimated that it will be around 80mn by 2012.Also the increase in broad band connections was around
20% in December 2009 as compared to December 2008.
The Internet as a technological platform is to financial transaction what money as a common medium of
exchange is to the economy. To get an idea of the convenience made possible by e-banking, just consider
the role of money in economic transactions.  Some features of the convenience of e-banking are already
here while more aspects can be expected.

As customers we are witnessing these features before our nose as banks adopt the Internet infrastructure
and business practices of e-commerce. Many of us have direct experience with electronic banking, for
example Internet bank and e-brokerage, and have seen the disappearance of some brick-and-mortar
branches of our familiar banks. The beauty of Internet banking lies in its low cost, convenience and
availability. The commercial use of the 128-bit encryption opens the way for secure on-line financial
transaction. The integrated technology enables banks and financial companies to offer services with the
following qualities: 24-hour, seven-days-a-week availability, convenience, fast delivery, customer focus and
personal service. Banks can reduce the time taken to approve mortgage application from weeks to hours. 
Brokerage practices have been transformed too. Witness the reduction in the size of average transaction,
substantial reductions in fees, use of decimals in prices quoted in New York Stock Exchange, and increased
competition between different stock exchanges. With the Internet, individual investors have a very cheap
and convenient means to access information about the performance of firms listed on the stock exchange.

While technology offers new opportunities to banks, it also brings new challenge - non-banks have begun to
integrate financial functions into their online offerings, and the competition among banks has intensified
because of increased reach and transparency of online offerings. Below we look at three ways banks have
responded to the new challenges by continuing the past practices of using IT, and by learning to adopt e-
commerce ideas from their counterparts in the non-bank sectors.

Financial Services Portal and Bundling of Information Products

By learning from how firms make use of IT, especially the Internet, e-banking researchers have put forward
some interesting ideas which are essentially derived from practice of e-commerce.  Here we go through
briefly two proposals, namely to create a kind of portal of financial services, and to bundle information
products just like publishers bundle their electronic magazines or academic journals.

Until recently, it is expensive to design a flexible investment portfolio that is tailored to the needs of
individual investors. Only big institutional investors can afford the fees to have securities selected specially
for them. With e-commerce technology it is possible to design and deliver the benefits of flexible and tailor
made investment to smaller accounts at much lower costs.

The proposal involves two parts. First, the creation of periodically updated  indices covering a wider
spectrum of asset classes than is currently available.  Second, the creation of financial instruments to track
these indices, which will allow investors and small businesses to diversify and hedge their portfolios to a
much larger extent than is possible with today's investment vehicles. The aim is to use financial engineering
methods and techniques to build an investment portfolio that is optimal for an investor, given his personal
circumstances and preferences. Based on the features of an internal portal, there is exclusive access to an
integrated set of proprietary products and services as well as links to partners that offer complementary
financial services and access to any other financial products available through the Internet.

Another interesting idea from e-commerce is bundling. Companies have been exploring the potential of
using the Internet technology to bundle related products to be sold to their customers as a bundle,
something like package tour or one-stop shopping.There are also examples of bundling of information
products, e.g. music , electronic magazines and journals. Their experiences strongly suggest that banks can
provide  a more personalized service by creative bundling of existing financial products . In order to have
the range of products to be included in the bundle, three approaches are possible. One is through
consolidating by merger or acquisition. Another approach is by alliance. The third approach is by acting as
an intermediary for others which is examined in next sub-section. Mergers and acquisitions are well known
for their value destroying tendencies.  Thus, banks may rely more heavily on alliances—which are inherently
more flexible and can more easily be changed—as an alternative to outright consolidation .

The banking and financial industry is especially suited to bundling because their products and services are
essentially informational in nature and can be digitized. "The more digital the product, the more easily it can
be customized. For digital products,there are innumerable options for customers to choose from and
customerization improves the fit between what the customer wants and what the firm can offer profitably.
(Wind 2001: p43)" Moreover, with low production, distribution, and marginal costs, bundling can make
sense (Bakos and Brynjolfsson 1999).  Such ideas are very much in line with the observation of Herring and
Litan (2003) that banks can only survive by being more client-focused and by customizing their services to
client needs, rather than price-cutting.

Payment and Billing Services

Credit card is one of the few remarkable innovations introduced successfully by banks in the last five
decades, and it is currently being used extensively in B2C electronic commerce. But it is an expensive
means of payment for e-commerce and many on-line shoppers will prefer other forms of paying their
purchase . So will many on-line retailers who have to cough up set up and transaction costs and 2-3% of
every payment. Moreover credit cards are not suitable for person-to-person trade on the Internet. Such
inadequacy shows up in on-line auction. The American government has expressed misgivings about the
reliance on credit cards for e-commerce. In short, e-commerce has created a demand for low cost facility for
micro payments and flexible payment .

New ways of on-line payments are appearing in the market, such as deduction from a pre-paid account,
electronic billing services, direct transfer out of bank accounts. An interesting one is provided by X.com and
PayPal which allows account holders to email money to each other . These are also value adders that
enable more transactions in the internet commerce market. Typical enablers are payment service providers,
clearing houses, and trust guarantors. Banks are increasingly building payment infrastructure with various
security mechanisms (SSL, SET etc.) because there is tremendous potential for profit as more and more
payments will pass through the Internet. The challenge for banks is to offer a payments back-bone system
that will be open enough to support multiple payment instruments (credit cards, debit cards, direct debit to
accounts, e-checks, digital money etc.) and scalable enough to allow for a stable service regardless of the
workload.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

E-commerce is changing the business dimensions and at a very rapid pace.It is not only giving a competitive
edge but also a powerful tool in globalizing  a company. Financial firms of today can earn a fair living by
adopting the practices of electronic commerce pioneered by themselves or by others. Retail firms can
achieve economies of scale through e-commerce. Companies can now serve their customers in a more
professional way. Very interestingly, providing value to customers does not always require the use of
sophisticated IT based systems. Economists have theorized that e-commerce ought to lead to intensified
price competition, as it increases consumers' ability to gather information about products and prices.
Research by four economists at the University of Chicago has found that the growth of online shopping has
also affected industry structure in two areas that have seen significant growth in e-commerce, bookshops
and travel agencies. With years to come the scope of e-commerce is only increasing.

With the increasing fascination of the World Wide Web, almost every kind of businesses are now trying to get
involved in it due to which web development in India is growing at an over whelming rate. Thousands of web
developers and designers with their new ideas, new hypotheses, and new thoughts create hundreds of eye popping
websites everyday. India is now cynosure of every nation around the globe for its highly professionals IT work force.
Although their efficiency is still not utilized. Indias increasing workforce and economic development has attracted
many foreign investors on board in various website development solutions.

A great number of mass awareness has established a new craze about this new extravagant application development
and web development in India. Web has affected everyone so drastically that all the sectors are now using it for
various purposes.

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It has not only eased the difficult technical task but with the various application developments, it is getting laid in the
foundations of each and every factors of production. To use the various advantage of web we need rapid application
development and maintenance. We can now use this web in every aspect of entertainment. The web is developing
too fast and we cant take all from it with the out-dated technology. India is on eve of being a developed country. And
for that it needs an extensive website development solution. Through this evolution, businesses would begin to reach
out to consumers in new, unprecedented ways. With the amazing growth of users of the Internet, and the enormous
growth that is expected to continue in website development solutions, businesses are aware that there is tremendous
potential to provide and promote products and services in previously inconceivable ways.

Electronic commerce, also known as e-commerce, has reshaped the capabilities of the Internet considerably.

It is through these advances in e-commerce solutions that businesses continue to build new methods of providing
consumers and other businesses with products and services in more profitable ways. There are actually 3 sectors of
e-commerce solutions on the Internet; Business-to-Consumer, Business-to-Business and Consumer-to-Consumer.
To many people E-commerce solution is simply the business done through the Internet.

Xaprio is a leading IT vendor with proven capabilities in off-shore Application Development Services. As preferred
application development outsourcing vendors, we have delivered significant benefits to our global customers.
Xaprio's custom application development process encompasses all the phases of software development life cycle,
starting from translating business requirements into project requirements through implementation and after sales user
support. We work closely with our customers to ensure that we meet the service levels on the most critical
parameters of 'on time', 'within budget' and 'defect free' application development.

As ecommerce came on the fore, as Internet progressed, no one would have ever thought that it would
simply swap the tradition mode of trade – in such a short span of time. And, now it has been evolving with
every day. Various new and pioneering tools have brought a sort of insurgency in web ecommerce
development . This is an unquenchable thirst and everyone, who owns a website, wants it to perform more,
in terms of yielding more sales and more traffic. Thus, there is always a demand for new strategies and
refined services. In the very beginning of online trading, PayPal that provides the most secure online
payment solutions, earned the faith of million of users with its trustworthy services.

As things progressed further Google came up with its Google Checkout payment solution to entice more
users with its refined options. Though, these market leaders are right there, there is always a demand for a
better ecommerce site solution , which can further make things easier, secure and transparent for the users.
So far, this has become the most reliable mode of doing business in the present scenario. In fact, everyone
has a right to expect more in terms of results, as Internet use has been increasing with every day.
Moreover, it is not limited to simple online trading only, but it does cover the various aspects of business –
in one way or another.

Many things come under the ecommerce website builder. From simple payment options to multipart
choosing category, there is something for everyone. It is not easier to design a website, which can be used
for online trading or ecommerce. There are many notable development companies, which provide
ecommerce web design services . These companies provide a comprehensive range of solutions. All you
need to do is to prepare the database of your products or services. Once it’s done, these expert developers
would design an ecommerce oriented website for you