Unit-6

E-Commerce Software
Refer chapter-9 from Gary P.
schneider
 You will learn about:
• Basic functions of electronic commerce software.
• Advanced functions of electronic commerce software
• Electronic commerce software for small and midsize
businesses
• Electronic commerce software for midsize to large businesses
 Basic Functions of electronic commerce
software
Electronic commerce sites vary in terms of size, purpose,
audience , budget etc.
• Catalog display
• Shopping cart capabilities
• Transaction processing
 Advance Functions
• The Additional software components can include:
– Middleware
– Enterprise application integration
– Web services
– Integration with enterprise resource planning (ERP)
software
– Supply chain management (SCM) software
– CRM (customer relationship management
– Content Management Software
– Knowledge Management Software
 Catalog Display
• Listing of goods and services.
• Static Catalog :- simple list written in HTML that appears on a
web page.
• Dynamic Catalog :- stores information about items in a
database.
• Features of dynamic catalog:
1. Multiple photos of each item
2. Detailed description
3. Search tool
• Besides well organized catalog, sites provide search engines.
• The important rule of the commerce is : “Never stand in the
way of a customer who wants to buy something”
Static Catalog Display
 Shopping Cart
• Early shopping carts relied on forms for submitting orders.
• Problems with forms-based shopping:
– Shoppers have to write down product information before
going to the order form
– Customers sometimes forgot whether they had clicked the
submit button to send their orders.
– Confusing and error prone
 Shopping Cart (Cont..)
• Forms-based method of ordering has given way to electronic
shopping carts

• Shopping cart

– Keeps track of items a customer has selected

– Allows customers to view contents of their carts, add new

items, or remove items
 Transaction Processing
• Transaction processing occurs when a shopper proceeds to the
virtual checkout counter by clicking a checkout button

• The server must then perform any necessary calculations

– Computing taxes and shipping costs

– Provisions for coupons, special promotions, and time-

sensitive offers

• Basic online store’s electronics commerce software can

generate reports that summarize sales and inventory shipped

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Advanced Functions of Electronic commerce
software
Middleware :
• It establishes connection between electronic commerce
software and accounting and inventory management
databases or applications.
• Example: sales module of an Accounting system
• Middleware extract information from about sale from web
site’s shopping cart software and enter directly into
accounting software sales module.
• Middleware vendors includes BEA systems, Broadvision,
digital River etc.
 Enterprise Application Integration and
Databases
• Application program
– Program that performs a specific function
– Example: creating invoices, calculating payroll
• Application server
– Computer that takes request messages received by the Web
server and runs application programs that performs some kind
of information.
• Business logic
– The actions application software performs are defined by the
rules used in the business, called as business logic
– Example : how tax total will be calculated from list of invoice
items.
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 Enterprise Application Integration and
Databases
• The business logic is distributed among different applications.
• Now a days to run an application properly the links are created for scattered
applications so that organization’s business logic can be interconnected. The
creation and management of these links is called as EAI.
• Page-based application systems
– Return pages generated by scripts
– Used for small business
• Component-based application systems
– Separate presentation logic from business logic
– Example : COM, EJBs
– Used for midsize or Large business
• Database manager
– Software that stores information in a highly structured way 16
Enterprise Application Integration and
Databases
• Distributed information systems

– Large information systems that store the same data in many

different physical locations

• Distributed database systems

– Databases within distributed information systems

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ERP system integration with EDI system
 Web Services
• These are defines as software system that support
interoperable machine to machine interaction over a network.
• A web service is a set of software and technologies that allow
computers to use the web to interact with each other directly,
without human operators directing the specific interactions.
• Example a manufacturing computer contacting its customer
computer to know about which of its product are selling well,
as it obtains information the company can increase or
decrease the production.
• The ways the programs interconnect with each other is called
as Application Program Interface (API).
 What web services can do
Examples of web services implementations:
• MSN Money : it buys stock quote from interactive Data
Corporation, which deliver them using web service. If you
view website you can see interactive data real time services
acknowledgment for those stock quotes near bottom of web
page under heading “Data Providers”.
Data Providers
 How Web services Work
• Programmers write software that access units of business
logic without knowing details of how each unit is
implemented.
• Web services allow programs written in different languages on
different platforms to communicate with each other and
accomplish transaction processing and other business tasks.
• Example: A company that uses purchasing software to help
manage that activity. The purchasing software can use Web
services to obtain price information from a variety of vendors.
After the purchasing agent reviews the price and delivery
information and authorizes the purchase, the software can
submit the order and track it until the shipment is received.
On the other side of this transaction, the vendor’s software
can use Web services (in addition to providing price and
delivery information) to check the buyer’s credit and contract
with a freight company to handle the shipment.
 SOAP (simple object access protocol)
Specification
• It is a message passing protocol that defines how to send
marked-up data from one software application to another
across a network.

• It is a XML based protocol that consists of three parts:

 Envelop : that defines a framework for what is in a message
 Header : A set of encoding rules for expressing instances of
application –defined datatypes.
 Body: A convention for representing remote procedure calls
and responses
 SOAP
Implementing SOAP uses three rules set:
1) XML or HTML
2) WSDL (Web services description language) : it describes the
characteristics of logic units
3) UDDI (universal description, discovery and integration
,specification) : a set of protocols that identify locations of
web service.

SOAP further study -

http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/NOTE-SOAP-20000508/
 E-Commerce software for small and midsize
companies
• Basic commerce service providers (CSP):
 Instead of building an in-house server CSP provides shared or
dedicated hosting services, that reduce staff burden.
 CSP Advantage – Low cost because the host provider has
already purchased the server and configured it. The host
provider has responsibility to keep it working.
 It offers free or low cost software for building E-commerce
software.
 These services are designed for small online business have
few items to sell and have relatively low transaction volumes.
 CSP Example
1. ValueWeb (1996): which is now Gate.com
ValueWeb offers businesses comprehensive electronic
commerce hosting services including shared hosting,
dedicated hosting, and co-location services.
2. Prohosting.com
3. Yahoo Merchant Solutions
 Mall-Style Commerce Service Providers
• It provides small businesses with internet connections, web site creation
tools.
• They charge low monthly fee or one-time set-up fee.
• They provide shopping cart software or the ability to use another vendor’s
shopping cart software. They also provide payment processing software.
• Example :
(a) you can open an e-bay store for a monthly fee that is less than $20.
(b) Sell through Amazon.com, which allows an individual to sell certain
used items (such as books) on the same page that Amazon.com lists the
new product. Instead of the eBay Stores approach, in which each small
merchant has its own store, Amazon.com lets merchants display their
offerings product by product, mixed in with all of the other items
Amazon.com offers for sale. For businesses that want to sell more than a
few items, Amazon offers its Pro Merchant program.
Estimating operating expenses for a small
web business
Electronic commerce software for Midsize to
Large business
• These midrange packages allow the merchant to have explicit
control over merchandising choices, site layout, internal
architecture, and remote and local management options.
• In addition, the midrange and basic electronic commerce
packages differ on price, capability, database connectivity,
software portability, software customization tools, and
computer expertise required of the merchant.
 Web development Tools
• After creating the Web site, the designer can add purchased
software elements, such as shopping carts and content
management software, to the site.
• The final step is to create the middleware that connects the site
to the company’s existing product and transaction-processing
databases.
• Midrange software traditionally offers connectivity to database
systems that store catalog information it simplifies updates and
changes.
• Several of the midrange systems provide connections into
existing inventory and ERP systems. This can yield savings
because there is no need to run duplicate inventory systems,
and the cost of the existing systems is spread across several
software systems.
 Web Development Tools
• Three midrange E-commerce systems are
described as:
1) Intershop Enfinity
2) IBM Websphere Commerce Professionals
3) Microsoft Commerce Server
 Intershop Enfinity
• The unique functionality of Intershop Enfinity Suite 6 allows you to
aggregate and manage all your ecommerce channels on a single
platform, streamlining and enhancing your relationships with
consumers, business customers, partners, and suppliers. It's product,
content and order management functionality, along with marketing
tools and integration capabilities make the latest version of Enfinity a
powerbase for a serious enterprise ecommerce operation for both
B2C and B2B.
• The solution has following benefits:
 search and catalog capabilities
 electronic shopping carts
 online credit card transaction processing
 the ability to connect to existing back-end business systems and
databases
 Benefits cont..
 The products inventory management module tracks inventory
levels and allows merchants to view the quantity of items
available, create list of inventory transactions, and enter new
products into the inventory.
 Merchants define the business rules for a discount and dates
during which special discounts apply.
 A wide variety of site and customer reports are available to track
Web page visits and customer activities.
 Staging process allows for safe change control with no direct
database updates, enhancing data integrity and security.
 High investment security.
 The universal payment network allows for global operations.
 IBM Websphere Commerce Professionals

• IBM WebSphere Commerce provides the world's most

innovative companies with a powerful customer interaction
platform for cross-channel and online ecommerce.
• It is a family of electronic commerce packages.
• It includes catalog templates, setup wizards, and advanced
catalog tools to help companies create attractive and efficient
electronic commerce sites.
• WebSphere Commerce products run on many different
operating systems. Merchants can begin with a small store
and then move up to a bigger, more capable store as
necessary.
 IBM Websphere Commerce Professionals
• A wizard leads the merchant through the process of creating a
starter store. Once that is up and working, more functionality
can be added by executing commands and writing code. with
the basic pages built, the merchant can populate the catalog
with products, prices, and product pictures.
• WebSphere offers a large collection of functions, utility
programs, and commands that allow a merchant to create a
customized online store experience
• Competitive advantage through scalability, adaptability and
maximum performance
 Microsoft Commerce Server
• Microsoft Commerce Server allows businesses to sell products or
services on the Web using tools such as user profiling and
management, transaction processing, product and service
management, and target audience marketing
• Commerce Server has tools that help companies engage the customer
(through marketing and advertising), complete an order, and analyze
the sales information after the sale.
• Commerce Server also includes tools for advertising, promotions,
cross-selling, and customer targeting and personalization.
• Commerce Server provides many predefined reports for analyzing site
activities and product sales data.
• The system provides several storefront templates, wizards for setting
up and initializing a store, and database connections
 Microsoft Commerce Server
• It also provides a shopping cart, confirms completed sales
transactions by e-mail, and supports secure transactions.
• It can connect to existing accounting systems, and the
administrator can oversee the site through a Web browser.
 Electronic Commerce software for Large
Businesses
• Larger businesses require many of the same advanced
capabilities as midsize firms, but the larger firms need to handle
higher transaction loads.
• Commerce software in this class is sometimes called enterprise-
class software.
• The term “enterprise” is used in information systems to describe
a system that serves multiple locations or divisions of one
company and encompasses all areas of the business or
enterprise.
• Enterprise-class electronic commerce software provides tools for
both B2B and B2C commerce.
• In addition, this software interacts with a wide variety of existing
systems, including database, accounting, and ERP systems.
 Enterprise-Class Electronic Commerce
Software
• It requires dedicated computers
• Examples of enterprise-class products that can be used to run
a large online business with high transaction rates includes:
 IBM WebSphere Commerce Enterprise
 Oracle E-Business Suite
 several products from Broadvision.
Enterprise-Class Electronic Commerce Software
 Softwares
• The following software accomplish specific
tasks in large businesses
 Enterprise Resource Planning
 Customer Relationship Management
 Supply chain Management
 Content Management Software
 Knowledge Management Software
 Softwares
• The following software accomplish specific
tasks in large businesses
 Enterprise Resource Planning
 Customer Relationship Management
 Supply chain Management
 Content Management Software
 Knowledge Management Software
 What is Content Management?
• Content management is a process and/or software application
used by groups to plan, create, manage, store and distribute
content.
• Content can include: web pages, images, documents,
streaming media, news releases, etc.
• A CMS usually consists of a front-end editor for inputting
content and a back end system for storing the content (usually
a database).
• This content can then be formatted by a template and
displayed in a variety of ways.
 CMS Objectives
• Devolve content creation throughout the institution
regardless of contributors’ skills
• Provide security, governance and approval processes over
content published on the web
• Enable the creation, management, and usage of standardised
metadata
• Continue to support a diverse array of existing technology
platforms
• Consolidate the current technology environment wherever
possible
• Improve the quality of Monash web sites through the
implementation of standards across presentation, metadata,
governance, discovery, and navigation
 Context Diagram
Web Surfers
Students, Staff
Interested Parties
Directory and Intranet
Security Servers
Services

Web Content
Web Pages

Web Authors Content

Management
System

Template Template
Designers Services Provided :-
 Ease of editing
 Collaborative Authoring
 Standard templates Extranet
Approved Page Servers
Approvers  Backup and Archiving


 Routing and Approval processes
 Version Control
 Metadata Management
 Templates

Content Providers
Top News, Data
Content
School Communicators, Entry Editor Repository
Etc. Form

• Content authors go on line to create and update their own sections of a

collaborative publication (in our case the web site). Accommodations are
made for quality control by editorial staff and tools are provided for
workflow management.
 What a CMS Can Do
• Can facilitate sharing of content across multiple Web sites
• Can make it easier for non-technical staff to update content
• Forces a formal workflow management and publishing
process
• Can improve consistency of look and feel
 What a CMS CAN’T Do
• Make editorial decisions for you.
• Decide or define what your workflow/approval process should
be. You still need to set policy regarding who posts what and
who needs approval from whom.
• Update many forms of media including pdfs, movies, flash,
etc.
• Doesn’t necessarily make it easier to update content.
 Knowledge Management System
• It includes tools that read electronic documents , scanned
paper documents, e-mail messages and web pages.
• It includes powerful search tools that help users to find
content, human experts and other resources that help them
in their research and decision making tasks.
 Functions
• Collect and organize information.
• Share the information among users.
• Enhance the ability of users to collaborate
• Preserve the knowledge gained through the use of
information so that future users can get benefit from current
users.