E-COMMERCE LAB EXPERIMENTS

Submitted By: Ayush Mittal (1902080033)

1. Introduction to E-Commerce and Technology

Infrastructure
Concepts of E commerce

E
lectronic commerce is an emerging model of new selling and
merchandising tools in which buyers are able to participate in all
phases of a purchase decision, while stepping through those
processes electronically rather than in a physical store or by phone
(with a physical catalogue). The processes in electronic commerce include
enabling a customer to access product information, select items to purchase,
purchase items securely, and have the purchase settled financially. It is an
emerging concept that describes the process of buying and selling or
exchanging of products, services; and information via computer networks
including the Internet.
E-commerce is basically, doing business-as-usual, but across the Internet. You
advertise your products or services on your Web site, as you would in any other
media like newspapers, TV or brochures. Advertising on your Web site can be
done in two ways.
The first is by use of a relatively simple Web site consisting of a few pages
whereby you tell potential customers who you are, what you do, where you are
and how they can contact you (easiest done by giving them your email address).
The second way of enabling world-wide customers to buy from you is to
provide them with an On-Line Catalogue of your products which they can
browse at their leisure without having to go to your place of business.
Ecommerce in Action
2. An analysis of Ecommerce Websites
AIRBNB.COM
About Airbnb.com
Airbnb.com is an online marketplace and hospitality service, enabling people to
lease or rent short-term lodging including vacation rentals, apartment rentals,
homestays, hostel beds, or hotel rooms. It is a privately held company. It has
over 3,000,000 lodging listings in 65,000 cities and 191 countries, and the cost
of lodging is set by the host. Like all hospitality services, Airbnb.com is a form
of collaborative consumption and sharing.
Business model
The company does not own any lodging; it is merely a broker and receives
percentage service fees (commissions) from both guests and hosts in
conjunction with every booking. Therefore, it can be regarded as B2C
(Business-Consumer) model.
Customer Service Provided at Airbnb.com
Airbnb is a privately held company that is available in 26 different languages. It
has following service for customer:
 Offering lodging.
 Safety mechanisms
 Wish list feature
 Neighbourhoods travel guide
Payment method available at Airbnb.com
Airbnb supports several payment methods, which depend on what country
customer’s payment account is located in. One will see which payment methods
are available to him/her on the checkout page, before he/she submits a
reservation request. After selecting country, all of the payment details will be
shown.
Offline or cash payments are a violation of Airbnb's Terms of Service and can
result in removal from Airbnb.
Payment options may include:
 Major credit cards and pre-paid credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, Amex,
Discover, JCB)
  Many debit cards that can be processed as credit
 PayPal for select countries
 Alipay for China only
 Postepay for Italy only
 Sofort Überweisung for Germany only
 iDEAL for the Netherlands only
 Boleto Bancário, Hipercard, Elo, and Aura for Brazil only
 PayU for India only
 Google Wallet for US Android App only
 Apple Pay for iOS App only
Elements of ecommerce integrated by Airbnb.com
1. Usability
Airbnb.com has a user friendly website. The users can access to website in
26 different languages. The customers are enabled to lease or rent short-term
lodging including vacation rentals, apartment rentals, homestays, hostel
beds, or hotel rooms. It has around 150,000,000 users from across different
countries. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbnb)
2. Security
Security is the top most issue in the multibillion online transactions. Airbnb
is conscious towards it. Whenever someone log in to Airbnb Payments
account, he/she is log in using a secure server connection (https://). Airbnb
uses Transport Layer Security (TLS)/ Security Socket Layer (SSL), with 128
bit encryption.
3. Give users an easy checkout process
Airbnb is a privately held company and the official website is accessible in
26 different languages making it easier way to people to check out.
4. Social Media Integration
Airbnb has integrated with different Social Medias and it can be shown as
(https://www.airbnb.com/sitemaps/social-media) Blogs: Airbnb Blog, Nerds
Blog, Public Policy Blog, Designairs Apps: Airbnb on Android, Airbnb on
iOS Social Media Networks:Twitter, Facebook, Goohle+, Youtube, Linkedin
Other Networks: Flickr, GitHub, Vimeo, Instagram, Pinterest
5. Accessible via mobile devices
Airbnb.com can also be viewed from the mobile devices and its website
support mobile layout. Airbnb.com has its own mobile application for
android and iOS devices. 6. Navigation Customers can easily search the best
hotels, and book the hotels at the least price in the desirable location.
Strength and weakness of Airbnb.com
Major Strength of Airbnb
1. Airbnb.com has a global Alexa Rank of 357, and 111 in US rank.
2. Airbnb has provided wide payment option to customers from different
customers.
3. There is secure payment system at Airbnb.com. It uses Transport Layer
Security and Secured Socket Layer Technology.
4. Airbnb has well managed product list that makes customer feel like
shopping in the offline retail shop.
5. The website layout and content management system at Airbnb.com is
superior that attracts millions of customers.
6. Items are priced based on their locations in distribution centers.
Weakness of Airbnb.com
1. Guests often have complaints as the place isn't what they expected;
issues regarding legality of rental house; the host cancelled their
reservation at the last minute and so on.
2. People have posted in many social sites that their payment information
was rejected and was not responsive to their queries up to six emails
also. (www.independenttraveler.com)
3. The claim for refund is denied if there is any problem of reservation.
4. Airbnb charges you about 15% on top of what the host actually
receives for customer's reservation (even more in case of exchange
currency). That means customers could get reservation for about 15%
LESS if they booked directly with the host.
(https://www.airbnbhell.com/)
3. Case Study to analyze an Ecommerce website by students.
Amazon
Amazon is an e-commerce website which lives up to its metaphorical meaning
of “exotic and different.” Even the logo it symbolizes the fact that they provide
all the products from A to Z. Amazon is the first largest company to sell
consumer goods and services. It is a consumer centric company which defines
itself as “consumer-obsessed.”
Let’s gather up the points that make Amazon what it is!

A. Mobile-Friendly
The sign of a good design is a responsive website and with the people nowadays
browsing through their mobile phones, it is essential for the website to be
mobile-friendly. Amazon caters to this demand successfully.

B. Simple User Interface

Another feature which works in the favour of amazon is it’s simple and
uncluttered user interface. Information is readily available to the user and the
addition of personalised recommendations is paramount to create a great user
experience.

C. Navigation
Their portfolio carries nothing short of one stop shop for everything ranging
from books, DVD’s to clothes, electronics, etc. The ease with which a customer
can navigate through the website and select a product for purchase is a feature
that makes amazon stand out from its competitors.

D. Easy Checkout
If a customer faces issues during checkout he may lose trust in your brand,
which is why it is extremely important to have an easy checkout process.
Amazon provides for the same with multiple payment options like through
cards, net-banking, wallets and cash on delivery.
It is because of all these features that Amazon, today, stands at the helm of the
e-commerce world with highest revenues.

4. Create an E-Commerce Website add categories and

products to it
We have at least a few individual products listed; we can start organizing them
into collections under Product > Collections in Shopify.

Collections can be created to curate products to target a specific audience (e.g.,

products for children), a theme (e.g., bestsellers), or product category (e.g.,
accessories). You can decide if you want to manually add products to certain
collections or automate what gets included/excluded based on price, Tags, or
other conditions.

Collections serve a variety of purposes, such as:

Pulling certain products that you want to display in a section on your homepage.
Linking to Collections of products in your navigation or on your homepage to
help different audiences quickly navigate your catalogue.
Curating items you want to put on sale (you can apply discounts to specific
Collection of products)
5. Create an E-Commerce Website add new product (with
image) and attribute of products
Add our products.
What’s an online store without anything to buy? Adding products should be one
of the first things you do, because your products are what you'll design the look
and feel of your website around.
In your new Shopify store, go to Products > Add product to create your first
product listing.
Similarly, I added these products.
6. Create an E-Commerce Website add new attribute value
and mark priority
7. View and process your orders in pre-designed E Commerce
website
Go to Customers then select the customer for which the order has to be placed

Now, I am selecting Raghav Kumar to place the order.

Click create order and add the items he wants.

As he has already paid for the products, I will mark the order as paid.
Currently, the order is unfulfilled once it is fulfilled, we can mark it.
8. View state of orders placed in pre- designed E Commerce
Website
All orders

I selected the second one.

And we can see the status of the orders.

9. Study of different types of Access Control mechanisms.

What is Access Control?

Access control is a fundamental component of data security that dictates
who’s allowed to access and use company information and resources. Through
authentication and authorization, access control policies make sure users are
who they say they are and that they have appropriate access to company data.
Access control can also be applied to limit physical access to campuses,
buildings, rooms, and data centres.

Types of Access Control

1. Discretionary Access Control (DAC)
2. Mandatory Access Control (MAC)
3. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

Discretionary Access Control (DAC)

Discretionary Access Control is a type of access control system where an IT administrator or business
owner decides on the access rights for a person for certain locations physically or digitally.

DAC is less secure compared to other systems, as it gives complete control to the end-user over any
object they own, and programs associated with it.

When it comes to security, Discretionary Access Control gives the end-user complete control to set
security level settings for other users and the permissions given to the end-users are inherited into
other programs they use which could potentially lead to malware being executed without the end-
user being aware of it.

ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
1. Users may transfer object ownership to 1. Inherent vulnerabilities (Trojan horse)
another user(s).
2. Users may determine the access type of 2. ACL maintenance or capability
other users.
3. After several attempts, authorization 3. Limited negative authorization power
failures restrict user access.
Mandatory Access Control (MAC)
Mandatory access control (MAC) is a network-based access control where settings, policy and
passwords are established and stored in one secure network and limited to system administrators.
This access control is managed from a central computer where an administrator can grant or revoke
access from any individual at any time and location. It should be noted that access control
technologies are shying away from network-based systems due to limited flexibility.

Mandatory access has a set of security policies constrained to system classification, configuration,
and authentication. It defines and ensures centralized enforcement of confidential security policy
parameters.

ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
1. MAC is more secure as only a system 1. MAC policy decisions are based on
administrator can control the access. network configuration
2. Reduce security errors

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

As the name suggests, a role-based access control system is when an administrator doesn’t have to
allocate rights to an individual but gets auto-assigned based on the job role of that individual in the
organisation. So, it’s clear. The administrator has less to do with policymaking.

Role-based access control is high in demand among enterprises. This is because an administrator
doesn’t have to give multiple individuals particular access; the system administrator only has to
assign access to specific job titles.

ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
1. Centralized and comprehensive 1. Less customizable
2. Less hands-on and thus overhead for
administrators
Access Control Mechanism
An access control mechanism controls which clients or applications have access to the X11 server.
Only properly authorized clients can connect to the server. All other clients are denied access and
are terminated with the following error message.

Xlib: connection to hostname refused by server

Xlib: Client is not authorized to connect to server

The connection attempt logs to the server console as:

AUDIT: <Date Time Year>: X: client 6 rejected from IP 129.144.152.193

port 3485 Auth name: MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1

Types of access control mechanisms

1. User Based
2. Host Based

User-Based Access
A user-based, or authorization-based, mechanism allows you to give access explicitly to a particular
user on any host machine. The user's client passes authorization data to the server. If the data match
the server's authorization data, the user is allowed access.

Host-Based Access
A host-based mechanism is a general-purpose mechanism. This type of mechanism enables you to
give access to a particular host, in which all users on that host can connect to the server. A host-
based mechanism is a weaker form of access control. If the host has access to the server, all users on
that host are allowed to connect to the server.

The Solaris environment provides the host-based mechanism for backward compatibility.
Extras
Discount Coupons
Go to discounts and click create discount to make new coupon.

Themes
Go to store then themes and you can use the given theme or you can customise it according to
need. Here, I have used new custom theme.
Pages
Similarly, Go to pages and create new pages and then add it your theme for displaying it to
your store Page.

My Store Photos