CIS 451: eCommerce

Application Development

Dr. Ralph D. Westfall

January, 2009
CIS 451
 primarily a technical course
 ASP.NET
 also HTML, JavaScript, SQL, XML
 but also covers eCommerce issues
 web site design for eCommerce
 web site usability and accessibility
 marketing issues
 role of eCommerce in world economy
 eCommerce Overview
 what is eCommerce?
 why do “techies” need to learn business
aspects of eCommerce?
 eCommerce business issues
 eCommerce tools
 eCommerce applications
 “shopping carts”
 shopping cart exercises
What is eCommerce?
 what do you think it is?
 what do businesses do?
 eCommerce definition
 value chain
Pre-Internet eCommerce

 airline reservation systems

 EFT (electronic funds transfer)
 ATMs (automated teller [cash] machine
s)
 EDI (electronic data interchange)
Advantages of Internet
 very easy to use
 web browser interface
 compatible with all kinds of hardware
 global
 low cost delivery of content to large
numbers of users
 like radio in the 1920s
 multimedia capabilities
Web-Based eCommerce
 business to consumer (shopping)
 Amazon
 consumer to consumer (auction sites)
 eBay
 business to business
 EDI on the web
Business Aspects of
eCommerce for Technologists
 field is continuing to develop
 technical employees in large organizations
 need to communicate with business
people
 small businesses/consultants
 less technical vs. non-technical
specialization
 E-business (EBZ) major at Cal Poly
eCommerce Sequential Stages
1. Publish: static web pages
2. Interact: content updated regularly,
customers follow links, search site, etc.
3. Transact: orders, payments, shipping
4. Integrate: part of way business is done
5. Transform: organization restructured
 from Informatics-Review, Vol. 3, No. 7
Benefits of eCommerce
 customers (top line)
 reach new customers (Hot!Hot!Hot!)
 serve existing customers better
 customer relationship management (
vendor of CRM services)
 costs (bottom line)
 potentially lower throughout value chain: (
intranet/extranet)
International eCommerce
 potentially huge markets
 need to deal with major difficulties
 high shipping costs (postal codes [scroll])
 legal issues: tariffs, documentation
 translation
 currency exchange
 fraud
 Norwegian base for E-C in Europe
eCommerce Business Issues
 relation to business strategy?
 low cost (high volume)
 product differentiation
 niche (specialized product or limited region)
 competitive implications?
 within & outside industry
 short vs. long-term profitability?

Amazon just had first profit ever in 2002
eCommerce Issues - 2
 timing? (first mover advantage)
 costs? (how much to spend)
 evaluation? (how measure success)
 impact on existing relationships?
 suppliers, partners, distributors, customers
eCommerce Tools - 1
 tutorials for frequently used
programming technologies
 HTML (3.2, 4.0)
 JavaScript
 JSP (Java Server Pages)
 SQL
 ASP.NET replacing Perl?
 PHP
eCommerce Tools - 2
 multimedia free trial downloads
 image tools (e.g. Adobe PhotoShop, etc.)
 sound tools (e.g. Adobe Audition [formerly
[Cool Edit])
 video (+ audio) tools (e.g. Flash)
 shareware and totally free software
 Audacity (sound)
 free multimedia Google search
Shopping Cart Applications
 reviews
 how to choose
 order problems (75% abandoned)
 Yahoo! Merchant Solutions: Starter
 Yahoo! Merchant Solutions: Standard
 Yahoo! Merchant Solutions: Professional
Exercise
 from a customer perspective, evaluate one
of the Yahoo! Merchant Solutions carts
 try the "tour" of Yahoo! Merchant Solutions
 advantages, disadvantages, questions
 understandability of instructions
 ease of use to create site(?)
 2 students per 3-person team need to
submit the above + international shipment
findings (slide 11) for Exercise 3