14

Chapter 14

Databases in Electronic
Commerce

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Management, Fifth Edition, Rob and Coronel
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In this chapter, you will learn:

• What electronic commerce (e-commerce) is
• How e-commerce affects the new economy
• About the different e-commerce styles
• About the Internet architectural components
required to conduct electronic commerce
• About database design and implementation
issues for electronic commerce applications
• What Extensible Markup Language (XML) is and
why it is important

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What is Electronic Commerce?

• Definition
– Bring new products, services, or ideas to market
– Support and enhance business operations
(including sales of products/services over the Web)
• Generally identified with Internet use
• External evidence is corporate Web site
• Prime revenue source
• Not an end in itself

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E-Commerce Impact
• Changed business environment
• New economy
• Benefits
– Ability to provide quick and convenient comparison shopping
– 24X7X365 operations
– Global access
– Lower entry barriers
– Increased customer market knowledge
• Disadvantages
– Hidden costs
– Technology is not perfect
– Thin profit margins
– Security, loss of privacy, service levels, and legal issues

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E-Commerce Styles

Figure 14.1

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E-Commerce Architecture
• Managerial issues
– Establishing partnerships
• Suppliers
• Distributors
• Vendors
– Design and development of business plans
• Technological issues
– Hardware and software
– Well-planned architecture

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E-Commerce Architecture (Con’t.)

Figure 14.2

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Internet Basic Services

• Internet • Web Browser
• TCP/IP • Web Server
• Router • Web Site
• WWW • Static Web Page
• Web Page • Dynamic Web Page
• HTML • FTP
• Hyperlink • E-Mail
• URL • News and Discussion
• HTTP Group Services

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Internet Basic Services

Figure 14.3

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Business Enabling Services

• Search Services • Personalization
• Security • Web Development
• Site Monitoring • Database Integration
and Data Analysis • Transaction
• Load Testing, Processing
Balancing, and • Content Management
Web Caching • Messaging
• Usability Testing • Wireless Device
Support

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Security
• Procedures and technology uses
– Protection against accidental and intentional access
– Warrantee identity of transaction’s participants
• Buyer
• Seller
– Protect transaction data from unauthorized
modifications during Internet travel
– Protect resources (data and computer)
• Customers’ personal data
• Privacy issues
• Property against criminal activities

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Sample E-Commerce Transaction

Database Systems: Design, Implementation, & Management, 5 th Edition, Rob & Coronel Figure 14.4 12
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Payment Processing
• Digital Cash
– Digital equivalent of hard cash
– Digital certificates verify identity of transaction
participants
– Low transaction costs
– Lack of customer acceptance
• Credit Card purchasing
– Most common for online purchasing
– Secure Electronic Transaction (SET)
• Electronic wallets

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Database Design for E-Commerce

• Don’t reinvent the wheel
• No need for ‘new’ design techniques
• Scope
– Facilitate sales of products and services
– Show products and services
– Conduct basic sales transactions
– Customer service
– Product returns
– Web customer profiling

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Basic Business Rules

• Sell products
– PRODUCT and CUSTOMER Tables
• Customer may place multiple orders
– 1:M relationship between CUSTOMER and ORDER
• Order contains multiple lines
– 1:M relationship between ORDER and ORDLINE
• Order lines refer to one product
– 1:M between PRODUCT and ORDLINE

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Basic Business Rules (Con’t.)

• Customer browses catalog by category
– Each PRODUCT belongs to PRODTYPE
• Customer places products in shopping cart
– SHOPCART belongs to one CUSTOMER and
references one or more PRODUCTS
• Customer checks out and enters credit card and
shipping info
– Added to ORDER
• After credit card authorization order created
– SHOPCARD used to create ORDER with ORDLINEs

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Basic Business Rules (Con’t.)

• Merchant offers shipping options
– SHIPOPTION stores details
• Merchant offers many payment options
– PMTOPTION stores details
• States may have different tax rates
– Stored in STATE and TAXRATE

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CUSTOMER Table
• Details for each registered customer
• Some customers prefer not to register
• Primary table contents
– Name and address information
– Login information
– Credit card information
– Billing information
– Shipping information
– Membership type

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PRODUCT Table
• Central entity in DB
• Some customers prefer not to register
• Primary table contents
– Product details
– URL of image
– Vendor ID
– Reorder
– Pricing
– Alternate item
• May need a PRODOPT table for options within a
particular product

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ORDER Table
• Contains all customer orders
• After credit card approval order added to table
• One row for each new order
• Primary table contents
– Order date
– Customer ID
– Payment and credit card information
– Shipping info
– Cost info
– Status

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PRODTYPE Table
• Describes product categories
• Multiple levels
• Primary table contents
– Product type name
– Product type parent

ORDLINE Table
Contains items in customer order
One product for each row
Primary table contents
Order ID
Product ID
Quantity
Tax

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SHOPCART Table
• Temporarily store products during shopping activity
• Primary table contents
– Product ID
– Quantity

PMTTYPE Table
Payment information
Primary table contents
Payment name
Merchant ID used by processing systems

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SHIPTYPE Table
• Stores different shipping option names
• Primary table contents
– Shipping name
– Cost

TAXRATE Table
Tax information
Primary table contents
Rate
State for that rate

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STATE Table
• Stores state names
• Primary table contents
– State ID
– State name

PROMOTION Table
Stores information about promotions
Primary table contents
Promotion Name
Promotion details
Promotion pricing and quantity

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PRICEWATCH Table
• Information about particular products customers hope to
buy when the price drops
• Primary table contents
– Customer information
– Product information

PRODPRICE Table
Manages multilevel pricing based on quantity
Primary table contents
Product
Quantity
Pricing information

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Extensible Markup
Language (XML)
• Meta-language
• Represents and manipulates data elements
• Facilitates exchange of structured documents
over the Web
• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published
standard definition in 1998
• Allows definition of meta-tags to describe data
elements

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XML Characteristics
• Allows definition of new tags
• Case sensitive
– Tags must be well-formed
– Proper nesting required
• Can use <-- and --> to enter comments
• XML or xml prefixes reserved for XML tags only
• Not a replacement for HTML

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Contents of ProductList.xml

Figure 14.5

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Document Type Definition (DTD)

• File with .dtd extension to describe XML
elements
• Provides composition of database’s logical
model
• Defines syntax rules for each XML document
• Defines valid tags

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XML Schema
• Advanced data definition language used to
describe structure of XML documents
• Checks for database types
• Validates data for out-of-range values
• XML Schema Definition (XSD) file uses syntax
like XML document

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Extensible Style Language (XSL)

• Specifies rules for display of XML data
• Two parts
– Extensible Style Language Transformation (XSLT)
• General mechanism to extract and process data from
one XML document and transform within another
– XSL style sheets
• Defines presentation rules applied to XML elements
• Describes formatting options for different XML
elements
• Limited browser support

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Framework for XML Transformations

Figure 14.10

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XML Applications
• B2B exchanges
• Legacy system integration
• Web page development
• Database support
• Database meta-dictionaries
• XML databases
• XML services

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