Understanding E-commerce: Definition, Benefits, History, and Getting Started, Lecture notes of Fundamentals of E-Commerce

Download Understanding E-commerce: Definition, Benefits, History, and Getting Started and more Lecture notes Fundamentals of E-Commerce in PDF only on Docsity! E-commerce By Timothy, 024 922 70 26 computei12literacy@gmail.com INTRODUCTION TO E-COMMERCE Internet has become an important medium for doing global business based on the state of the art technology. Electronic commerce has two major aspects: economical and technological. This course will show you how to get started in the complex and exciting world of E-Commerce. New standards and new facilities are constantly emerging and their proper understanding is essential for the success of an operation, and especially for those who are assigned a duty to select, establish, and maintain the necessary infrastructure. 3.Service Perspective EC is a tool that addresses the desire of firms, consumers, and management to cut service costs while improving the quality of goods and increasing the speed of service delivery. 4.Online Perspective EC provides the capability of buying and selling products and information on the Internet and other online services. Benefits of e-Commerce Access new markets and extend service offerings to customers Broaden current geographical parameters to operate globally Reduce the cost of marketing and promotion to improve customer service Strengthen relationships with customers and suppliers Streamline business processes and administrative functions Scope of E-Commerce ¢ Marketing, sales and sales promotion ¢ Pre-sales, subcontracts, supply ¢ Financing and insurance ¢ Commercial transactions: ordering, delivery, payment ¢ Product service and maintenance ¢ Co-operative product development EDI has never reached the level of popularity of the web-based ecommerce for several reasons: ¢ High cost of EDI prohibited small businesses and medium-sized companies from participating in the electronic commerce; ¢ Slow development of standards hindered the growth of EDI; and ¢ The complexity of developing EDI applications limited its adaptation to a narrow user base. The Internet and the Web ¢ The Internet was conceived in 1969, when the Advanced Research Projects Agency (a Department of Defense organization) funded research of computer networking. The Internet could end up like EDI without the emergence of the World Wide Web in 1990s. The Web became a popular mainstream medium (perceived as the fourth mainstream medium in addition to print, radio and TV) in a speed which had never been seen before. The Web users and content were almost doubled every a couple of months in 1995 and 1996. ¢ XML and Web Services Besides the availability of technical infrastructures, the popularity of the Web is largely attributed to the low cost of access and simplicity of HTML authoring, which are the obstacles of EDI development. The Internet and the Web have overcome the technical difficulty of EDI, but it has not solved the problem of slow development of e commerce standards. How e-Commerce Works ¢ The consumer first moves through the internet to the merchant’s web site. At the web site, the consumer is briefly given an introduction to the product or services the merchant offers. It is at this point that the consumer makes the decision to visit the web store by clicking on a link or button located on the web page (e.g., Buy Now, Shop Online, or an image of a shopping cart button are common entry points into a web store). e After choosing to visit the web store, the consumer is typically connected to an online transaction server ¢ located somewhere else on the internet which runs software commonly referred to as a shopping cart application. ¢ The shopping cart application has been setup by the merchant to display all products and services offered, as well as calculate pricing, taxes, shipping charges, etc. ¢ From there, the consumer decides that he wants to purchase something, so he enters all pertinent credit card information and a sales order is produced. Depending on the ecommerce implementation, the sales order can now take two totally different paths for confirming to the consumer that the order is officially placed. ¢ In both scenarios, the process is transparent to the consumer and appears virtually the same. However, the first scenario is a more simplistic method of setting up a shopping cart application and does not take into consideration any back office issues that may delay shipment (i.e., items out of stock, back orders, orders submitted after office hours or during holidays, etc.). For the sake of this tutorial, we will assume an ecommerce implementation that uses the second scenario mentioned above. There are several basic steps you will need to accomplish before becoming Commerce Enabled. * Getting a Merchant Bank Account ¢ Web Hosting ¢ Web Design Considerations * Registering a Domain Name ¢ Obtaining a Digital Certificate Let us review each step in more detail below: Getting a Merchant Bank Account ¢ In order to be able to accept credit cards, you must apply for an account with a credit card merchant account provider. This can be relatively easy or somewhat difficult, depending on which country you live in, and the type of business you are running. In the past, many businesses would sign up for credit card processing through their own commercial banking institutions. However, the internet has now made it simple to shop around for the best credit card discount rates from an endless amount of merchant account providers worldwide. A simple web search on “credit card processor” should be enough to get you started. ¢ The online transaction providers that offer the actual web store itself can sometimes be hosted by your same ISP or may require a completely different provider, referred to as a Commerce Service Provider (CSP). Many small businesses tend to choose CSP’s for creating a web store because it gives them the flexibility of choosing a provider that offers competitive pricing and the best shopping cart application for their needs. Assignment 1 ¢ Benefits of e-commerce to about 7 different sectors of the economy Web Design Considerations ¢ Having knowledge of HTML and a lot of patience, you can probably create your own corporate web site with the help of products like Ms FrontPage or DreamWeaver. However, when adding a web store to your web site, you may want to seek the help of professional web designers to make the look and feel of your web store consistent with the rest of your corporate web site. Most shopping cart applications, like SoftCart by Mercantec, allow its templates to be modified just for this purpose. In many cases, the same ISP or CSP you choose can provide web design and consultation.