UNIT II

BUILDING AN E-COMMERCE WEBSITE, MOBILE SITE

AND APPS
Systematic approach to build an E-Commerce: Planning, System
Analysis, System Design, Building the system, Testing the
system, Implementation and Maintenance, Optimize Web
Performance – Choosing hardware and software – Other E-
Commerce Site tools – Developing a Mobile Website and Mobile
App
Right-Sizing a Web Site

• What are the factors you should take into account when
sizing a Web site’s infrastructure?
• Why is peak usage an important factor to consider?

• What did eBay discover from its use of OPERA?

• How can operators of smaller sites deal with the right-sizing

issue?
Building an E-commerce Site:
A Systematic Approach
• Most important management challenges:

• Developing a clear understanding of business objectives

• Knowing how to choose the right technology to achieve

those objectives
Pieces of the Site-Building Puzzle
• Main areas where you will need to make
decisions:
• Human resources and organizational capabilities
• Creating team with skill set needed to build and manage a
successful site
• Hardware
• Software
• Telecommunications
• Site design
The Systems Development Life Cycle
• Methodology for understanding business
objectives of a system and designing an
appropriate solution
• Five major steps:
1. Systems analysis/planning
2. Systems design
3. Building the system
4. Testing
5. Implementation
Web Site Systems Development Life Cycle

Figure 4.2, Page 208

System Analysis/Planning

• Business objectives:
• List of capabilities you want your site to have

• System functionalities:
• List of information system capabilities needed to
achieve business objectives
• Information requirements:
• Information elements that system must produce
in order to achieve business objectives
Systems Design:
Hardware and Software Platforms

• System design specification:

• Description of main components of a system
and their relationship to one another
• Two components of system design:
1. Logical design
• Data flow diagrams, processing functions, databases
2. Physical design
• Specifies actual physical, software components, models,
etc.
Logical Design for a Simple Web Site
Physical Design for a Simple Web Site
Build/Host Your Own versus Outsourcing

• Outsourcing: hiring vendors to provide

services involved in building site
• Build own vs. outsourcing:
 Build your own requires team with diverse skill set; choice of
software tools; both risks and possible benefits

• Host own vs. outsourcing

 Hosting: hosting company responsible for ensuring site is
accessible 24/7, for monthly fee
 Co-location: firm purchases or leases Web server (with control over
its operation), but server is located at vendor’s facility
Choices in Building and Hosting

Figure 4.4, Page 212

Insight on Business
Curly Hair and MotorMouths:
Getting Started on the Cheap

• How does a small, niche Web site become

profitable?
• What is the primary source of income for
these kinds of sites?
• What benefits are there to starting a
business in a recession?
Testing, Implementation, and Maintenance

• Testing
• Unit testing
• System testing
• Acceptance testing

• Implementation and maintenance:

• Maintenance is ongoing
• Maintenance costs: parallel to development
costs
• Benchmarking
Factors in Web Site Optimization

Figure 4.7, Page 219

Web Site Budgets
• From $5,000 to millions of dollars/year
• Components of budget:
• System maintenance
• System development
• Content design & development
• Hardware
• Telecommunications
• Software
Simple versus Multi-tiered Web Site
Architecture
• System architecture
• Arrangement of software, machinery, and tasks in an
information system needed to achieve a specific
functionality

• Two-tier
• Web server and database server

• Multi-tier
• Web application servers
• Backend, legacy databases
Two-Tier E-commerce Architecture

Figure 4.9(a), Page 221

Multi-tier E-commerce Architecture

Figure 4.9(b), Page 221

Web Server Software
• Apache
• Leading Web server software (47% of market)
• Works only with UNIX, Linux OSs

• Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS)

• Second major Web server software (25% of
market)
• Windows-based
Table 4.3, Page 223
Site Management Tools
• Basic tools
• Included in all Web servers
• Verify that links on pages are still valid
• Identify orphan files

• Third-party software and services for

advanced site management
• Monitor customer purchases, marketing
campaign effectiveness, etc.
• E.g. WebTrends Analytics 9, Google Analytics
Dynamic Page Generation Tools
• Dynamic page generation:
• Contents of Web page stored as objects in database
and fetched when needed
• Common tools: CGI, ASP, JSP
• Advantages
• Lowers menu costs
• Permits easy online market segmentation
• Enables cost-free price discrimination
• Enables Web content management system (WCMS)
Application Servers
• Web application servers:
• Provide specific business functionality required
for a Web site
• Type of middleware
• Isolate business applications from Web servers and
databases
• Single-function applications increasingly being
replaced by integrated software tools that
combine all functionality needed for e-
commerce site
Table 4.4, Page 227
E-commerce Merchant Server Software
• Provides basic functionality for online sales
• Online catalog
• List of products available on Web site
• Shopping cart
• Allows shoppers to set aside, review, edit selections,
and then make purchase
• Credit card processing
• Typically works in conjunction with shopping cart
• Verifies card and puts through credit to company’s
account at checkout
Merchant Server Software Packages
• Integrated environment with most or all of
functionality needed
• Key factors in selecting a package
• Functionality
• Support for different business models
• Business process modeling tools
• Visual site management and reporting
• Performance and scalability
• Connectivity to existing business systems
• Compliance with standards
• Global and multicultural capability
• Local sales tax and shipping rules
Building Your Own E-commerce Site
• Options for small firms
• Hosted e-commerce sites, e.g., Yahoo’s Merchant Solutions

• Site building tools

• E-commerce templates

• Open-source merchant server software

• Enables you to build truly custom site

• Requires programmer with expertise, time

Choosing the Hardware for an
E-commerce Site
• Hardware platform:

• Underlying computing equipment that system uses to

achieve e-commerce functionality

• Objective:

• Enough platform capacity to meet peak demand without

wasting money

• Important to understand the different factors that

affect speed, capacity, and scalability of a site
Right-Sizing Your Hardware Platform: The
Demand Side
• Demand is the most important factor affecting
speed of site
• Factors in overall demand:
• Number of simultaneous users in peak periods
• Nature of customer requests (user profile)
• Type of content (dynamic versus static Web pages)
• Required security
• Number of items in inventory
• Number of page requests
• Speed of legacy applications
Table 4.7, Page 232
Degradation in Performance as
Number of Users Increases—Resource Utilization

Figure 4.11 (a), Page 234

 Degradation in Performance as
Number of Users Increases—Number of
Connections

Figure 4.11 (b), Page 234

The Relationship of Bandwidth to Hits

SOURCE: IBM, 2003.

Figure 4.13, Page 236
Right-Sizing Your Hardware Platform: The
Supply Side
• Scalability:
• Ability of site to increase in size as demand
warrants
• Ways to scale hardware:
• Vertically
• Increase processing power of individual components

• Horizontally
• Employ multiple computers to share workload

• Improve processing architecture

Table 4.8, Page 236
Vertically Scaling a System
Horizontally Scaling a System
Other E-Commerce Site Tools
• Web site design: Basic business
considerations
• Enabling customers to find and buy what they
need
• Tools for Web site optimization
• Search engine placement
• Keywords, page titles
• Identify market niches, localize site
• Expertise
• Links
• Search engine ads
E-commerce
Web Site
Features
that Annoy
Customers

SOURCE: Based on data from

Hostway Corporation’s survey,
Consumers’ Pet Peeves about
Commercial Web Sites, Hostway
Corporation, 2007.
Tools for Interactivity and
Active Content
• Web 2.0 design elements: Widgets,
Mashups
• CGI (Common Gateway Interface)
• ASP (Active Server Pages)
• Java, JSP, and Javascript
• ActiveX and VBScript
• Coldfusion
Insight on Technology
Pumping Up the Customer Experience Using AJAX and Flash

• What is AJAX? How does it work?

• How does AJAX improve on client/server interactivity?

• How does Google Maps use AJAX?

• What are some alternative technologies to achieve the

same results as AJAX?
Personalization Tools
• Personalization

• Ability to treat people based on personal

qualities and prior history with site
• Customization

• Ability to change the product to better fit the

needs of the customer
• Tools to achieve:

• Cookies
The Information Policy Set
• Privacy policy

• Set of public statements declaring how site will treat customers’

personal information that is gathered by site

• Accessibility rules

• Set of design objectives that ensure disabled users can affectively

access site

Slide 4-47
Developing a Mobile Website and Mobile App

• To develop mobile Web sites, mobile Web apps, as well as

native apps, in order to interact with customers, suppliers, and
employees. Deciding which of these extended Web presence
tools to use is a first step.
• There are three kinds of mobile e-commerce software
• mobile Web site version of a regular desktop Web site that is
scaled down in content and navigation
• responsive Web design tools and design principles that
automatically adjust the layout of a Web site depending on user
screen resolution
• mobile Web app application built to run on the mobile Web
browser built into a smartphone or tablet computer
Insight on Society
Designing for Accessibility with Web 2.0

• What is Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act?

• Why might some merchants be reluctant to
make their Web sites accessible to disabled
Americans?
• How can Web sites be made more
accessible?
• Should all Web sites be required by law to
provide “equivalent alternatives” for visual and
sound content?
Planning and Building a Mobile Web
Presence
Mobile Web Presence: Design
Considerations
• Designing a mobile presence is somewhat different from
traditional desktop Web site design because of different
hardware, software, and consumer expectations.
Mobile Web Presence: Performance and
Cost Considerations
• Building a mobile Web app that uses the mobile device’s
browser requires more effort and cost than developing a mobile
Web site, suffers from the same limitations as any browser-
based application, but does offer some advantages such as better
graphics, more interactivity, and faster local calculations as, for
instance, in mobile geo-location applications like Foursquare
that require local calculations of position and then
communication with the site’s Web server.