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E-Business Technology :Electronic Commerce

Software

Mr. Seree ChinoomDepartment of Computer Science

Burapha UniversityE-mail : seree@buu.ac.th

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Learning Objectives

Basic functions of electronic commerce softwareCharacteristics to look for in an externally hosted electronic commerce solutionElectronic store modelsSoftware for small electronic commerce sites

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Learning Objectives (cont.)

Software for medium-sized to large electronic commerce sitesElectronic commerce solutions for large organizations with an existing infrastructureSupply chain management softwareCustomer relationship management softwareAutomated content management software

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Electronic Commerce Software Basics

The expected size of the enterprise and its projected traffic and salesBudgetDetermine your target commerce audience.Use a full-service ISP or host the electronic commerce site in-house

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Electronic Commerce Software Components

A catalog displayShopping cart capabilitiesTransaction processingTools to populate the store catalog and to maintain the catalogTools to create and edit other site content

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Catalog Display

A small commerce site can have a simple catalog, which is a static listing of goods and services.Larger catalogs have photos of items, descriptions, and a search features.For example, “MP3.com” is large commerce site and “Women in Music” is a small site.

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Catalog Display

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Catalog Display

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Shopping Cart

Online forms were used for online shopping.A new way of online shopping is by using shopping carts.SalesCart is one company that makes this type of shopping cart software.

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Form-Based Method

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Electronic Shopping Cart

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Electronic Shopping Cart

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Electronic Shopping Cart

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Electronic Shopping Cart

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Shopping Cart

The Web is a stateless system unable to remember anything from one transmission or session to another.It must distinguish from shopper from another.One way to uniquely identify users and to store information about their choices is to create and store cookies.

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Shopping Cart Software (BIZNET)

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Shopping Cart Software (CartIt)

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Shopping Cart Software (SalesCart)

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Shopping Cart Software (WebGenie)

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Free Software Script

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Hacker Attack – PDG Software

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Transaction Processing

Transaction processing occurs when the shopper proceeds to the virtual checkout counter.Transaction processing is the trickiest part of the electronic sale.Software needs to calculate price, volume discounts, sales tax, and shipping costs.Sales tax may vary in different states.

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Transaction ProcessingSome electronic commerce software provides connections to accounting software so that Web sales can be entered simultaneously.Connections between electronic commerce software and the accounting software are handled by a separate type of software called middleware.Major middleware vendors include BEA Systems, Broadvision, Digital River, and IBM Tivoli Systems.

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Middleware Vendor - BEA

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Middleware Vendor - Broadvision

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Middleware Vendor – Digital River

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Middleware Vendor – IBM Tivoli

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Electronic Commerce Tools

Inexpensive storefronts are offered by established portals, such as Yahoo!Robust software suites run on large, dedicated computers and interact with database systems, such as Oracle.B2B systems must be able to connect to existing legacy systems, including ERP software packages.

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Major Online Store – require electronic commerce software suites that run on large – Amazon.com

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Application ServersA group of electronic software packages known as application servers give these companies the power and flexibility they need.And application server is software that take the request messages received by the Web server and performs some kind of action based on the contents of these messages.The actions that the application server software perform are determined by the rules used in the business.These rules are called business logic.

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Application ServersApplication server software is grouped into two types: page-based and component-based.A page-based application server returns pages generated by scripts that include the rules for presenting data on the Web page with the business logic.Common page-based systems include Macromedia’s Coldfusion, Java server pages, Microsoft’s Active server pages, and PHP.

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Java Server Page

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PHP – Hypertext Preprocessor

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ASP - Active Server Page

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Macromedia’s ColdFusion

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Application Servers

A component-based application server separates the presentation logic from the business logic.Each component of logic is created in its own module.Common component-based systems include Enterprise JabaBeans, Microsoft’s Component Object Model, and the Common Object Request Broker Architecture.

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Component-Based System - Java Beans

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Component-Based – Microsoft COM

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Application Servers

Application server software licenses range in cost from $2,000 to $35,000.Companies selling products in this category include Borland’s AppServer, Hewlett-Packard’s Total eServer, iPlanet’s Application Server, IBM’s WebSphere Application Server, Oracle’s Oracle Application Server, and Sybase’s EAServer.

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Borland’s AppServer

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Oracle Application Server

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Application Servers

Application servers usually obtain the business logic information that they use to build Web pages from databases.A database manager is software that stores information in a highly structured way.Large information systems that store the same data in many different locations are called distributed information systems.

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Application Servers

Many B2B commerce systems must be able to connect to existing information systems, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

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Application Servers – ERP systems

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ERP Solution - Intuitive

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ERP Solution - Expandable

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Content Management ToolsMost commerce software comes with wizards and other automated methods for creating template-driven pages.A number of companies offer content management tools.Some of these tools are extensions of Web site creation tools.Macromedia Spectra is one such tool and it works with Dreamweaver and Dreamweaver UltraDev.

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Macromedia Dreamweaver

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Commerce Hosting Services

The total cost of setting up your own in-house Web commerce site is expensive.Web hosting services allow businesses to start electronic commerce inexpensively.Web hosting services provide all the services that an ISP does.

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Commerce Hosting Services – Value Web

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Commerce Hosting Service – TopHosts.com

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Commerce Hosting Services – ThaiNIC.com

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Basic Electronic Commerce Software Packages

Basic packages are free or low-cost electronic commerce software supplied by the Web host for building electronic commerce sites that will be kept on the host’s server.Services in this category usually cost less than a few hundred dollars per month, and the software is available on the host site, allowing companies to immediately begin building and storing a storefront on the host’s server.

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Basic Host Services

Hosting services in this class offer adequate space for a Web store and for forms-based shopping, but do not provide shopping carts.Often, they do not include transaction-processing.Examples of these types of hosts are BizLand.com and HyperMart.Customer purchase transactions are handled by e-mail in this host service.

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Basic Hosting Services - HyperMart.net

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Shared Mall-Style HostingShared hosting sites provide online stores with good services, good Web creation tools, and little or not banner advertising clutter.Web hosts in this group charge a monthly fee, a setup fee, and may also charge a percentage for fixed amount for each customer transaction.Mall-style hosts provide shopping cart software or the ability to use another vendor’s shopping cart software.

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Shared Mall-Style HostingMall-style hosting also offers transaction-processing through one of a few merchant services.These merchant services allow customers to choose to purchase their goods and services with a credit card, electronic cash, or other form of payment.Quality Web hosts in this category include Bigstep, Yahoo! Store, FedEx eCommerce Builder, and eBay Stores.

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Shared-Mall Style Hosting

Electronic commerce stores get a variety of services for a low monthly fee.Web hosting customers have their own domain name and IP address.Advantages of a shared Web host over dedicated hosting or self-hosting:

Low setup feeNo staff and capital costsFree technical support

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Yahoo! StoreYahoo! Store is a good value among full-service shared hosting sites.Merchants can create, change, and maintain their Yahoo! Storefronts through a Web browser.On its own site, Yahoo! Holds all the stores’ pages in a proprietary format.Yahoo’s management page contains many management, reporting, and global site setting tools.

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Shared Mall-Style – Yahoo! Store

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Bigstep.comBigstep.com provides a well-designed storefront package without charging hosting fees.Bigstep.com enables merchants to create, change, and maintain a storefront through a Web browser.Bigstep.com’s reports provide data mining capabilities.Data mining can help business find customers with common interests.

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Bigstep.comBigstep.com’s reports answer the following questions:

How many visitors are coming to the site?What is the average length of stay for each visitor on each page?Which pages lead to purchases?What advertisements or links have brought qualified visitors to the page or site?What is average number of pages that each visitor views?Are repeat customers attracted to this site?

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Shared Mall-Style – BigStep.com

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Shared Mall-Style – Modmall.com

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Estimated Operating ExpensesOperating Costs Cost Estimate

Initial site setup fee $200

Annual maintenance fee (12 x $100)

$1200

Domain name registration $70

Scanner for photo conversion or digital camera

$500

Photo editing $100

Occasional HTML and design help

$400

Merchant credit card setup fee

$200

Total first-year cost $2670

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Estimated Operating Expenses

The first-year operating costs can vary depending on the Web host selected.A good guideline for processing fees is to multiply your expected annual gross sales by 3%.Setup and Web site maintenance costs include: equipment, communications, physical location and staff.

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Midrange PackagesMidrange packages allow the merchant to have explicit control over merchandising choices, site layout, internal architecture, and remote and local management options.Midrange software has connectivity with database systems and the store’s catalog information.INTERSHOP enfinity, WebSphere, and Commerce Server 2000 are examples of this type of software.

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INTERSHOP EnfinityINTERSHOP enfinity is produced by INTERSHOP Communications Inc.This software provides:

Search and catalog capabilitiesElectronic shopping cartsOnline credit card transaction processingConnection to existing business systems and databases, such as DB2 and Oracle

It has setup wizards and catalog and data management tools.

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Midrange Package - InterShop

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WebSphere Commerce Suite

IBM produces the WebSphere Commerce Suite.It comes complete with catalog templates, setup wizards, and advanced catalog tools.It can be used both for B2B and B2C applications.This system runs on AIX, Solaris, and Windows NT operating systems.

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Midrange Package - WebSphere

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WebSphere Diagram

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Commerce Server 2000

Microsoft creates the Commerce Server 2000.Commerce Server 2000 provides tools for:

User profiling and managementTransaction processingProduct and service managementTarget audience marketing

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Commerce Server 2000

Microsoft pipelines model a series of business processes:

The Commerce Interchange Pipeline for B2BThe Order-processing Pipeline for B2C

Commerce Server 2000 has tools for advertising, promotions, cross-selling and customer targeting and personalization.

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Midrange Package – Commerce Server 2000

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Commerce Server 2000 Architecture

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Solutions for Large Firms

Enterprise-level commerce software is called e-business software.E-business software interacts with a wide variety of existing back office systems, including database, accounting, and ERP systems.

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ERP Services (from Sun Microsystem)

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Enterprise Solutions for Large Firms

An enterprise-scale solution requires:

A Domain Name Server (DNS)An SMTP system to handle e-mailAn HTTP serverAn FTP server for upload and download capabilitiesA database server

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Enterprise Solutions for Large Firms

Examples of e-business systems:IBM’s WebSphere Commerce Suite, Pro EditionNetscape’s Netscape CommerceXpertOracle’s iStorePandesic Web Business solution (Intel and SAP)

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Typical Large e-Business System Architecture

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Oracle E-Business Suite

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Customer Relationship Management Software

The goal of CRM is to understand each customer’s specific needs and then customize a product or service so that it meets those needs.CRM software must obtain data from operations software that conducts activities, such as sales automation, customer service center operations, and marketing campaigns.Siebel Systems’ E-Business 7 is one of the leading comprehensive CRM packages.Oracle Global CRM, PeopleSoft CRM, and MySAP CRM are other CRM products.

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PeopleSoft CRM

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mySAP CRM

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CRM (from quelsys.com)

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i2 Technology – Supply Chain Management (SCM)

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SCM – Supply Chain Management (from NTT Japan)