1. Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan
CSC 330 E-Commerce
Teacher
Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan
GM-IT CIIT Islamabad
Virtual Campus, CIIT
COMSATS Institute of Information Technology
T1-Lecture-6

2. Building E-Commerce Web Sites Chapter-3 Part-I T1-Lecture-6
For Lecture Material/Slides Thanks to:
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

3. Objectives
Explain the process that should be followed in building an e-commerce Web site.
Describe the major issues surrounding the decision to outsource site development and/or hosting.
Identify and understand the major considerations involved in choosing Web server and e-commerce merchant server software.
Understand the issues involved in choosing the most appropriate hardware for an e-commerce site.
Identify additional tools that can improve Web site performance.
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

4. Building an E-commerce Site: A Systematic Approach
Most important management challenges:
Developing a clear understanding of business objectives.
The objectives are to be explained to the developers and programmers.
Knowing how to choose the right technology to achieve those objectives
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

5. 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
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

6. The Systems Development Life Cycle
Methodology for understanding business objectives of a system and designing an appropriate solution
Five major steps:
Systems analysis/planning
Systems design
Building the system
Testing
Implementation
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7. Web Site Systems Development Life Cycle
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8. 1. 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
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10. 2. 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:
Logical design
Data flow diagrams, processing functions, databases
Physical design
Specifies actual physical, Hardware and software components, models, etc. needed for the implementation of Logical design
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

11. Logical Design for a Simple Web Site
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12. Physical Design for a Simple Web Site
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

13. Build/Host Your Own versus 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
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

14. Choices in Building and Hosting
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

15. Testing, Implementation, and Maintenance
Unit testing
unit testing involves testing the site’s program modules one at a time
System testing
system testing involves testing the site as a whole, in a way the typical user will use the site.
Acceptance testing
acceptance testing verifies that the business objectives of the system as originally conceived are in fact working
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

16. Testing, Implementation, and Maintenance
Maintenance is ongoing process
Maintenance costs: parallel to development costs
Benchmarking
benchmarking a process in which the site is compared with those of competitors in terms of response speed, quality of layout and design
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

17. Factors in Web Site Optimization
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18. Web Site Budgets From $5,000 to millions of dollars/year
Depends on what you can afford
Components of budget:
System maintenance
System development
Content design & development
Hardware
Telecommunications
Software.
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

19. 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.
Single Tier Architecture
it consisted of a server computer running basic Web server software.
Two-tier
Web server and database server
Multi-tier
Web application servers
Backend, legacy databases
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

20. Two-Tier E-commerce Architecture
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21. Multi-tier E-commerce Architecture
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23. 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
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

24. Functionalities of Webserver
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25. 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.
Examples: WebTrends Analytics 9, Google Analytics
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

26. Dynamic Page Generation Tools
Contents of Web page stored as objects in database and fetched when needed
Examples: 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)
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

27. 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
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

28. Functionalities of Application Servers
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29. 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
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

30. 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
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

31. 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
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

32. 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
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

33. 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
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

34. Rightsizing E-Commerce Platforms
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35. Degradation in Performance as Number of Users Increases—Resource Utilization
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36. Degradation in Performance as Number of Users Increases—Number of Connections
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37. The Relationship of Bandwidth to Hits
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38. 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
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

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40. Vertically Scaling a System
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41. Horizontally Scaling a System
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

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43. 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
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

44. 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.
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

45. T1-Lecture-6 Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

46. 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
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

47. Personalization Tools
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
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

48. 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
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

49. What is Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act?
Insight on Society Designing for Accessibility with Web 2.0 Class Discussion
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?
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

50. Right-Sizing a Web Site Class Discussion
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?
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

51. How does a small, niche Web site become profitable?
Insight on Business Curly Hair and MotorMouths: Getting Started on the Cheap Class Discussion
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?
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

52. What is AJAX? How does it work?
Insight on Technology Pumping Up the Customer Experience Using AJAX and Flash Class Discussion
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?
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc

53. Thank You
T1-Lecture Ahmed Mumtaz Mustehsan Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc