1. E-commerce Web Portal

2. Plan of the talk Architecture of e-commerce applications
Bookstore example
Perspectives for e-commerce
What We offer

3. Taxonomy of e-commerce applications
Three main categories:
Business to consumer (B2C)
Business to business (B2B)
Consumer to consumer (C2C)
Other categories:
Business to government (B2G)
Mobile Commerce

4. B2C applications
Offer directly to the customer an interface of activity
Typical examples:
Online book store (e.g. amazon.com)
Booking and purchase of airline tickets
Correspond to retail sale
Growth of B2C applications thanks to Internet
A new kind of B2C applications are the Cybermalls
Retail sale = vendita al dettaglio( caratterizzato dall’acquisto diretto di prodotti o servizi dell’attività da parte del consumatore)
Automalll.com un sito che consente ai propri utenti discegliersi comodamente da casa il colore dell’ automobile,gli accessori dell’automobile,i pezzi di ricambio
Cybermalls = centri commerciali virtuali

5. B2C applications: advantages and disadvantages
Allow company to extend existing services to customers
Allow company to increase its customers
Offer a wider choice and allow cheaper prices
May give to the company a worldwide visibility
Online shops are accessible 24h a day

6. B2B applications
Realize transactions needed to perform financial or commercial activities by companies over the Internet
Some typical applications:
E-procurement
E-Marketplace
The turnover is much greater than that dealed with B2C applications
Turnover = volume di affari

7. B2B applications: advantages and disadvantages
Help to automate communications between companies making them easier and quicker
Allow to cut prices drastically
Help in reducing mistakes
Prezzi ridotti non solo per la riduzione della manodopera ,ma anche se uno aveva la rete privata tipo edi il passaggio a internet ha dimiuito le spese di manutenzione della rete .

8. C2C applications
Concern the consumers who run negotations with other consumers sometimes utilizing as intermediary a company
Examples:
Ebay
Autotrader.com
Le società intermediarie devono trovare altri flussi di entrate non tradizionali che possono essere una piccola tassa sul servizio o una pubblicità o combinazioni di entrambe le cose

9. C2C applications: advantages and disadvantages
Allow consumers to interact directly among them
Give to the consumers a new way of purchasing and selling services and goods
Disadvantages
Little earning capacity

10. B2G applications
Correspond to all kind of transactions between company and public administrator
Utilized mostly in the USA
Le richieste di fornitura vengono pubblicizzate su internet e le imprese possono rispondere per via elettronica

11. Mobile commerce applications
Concern doing businesses by means of mobile wireless devices
Can be both B2B and B2C
Have a growing importance in the future of e-commerce applications
Will introduce completely new forms of electronic commerce
E.g. E-tickets
The development of such applications faces some of the greatest challenges in the security area to secure the trust of consumers

12. Plan of the talk
Introduction to e-commerce and e-commerce applications
Issues in developing e-commerce applications
Architecture of e-commerce applications
Bookstore example
Perspectives for e-commerce
References

13. Issues in developing e-commerce applications (1/2)
Many of the following issues:
Security
Flexibility
Scalability
Fault Tolerance
Integration
Interfaces
Time-to-market
are common to many applications, but they are all critical in the case of e-commerce because of its nature

14. Issues in developing e-commerce applications (2/2)
A state-of-the-art application always fail if people do not utilize it
A constant attention must be payed to the users over the whole development process
A close integration with every business aspect is needed:
For an online buyer security and easy access to the informations are the primal needs
A manager will need a flexible application to adapt the business to the new trends in a faster way

15. Security Issues Security is a crucial feature
Most transactions take place in a fully automated way
Restricted data are transmitted through a public network
Users must be sure that their money will not be lost or stolen

16. Flexibility Issues
E-commerce systems are subject to frequent structural changes because of mutations of:
Products and services provided by the firm
Commercial partnerships

17. Scalability
Capability to support a certain number of users (thousands, even millions) without compromising performances
It is important because a slow application often means to lose customers (especially in B2C) since they have very small patience

18. Fault tolerance
A less fault-tolerant application will be less available to the user
Every minute that a site is not available costs 1400$ to the company (survey on 400 major companies by Oracle)
It is easy to lose customers forever
It is necessary to redirect the users without they perceive it

19. Integration
Always needed since no application offering every commercial functionality can be realized
Critical because the commercial funcionalities are often realized by many different legacy and third-party applications
Examples:
ERP systems
Legacy systems

20. User Interfaces
Must be intuitive,easily comprehensible and of simple utilization
In the case of B2C must support profiling in order to anticipate the customer requests
They also need to be customizable
Bisogna tenere conto del fatto che chi usa le interfacce non è un esperto di informatica

21. Time-to-market Has greater importance than elsewhere
Development Process
Implementation of Open Source
Frameworks Integrations

22. Three-tier architecture
Separates the business logic of the application from user interfaces and from data access
Middle tier can be furtherly divided
In this case we call it multi-tier architecture:
Easier to modify one component
Lower cost to deploy and maintain
Middle-tier risiede la business logic

23. Three-tier architecture

24. Application server
Software that runs on the middle tier of a three-tier environment
In multi-tier environments it is often a distributed and complex software
Commercial implementations exist:
Microsoft Commerce Server
Sun iPlanet
IBM WebSphere Application Server

25. Application Server-based e-commerce platform architecture
ERP
Presentation
Layer
Business
Logic Layer
Data & Legacy
Access Layer
Legacy
systems
Transactions
Security
Session
Resource
Pooling
Load
balancing
Database
Horizontal Services
Application Server
Client tier
Server tier
Data tier

26. Use Case Model

27. E-Commerce Portal
What We offer

28. Web site development PROCESSES
Our E-commerce website services are well defined and we follow a set of time-tested processes and strict quality parameters to make sure that we meet both the deadline and the quality standards.
Following details are just a summary of our core-ecommerce custom design and web site development processes.

29. Visually Appealing Custom Design
Understanding online business requirements specifications.
Drafting High-Level Features Specification
Wire Framing for Search Engine friendly web design
Implementing WEB 2.0 Technology
Ecommerce capable site design

30. Requirement Analysis
Our first step is to analyze key project details regarding project goals, Design and visuals, target audience, special system requirements, desired timeline, and budget range provided through a QUESTIONNAIRE.

31. Pre-production Planning
Alt Web Media Project Manager and production team discusses in-depth your target audience, Home Page design ideas, samples and facilitates several rounds of mockups between you and our designers till the final

32. High-end Scalable Development
Intuitive website navigation
Scalable Features development using suitable web technology
Customized Shopping Cart design and development
Payment Gateway Integration
A highly customized and SCABALE Content Management System, CMS development Product Management System
Testing and Quality Analysis

33. Content & Production Content Delivery
Unless contracted for content creation, clients provide finalized text, images, logos, graphics, data, and other necessary content for the project.
Production start
Upon receipt of all content, our designers create mockups with several rounds of feedback. Programmers than translate finalized designs into web pages (HTML Pages) and integrate with necessary backend tools (server side programming).

34. Testing – Beta Release Testing and Debugging
Project is divided into various Modules. Each module/ feature is Tested and debugged on time. Once all the modules are created and tested the whole system is put on the local server and TESTING is done.
Beta Release
After all deliverable are completed and signed off, we complete the production process. The website is launched on the hosting server and a final usability TESTING is done

35. The End
Thank You