CIS 451: eCommerce Application Development Dr. Ralph D. Westfall January, 2009

CIS 451 primarily a technical course ASP.NET also HTML, JavaScript, SQL, XML but also covers eCommerce issues web site design for eCommerce web site usability and accessibility marketing issues role of eCommerce in world economy

eCommerce Overview what is eCommerce? why do “techies” need to learn business aspects of eCommerce? eCommerce business issues eCommerce tools eCommerce applications “shopping carts” shopping cart exercises

What is eCommerce? what do you think it is? what do businesses do? eCommerce definition value chain

Pre-Internet eCommerce airline reservation systems EFT (electronic funds transfer) ATMs (automated teller [cash] machines) ATMs (automated teller [cash] machines) EDI (electronic data interchange)

Advantages of Internet very easy to use web browser interface compatible with all kinds of hardware global low cost delivery of content to large numbers of users like radio in the 1920sradio in the 1920s multimedia capabilities

Web-Based eCommerce business to consumer (shopping) Amazon consumer to consumer (auction sites) eBay business to business EDI on the web

Business Aspects of eCommerce for Technologists field is continuing to develop technical employees in large organizations need to communicate with business people small businesses/consultants less technical vs. non-technical specialization E-business (EBZ) major at Cal Poly

eCommerce Sequential Stages 1. Publish: static web pages 2. Interact: content updated regularly, customers follow links, search site, etc. 3. Transact: orders, payments, shipping 4. Integrate: part of way business is done 5. Transform: organization restructured from Informatics-Review, Vol. 3, No. 7Informatics-Review

Benefits of eCommerce customers (top line) reach new customers (Hot!Hot!Hot!)Hot!Hot!Hot! serve existing customers better customer relationship management (vendor of CRM services)vendor costs (bottom line) potentially lower throughout value chain: (intranet/extranet)intranet/extranet

International eCommerce potentially huge markets need to deal with major difficulties high shipping costs (postal codes [scroll]) high shipping costspostal codes legal issues: tariffs, documentation translation currency exchange fraud Norwegian base for E-C in Europe Norwegian base

eCommerce Business Issues relation to business strategy? low cost (high volume) product differentiation niche (specialized product or limited region) competitive implications? within & outside industry short vs. long-term profitability? Amazon just had first profit ever in 2002 profit

eCommerce Issues - 2 timing? (first mover advantage)first mover advantage costs? (how much to spend) evaluation? (how measure success) impact on existing relationships? suppliers, partners, distributors, customersdistributors

eCommerce Tools - 1 tutorials for frequently used programming technologies HTML (3.2, 4.0) HTML (3.2 JavaScript JSP (Java Server Pages) SQL ASP.NET replacing Perl?Perl PHP

eCommerce Tools - 2 multimedia free trial downloads image tools (e.g. Adobe PhotoShop, etc.)Adobe PhotoShop sound tools (e.g. Adobe Audition [formerly [Cool Edit])Adobe Audition video (+ audio) tools (e.g. Flash)Flash shareware and totally free software Audacity (sound) Audacity free multimedia Google searchGoogle search

Shopping Cart Applications reviews how to choose order problems (75% abandoned) Yahoo! Merchant Solutions: Starter Yahoo! Merchant Solutions: Standard Yahoo! Merchant Solutions: Professional

Exercise from a customer perspective, evaluate one of the Yahoo! Merchant Solutions cartsYahoo! Merchant Solutions try the "tour" of Yahoo! Merchant Solutionstour advantages, disadvantages, questions understandability of instructions ease of use to create site(?) 2 students per 3-person team need to submit the above + international shipment findings (slide 11) for Exercise 3Exercise 3