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electronic
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strategy
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Chapter 15: The elements of e-Commerce
Search
Company
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Order
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After-sales
Community
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Elements
 The basic elements:
 An e-Shop on a Server
 User (customer) with a web Browser
 An Internet connection
 Additional issues:
 Visibility
 Ease of Use
 Order Processing
 Online Payments
 Security
 Delivery Systems
 After-Sales
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Elements
Customer
Browser
e-Shop
Search
Orders
Payment
Store
Systems
Delivery
After Sales
Internet
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e-Visibility
 Getting the site noticed and the online customers
visiting the store.
 Ways of advertising a web presence and getting
customers in through the door include:
 Site Name
 Conventional Advertising
 Portals
 Malls
 Search Engines
 Links
 Personal Recommendations
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e-Visibility – site name
 The surest way of finding a site is the url.
 If the url is memorable then the site is made:
 amazon.com
 A sensible simple site name can be guessed by
users:
 britishairways.com
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strategy
technologies
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applications
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e-Visibility – conventional advertising
 An irony of e-Commerce sites is the apparent urge
to advertise them through conventional media.
 Conventional advertising of Internet addresses has
a threefold effect:
 It boosts the image of the organisation – it gives
an air of modernity and ‘high-tech’;
 It lets the customer know that the organisation
has Internet facilities;
 It can give users access via the url.
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e-Visibility – portals
 The first page a user sees is the portal.
 An advert on a popular portal is the web equivalent
of a TV advert at half time in the cup final or in a
break during the Superbowl – it is seen by millions.
 An advert on a popular web search engine is a
similar piece of property.
 Adverts on the portal can be:
 Banners
 Little boxes
 Menu of services
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e-Visibility – malls
 An Internet shopping mall models itself on the American
shopping mall, a lot of shops, under one roof with a pleasant
shopping atmosphere.
 The intention is to generate interest and thus trade for all the
shops.
 An Internet mall can provide common services. Possibilities
include:
 Shared advertising.
 Common facilities.
 e-Cash.
 Common customer files.
electronic
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strategy
technologies
and
applications  The drawback of joining a mall is that, as for any good retail
location, the rents can be high.
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e-Visibility – search engines
 A search engine is a standard way to find any Internet site and that
includes e-Shops.
 Finding a specific e-Commerce site may or may not be easy - a
successful e-Shop could do with appearing in that top ten list of hits.
 The search engines index the web by:
 Manual indexing;
 Automatic Indexing (web crawlers).
 Crawlers look at:
 The <TITLE> tag is a prime target.
 The <META> is also checked
… and many other aspects of the site and its use,
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strategy
 Also one can ask the search engine to list the site.
technologies
and
applications  Note, the best of the search engines list only about 15% of internet
sites.
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e-Visibility – links
 Online adverts on the web are also links to the site
– hypertext links.
 Links are included on a variety of other sites with a
variety of deals being done.
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e-Visibility – personal recommendations
 Satisfied customers will bookmark the site, come
back to the site again and recommend it to their
friends – possibly the best way of getting business.
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The e-Shop
 e-Shops come in all shapes and sizes.
They range from:
 A few simple web pages for a local craftsman
 Complex sites offering services that include online
ordering and payment
 The full service e-Store needs: an extensive range of facilities;
these include:
 Company information
 Customer registration
electronic
 Dynamic web pages
commerce
 Site indexes and search facilities

strategy
 Online order entry and payment systems
technologies
 Sophisticated security protection systems
and
applications
 After sales service and support
 Feedback systems
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The e-Shop – online information
 Trust is an issue on the Internet and it is not an
issue that is likely to go away.
 Trust can be engendered by:
 Brand name and trading record.
 A site that gives a professional image.
 The inclusion of company information.
 All of this does not prove that a site is genuine but it
can reassure potential customers.
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The e-Shop – customer registration
 e-Commerce customers have to give their suppliers
details about themselves. It is less information than
would be required to open a bank account but more
than is normally needed to buy some cornflakes.
 Providing this information raises privacy issues:
 Will the information be put to other uses?
 Will the e-Vendor compile a customer profile?
 Is the information secure?
 The context in which the e-Commerce vendor asks
for this information is also important:
 Customer registration prior to using the site
 Customer details only when an order is placed.
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The e-Shop – site navigation
‘if a site is not designed with usability in mind,
people will be frustrated with the site. People that
are frustrated with the site don’t bookmark, don’t
buy, don’t revisit, and won’t tell other people about
the site.”
(Rhodoes, 1999)
 Site navigation is aided by:
 A site index;
 A site search engine;
 Logical sequencing of facilities with clear links to
the next stage in any process.
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The e-Shop – product database
 The use of a product database facilitates:
 Updating of products and their attributes
 Common data for e-Shop and back office
 … and requires the construction of the web page
‘on the fly’.
 Examples are:
 The Online Bookshop
 The Airline Website
(integrated with the airline booking system)
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The e-Shop – online orders
 The most common analogy is a shopping basket in
the UK and a shopping cart in the US.
 Tangible goods are (electronically) placed in the
basket and checked-out when shopping is
complete.
 For services, such as an airline booking, the search
process is also the shopping process and the
customer accepts or rejects the resulting
proposal(s).
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Online payments
 Options for online payment are:
 Credit Cards
 Debit Cards
 Stored Value Cards
 e-Cash
 Delayed Payments
 Note, in a shop there is an exchange of value –
online it is pay now and hope that the goods arrive
later.
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Online Payments – credit cards
 Options for online payment:
 The most common way of paying for an
e-Commerce transaction is with a credit card.
 The online use of credit cards is an extension of
the ‘customer not present’ (CNP) protocol –
which is intrinsically less secure than the
conventional use.
 Potential problems include:
 Fraudulent Use of Credit Cards
 Interception of Credit Card Details
 Remote Storage of Credit Card Details
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Online Payments
 Debit Cards
 Similar to Credit Cards but less secure.
 Stored Value Cards
 Not widely used – fraud limited to value on card
– requires a card reader.
 e-Cash
 Suitable for small payments – as yet no
generally accepted scheme.
 Delayed Payments
 Off-line payments - limited acceptance –
normally delays transaction.
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Delivery of goods (e- fulfilment)
 Internet e-Commerce allows users to order what
they want, when they want but then they have to
wait until the postman arrives.
 Delivery depends on the size, nature, urgency and
value. Options include:
 Post. (You can sell anything online provided it
will fit through a letter box.)
 Packet/parcel delivery service.
 Local Delivery. (Perishable goods often require
such a service.)
 Collect your Own.
 Electronic Delivery.
 No delivery. (Intangibles such as an e-Ticket.)
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Delivery of Goods (e- fulfilment)
 For the delivery stage of the trade cycle the task of
delivery is transferred from the retail customer to
the vendor and the vendor generally finds it
necessary to recoup those costs as delivery
charges.
 Delivery issues:
 cost – picking, posting and packaging
 trust – will the right goods be sent?
 security – does someone have to be at home to
accept delivery?
 Online grocery deliveries work to booked delivery
slots – often a day or two later.
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After Sales
 Advantages:
 Online manuals and diagnostics
 Online Support
 Problem areas:
 Return of goods
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Internet e-Commerce Security
 Security breaches can occur on:
 The customer side – impersonation.
 The Internet – hacking, etc.
 The vendor side – inappropriate or dishonest
trade.
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Internet e-Commerce Security
The four pillars of secure e-Commerce:
 Authentication:
 The sender of a document must be identified precisely and
without any possibility of fraud;
 Confidentiality:
 The contents of a message may not be scanned by
unauthorised parties;
 Integrity:
 Changes made in messages without according remarks
must be impossible;
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 Non-Repudiation:
strategy
technologies
 The sender of a message is directly connected to the
and
contents of the message (and the recipient cannot deny
applications
that the message was received).
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Security - encryption
 Encryption is the conversion of data into a code so
that it cannot be read by unauthorised users.
 The data is converted into the code by the sender
and then decoded by the receiver.
 Modern encryption methods use an encryption
algorithm and a binary number that is the key. The
main options are:
 Secret key system
 Public key / private key system.
 Encryption should be used for transmission but also
for customer data on the e-Vendor’s server.
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Security – Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
 The stages are:
 The vendor transmits the public key (ka) to the
intending customer's web browser.
 The customer’s browser generates a secret key
(kc) for the session.
 The customer’s browser encrypts the secret key
(kc), using the public key (ka) and transmits it to
the vendor.
 The vendor decodes the message using a
private key (kb) and now has the secret key (kc).
 Further interchanges between the customer’s
browser and the vendor’s server can now be
encoded and decoded using the secret key (kc).
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Security – digital signatures
 A digital signature is used to authenticate the
sender of the message and to check the integrity of
the message, i.e. that it has not been altered in
transit.
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Security – trusted third parties
 This addresses non-repudiation – a copy of the
transaction is transmitted to a third party and the
record of the transaction can be used to settle any
disputes.
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A Web Site Evaluation Model
Search
Company
Customer
P
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E
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Product
Negotiation
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Order
U
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Payment
Delivery
After-sales
A
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Community
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Chapter 15 – Exercise 1
 Select two categories of goods, for example
groceries and books, and list the advantages and
disadvantages to you of ordering these products
online. The lists can be compared across a group
of students and the differences analysed.
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Chapter 15 – Exercise 2
 Use the Web Site Evaluation Model and the
associated questions from Section 15.7 to evaluate
a couple of web sites.
For this evaluation use two web sites from the same
sector, possibly one of the sectors used in
Exercise 1.
Compare the results of the two evaluations and
compute an overall score for each of the sites.
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