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    Robert Charles Gosney 1HND3

    BSEC DESIGNING AN E-COMMERCE SOLUTION

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    Designing an e-Commerce Solution 2013

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    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    Task 1 Understand the Impact of e-Commerce ................................................................................... 3

    SECTION A Analyse the impact, including the risk, of introducing an e-

    Commerce system to an organization. ................................................................................. 3

    Part 1: .......................................................................................................................................................... 3

    Part 2: .......................................................................................................................................................... 4

    Section B- Discuss the global impact of e-commerce on society ................................. 5

    Task 2 Be able to design e-commerce solutions ................................................................................. 6

    Section A Investigate market potential for an e-commerece opportunity .......... 6

    Section B Evaluate current e-commerce system in use by organisations ............ 7

    Section C Design an e-commerce solution ....................................................................... 8

    Part 1: .......................................................................................................................................................... 8

    Part 2: .......................................................................................................................................................... 9

    Section D Discuss the finacial implications of an e-Commerce solution ............10

    Part 1: ....................................................................................................................................................... 10

    Part 2: ....................................................................................................................................................... 11

    Section E Evaluare the suitability of an e-Commerce solution ...............................12

    Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................................... 13

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    TASK 1 UNDERSTAND THE IMPACT OF E-COMMERCE

    SECTION A ANALYSE THE IMPACT, INCLUDING THE RISK, OF

    INTRODUCING AN E-COMMERCE SYSTEM TO AN ORGANIZATION.

    PART 1:

    Mod-Monsters is a startup company that focuses on providing the consumer with computer

    modding kits and custom parts. These products will target the computer fanatics who like to

    create their own computer cases and modify them to their liking. Mod-Monsters will provide the

    customer with the tools and parts required for them to modify their computer cases to their

    liking.

    As it is still a startup company Mod-Monsters will have to set up a website where it will operate

    from and gain a renowned status. It will be competing within the Maltese Computer Industry

    market, but as computer modding is a relatively new concept in Malta and the only few people

    that do computer modding are doing it for their own personal pleasure, and not interested in

    starting a storefront, so there are not many competitors and thus is still on an relatively open

    market. As a new business Mod-Monsters can use grants from government agencies to start up

    and start making themselves known. On an economic stand point Mod-Monster is at a distinct

    advantage, as there is a need for this type of product and none exist, so the company will start

    meeting the demand for the market. At a social point Mod-Monsters will target a really specific

    demographic that being youth and computer enthusiasts which is a growing trend in the social

    world. On the technological side of all this Mod-Monsters will need to make use of the best

    technology around to provide the best quality items at the best cost possible.

    Mod-Monsters will be operating with a small team of people who will have to handle all thebusiness. One manager will be responsible to delegate the work to the other two workers, will

    manage Mod-Monsters. The main functions of the business will be to provide the customer with

    the custom parts ordered and any tools to be required, also they will have to do a lot of research

    and development and what are the new trends and what they will think on what will be needed

    by the consumer. The main Objectives of Mod-Monsters will be to provide the customer with the

    best quality parts around and orders should be posted at the quickest time possible to keep the

    customer happy moreover they expect to be receiving a monthly profit on the parts and man

    hours that Mod-Monsters will have spent.

    Starting an e-Commerce Business is a very risky thing to do, there can be many factors that can

    hinder the business especially when one does not have a storefront. One of the main problemswill be that from an online shop one does not really have a physical presence and it can be

    difficult to advertise something that only exists online. Another problem would be that every

    start up business will have a problem, gaining clients and good reputation having an online store

    could be even harder to establish this. Finally when dealing with on online business you have to

    rely on a lot of external entities to do help you perform to your full extent for example relying on

    your hosting service to have a guaranteed up time on your server this can be a big risk because if

    the server is not online one cannot have a reliable business.

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    PART 2:

    In an e-Commerce business the most important thing to have is the webserver which hosts andkeeps all information about the business. If for some reason this fails to work the website cant be

    accessed by the customer and thus the sales will be at a standstill. There are many factors that

    can lead to a server not to function correctly, such as hardware failure, power cuts, DDOS

    (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks or a hacking attack.

    Although these risks cannot be avoided completely because they do not rely directly on the

    business there can be measures taken on avoiding these risk which will lead to the server not

    functioning correctly.

    In the case of hardware failure it is a very abstract risk to handle because unless one has extra

    parts to chance as quickly as possible in the server the server will be down for a long time until

    the problem is diagnosed and fixed. An alternative solution to this would be having a smaller butstill effective server running in parallel in a remote location, in a data center where if one server

    has the fail there is still a redundant connection passing through the other server.

    Power cuts can never be predicted so the best solution is to have a UPS and generator to power

    the server. The UPS is needed because until the generator kicks in there has to be something

    powering the server, the UPS will also help regulate the fluctuations of power that occur when

    changing from a generator current back to normal electricity.

    The DDOS attacks and hacking attacks can be tackled in the same manner. When dealing with a

    network which can hold sensitive information security measures have to be taken such as adding

    firewalls and secure passwords to access the website itself. But this is not enough, if possible a

    network administrator has to be present to monitor the activity of the server and if any

    suspicious activity that can come from either a hacking attack or a DDOS occurs the best thing to

    do would be to block their connection as not to cause damage to the server or any client

    information.

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    SECTION B- DISCUSS THE GLOBAL IMPACT OF E-COMMERCE ON SOCIETY

    Online shopping such as Amazon and eBay have change how our society in a really drastic way.

    When before online shopping was not yet established in our general society, people used to go

    out and purchase the items they needed from a physical storefront. Then with the introduction ofonline shopping people were free to choose from a variety of products with a better range of

    prices just by going on one of these websites and making a search for what item they needed.

    Another form of e-Commerce is Internet Banking; with the introduction of Internet Banking in

    our society peoples lives were made much easier. Before having Internet Banking, people had to

    go at the specific opening hours of the bank and wait in line to set up a simple thing as a

    transaction or re-occurring transfer. Now with the advantage of having a service like Internet

    Banking made public for everyday use people can manage their bank accounts, pay bills and even

    transfer money without having to leave the comfort of their homes and go to a bank just for these

    simple transactions.

    The advantages that are brought to the table when using any of these services are many; having

    the worlds shops available to you with a great variety of products. It is also less time consuming

    for a customer to go out and buy whatever he wants or uses a service that he wants; with e-

    commerce this is also made easier and much less time consuming. Also if a person wants to keep

    track of his purchases and spending when using e-commerce this is made easy because

    everything is kept in record and every transaction is saved.

    The disadvantages to this would be that when buying online, shipping takes time and in certain

    cases may cost more than to buy it from a store. Also one has to make sure that the source of e-

    commerce they use is a secure and reliable website as this could lead to scams and bank fraud,

    one final disadvantage to all this would be that with the introduction of so many services and

    products online, certain jobs and certain shops are becoming redundant and this could haveeffect on the economy of the nation.

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    This statistic shows how in Malta the use of Internet Banking from individuals from the ages

    between 16 and 74 has been on the rise from 2005 early back when Internet Banking was just a

    small concept. It also shows that there was a peak of using Internet Banking in 2011 and

    although Internet Banking is being used by more than 40% the majority of people still show that

    they prefer to visit a local branch or just do not use Internet Banking.

    WORKS CITED

    Eurostat. (2013, May 17). Eurostat. Retrieved May 19, 2013, from

    http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/product_details/dataset?p_produc

    t_code=TIN00099

    Eurostat. (2013, May 17). Eurostat table graph and map interface. Retrieved May 19, 2013, from

    Eurostat:

    http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/graph.do?tab=graph&plugin=0&pcode=tin00099

    &language=en&toolbox=data

    TASK 2 BE ABLE TO DESIGN E -COMMERCE SOLUTIONS

    SECTION A INVESTIGATE MARKET POTENTIAL FOR AN E-COMMERECE

    OPPORTUNITY

    As mentioned before Mod-Monsters will be competing in the Computer Industry but only

    focusing on computer modification parts and kits to build ones own computer. The main target

    audience of Mod-Monsters will be computer design enthusiasts ranging from teenagers from the

    approximate age of 17 onwards. The customer will want something that is rarely seen of good

    quality and also a good value for the price they will be paying. Mod-Monsters will mainly target

    the males who have a medium to high income salary because when someone is interested in

    building his own modified computer case they normally buy the best quality items for them to

    have the best system around. Mod-Monsters will not only target the experienced computer users,

    which have already build a system and are looking into either improving on it or creating a new

    one but only focus on first time consumers who are willing to try the hobby out.

    The main benefits that come from targeting this audience is that normally computer gamers are

    willing to spend the extra buck to brag around with their friends that they have the best uniquesystem around. Another benefit would be that as there are only a few real enthusiasts in Malta

    which are passionate about computer modding word can spread quickly and more people might

    be interested in trying the hobby out if they know that there is someone like Mod-Monsters

    providing the necessary tools and kits to start up. It is also a great benefit that Mod-Monsters will

    also be targeting beginners and not just experienced people but it is also important not to forget

    all your target audience and find a balance between the two.

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    SECTION B EVALUATE CURRENT E-COMMERCE SYSTEM IN U SE BY

    ORGANISATIONS

    There are many transactions that can be made from an e-Commerce solution; one of witch

    includes buying a book from the Internet. For example when visiting the Barns & Noble one can

    notice many distinct features, such as members log in, search function and the shopping chart.

    Offering such services such as logging in provides an

    extra level of security where not everyone that logs in can

    start buying books; this can be beneficial in the way that

    it can remove abuse from stolen credit cards as the card

    will be locked with the logging information. This can also

    be a drawback because one time buyers will normally not

    want to register just to buy one book but opt for using a

    guest check out, if this is not offered it could lead to the

    loss of customers to another e-Commerce business that

    offeres this function.

    The search function allows for an easier use of the website and provide the customer with the

    book he finally wants to buy. Letting the customer look into your database of books is a very

    important part of the website rather than giving them a list of all the books there are for sale and

    he has to go through the whole list just to find one book. The benefit of this will be that it will be

    much less time consuming and provides a better interface for the user.

    Finally after looking for the book the cusomer wants to purchase after the refined search, he will

    add the book he wants to the shopping chart, this can be very helpful as it allows the user to

    continue shopping while still remembering the previous books he had bought. On the conrary if

    the user forgets or accidentaly adds a book he dosent want and accidentaly checks out he will

    have ended up buying a book he dosent really want.

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    Another form of transaction is widrawing funds from an ATM machine. This is a very good

    service offered by a bank where the client can withraw money or do simple transactions such as

    deposits on these machines.

    When using an ATM machine the user puts in his debit card which holds the account information,

    the user is then promted to enter the pin number for his account autintification. This is a very

    good measure of security which only allows the owner of the card to be able to access his funds,

    the problem with the pin number is that if forgotten or entered wrong in the ATM for 3 times the

    card will be taken by the machine for an extra measure of security.

    After enterin the pin number the user is requested to choose the ammount of money he wants to

    withraw or to chose a custom ammount not from the list. This can be beneficial as the user will

    want to withraw a special ammount which is not there. The problem with ATM fund withrawal

    would be that one has a limitation of 500 for each transaction so if one wants to withrdaw more

    than 500 they can not.

    SECTION C DESIGN AN E-COMMERCE SOLUTION

    PART 1:

    The company chosen to create Mod-Monsters website is called Stand Out Online. They specialize

    in making various types of websites including e-Commerce web sites with many features that

    Mod-Monsters will need to make their business a success.

    One of the features implemented on the website will be a shopping chart where the customer will

    select all the items that he has chosen from the website and check the quantity of the items and ifthey are correct before continuing to the final checkout system. Also in the shopping chart the

    user will have listed the total price of his products with the extra fee for shipping and handling

    costs.

    Another feature that has to be put in in the website is a search bar. The search bar allows the user

    to query the website for all the products that have the same keyword the user entered. This will

    make the customers life much easier as he will not have to go through pages of products to find

    the small part he or she wants. Along side with the search function there will be a function to

    search by category meaning that for example the user can search for one generic item such as

    case fans and the website will list all available fans.

    The website will also make you of payment gateways so that the customer will have a secure way

    of paying for his product. Payment gateways need to be implemented so that sensitive data such

    as credit card information will be encrypted and passed to a merchant account, which will later

    be transferred to a bank account.

    For the customers to be able to be able to purchase items from Mod-Monsters they will have to

    create a login account which will hold all their information, this has to be catered within the

    website. Before adding items to the check out list the customer will be prompted to enter the

    login details and if they have not registered yet fill in a form so they can continue with their check

    out.

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    Security Characteristics:

    Strong Passwords: having customer enter a strong, complex passwords will help with having a

    better security system altogether. Strong passwords will also be needed when entering new

    information to the website if there isnt a strong password one can easily hack into the website

    and change information which can lead to harm to the company.

    HTTPS: stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure. This is the protocol used for secure

    Internet communication. Https as the name implies is secure meaning that the data is encrypted.

    This is commonly used for online transactions so that the encrypted data sent by the client can

    only be decrypted by the server and vice versa and therefore bank details and credit card

    numbers are kept safe in transit.

    SSL: this is a protocol, which guides a secure way of transmitting encrypted information over the

    Internet. SSL works by establishing an encrypted line of communication between two points,

    normal a webserver and clients browser. What SSL does it encrypts the plain text that is

    normally transmitted when accessing a website so only the senders and receivers have access tothe data making it very difficult to spoof data in the middle.

    WORKS CITED

    Payment Gateways for Online Credit Cards Processing. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2013, from PayPal:

    https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/payflow-payment-gateway

    Small Business Web Design. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2013, from Stand Out Online:

    http://www.standoutonline.ca

    PART 2:

    Business all around the world are looking for that competitive edge over their competitors,

    whether it is something small that makes their service better than others or something

    extraordinary that changed the market completely it is still a competitive edge. Most businesses

    nowadays opt for having an online presence but not all cater for every environment present on

    the web, this is because they only target home computers, and forget that nowadays the majority

    of internet traffic is coming from mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets.

    This can mean that when the website is first designed certain CSS function and resolution sizes

    do not work on these mobile devices. Also websites that are flash based can also not work or

    cause the mobile devices to slow down drastically.

    So what Mod-Monsters pans to do is cater their website to suit both the home desktop users as

    well as mobile devices and go the extra mile by developing an app for android and iOS devices.

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    This will be the competative edge that will help both consumer and the business. Making this free

    app which will not only advertise the business but aid the customer in accessing the website at

    any time and from any place. What a mobile app does is make sure that for mobile devices

    everything is catared as it should be that being; resolution, functions, touch screen capabilities,

    pinch to zoom and many more. This will lead to a better user experience and also function as an

    on the go purchasing app for Mod-Monsters.

    The benefits that come along with this app will come from people crating hype about it and word

    of mouth will increas its popularity, also the consumer will not be restricted to have to be home

    on a desktop computer to make his order but can do it from anywere he deams to his linking

    from a mobile device and finally this will please the cusomers as not many companies have a

    function direcly for their mobile devices.

    The drawbacks to this would be that extra budget allocation would have to be spent on the app to

    make sure it is created and tested correctly plus future bug fixes have to be ironed out and fixed

    aswell. The server will have to be optimized to receive data traffic from mobile devices not just

    desktop computers and also more security measures involved in keeping information safe whendealing with a https connection through a mobile device.

    The real life application of this is that if we look at major companies such as e-Bay and Amazon

    both have apps which a lot of people use and make a lot of purchases from it using the app

    specialy designed to be used for any type of mobile device.

    SECTION D DISCUSS THE FINACIAL IMPLICATIONS OF AN E-COMMERCE

    SOLUTION

    PART 1:

    One of the features that the website will have is the shopping chart, the developer of the website

    has to be well known in the field of HTML coding as well as scripting and CSS this will help create

    and efficient shopping chart with the least amount of bugs possible. The production of the

    shopping chart will consist of a small math functions which will give the total price of all the

    items in it as well as adding the shipment costs. The creation of the shopping chart should not

    take more than 3 days to be created and another day for testing so the total cost of this would be

    around 135 to cover the wage of the developer.

    Another feature implemented in the website is the search bar, this will also be carried out by adeveloper but this time he has to be experienced in some SQL functions as well as HTML,

    scripting and CSS. The main production of the search bar will consist of small queries which can

    retrieve data from the website in the most efficient way possible. The faster the search the easier

    the interface would be. This should not take longer than 2 days to create and another day for

    testing and an estimated cost would be around 95.

    For the customer to be able to purchase items from the website there have to be login accounts, a

    website developer who has to know PHP scripting and normal HTML and CSS will have to

    develop a form to accept username and password along with the credentials of the customer. The

    production of the login form should be simple and yet effective taking in as much details as

    required. As this will be a PHP form this will take while to make and could take up to a week of

    development and testing and could cost around 200 .

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    When dealing with an e-Commerce website, having payment gateways and merchant accounts is

    a must. These can easily be set up by the owner and information about them given to a lead

    developer of the website and they will be implement into the website. The production of these

    functions has to be very secure and reliable as not to damage the reputation of the company.

    Setting up a payment gateway and merchant accounts with PayPal costs nothing so the price of

    that is eliminated. An account will have to be set up with PayPal and apply for a PayPal Payment

    Solution then at the checkout the payment will be linked to PayPals gateway and the payment is

    sent to PayPals merchant account which is later transferred to the companys main account that

    the lead developer will have to add could be quite costly so the estimated price of this system

    would be around 150.

    One final feature of the website will be that after the purchase a customer can upload his photo to

    the company website and after being approved by an employee it will be published in a gallery. A

    developer has to add the upload form and an employee has to go through the received photos to

    make sure they are not inappropriate and accept or deny them accordingly. This will cost the

    company an additional 75 but will help make the customers feel involved with the website and

    business they bought the items from

    In the case of the Shopping Chart an icon of the shopping chart will be always present on every

    web page so it is easy to access. The search bar will be shown constantly in an easy accessible

    place and on the products page it will be moved to also have category search. The login system

    will be implemented on the main page so as soon as the customer logs in he will be informed that

    he could login or continue browsing. All of these functions and features together have a very

    good promotional aspect to them having things that facilitate the users experience such as

    shopping charts and search boxes help and knowing that there are extra measures of security

    such as merchant accounts and login systems makes the customer feel more secure. Together

    with the aspect of all these marketing strategies can be laid out promoting all these functions and

    implanting a good image in the eyes of the customer.

    WORKS CITED

    PayPal Business Products. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2013, from PayPal:

    https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/product-selection

    PART 2:

    There are many parts that make up a good resource plan, those being labor, equipment and

    materials. Together these make the building blocks for a good structured business.

    In the case of the labor, there will be two technicians that will handle the custom orders that will

    come in via the website. They will be responsible to finish the orders as quickly as possible and

    send them out to the packaging personnel. Another worker will be responsible to handle the

    packaging of the items that come from the technicians and later hand them to the postal services.

    There will be quality forms to be filled out so that the effectiveness of the production can be

    calculated these will be gathered by the owner of Mod-Monsters and will contain information

    about the products, when the order was made and when it was shipped out.

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    The equipment needed by Mod-Monsters will be various ranging from printers to the tools

    needed to make the custom parts and the network that connects the whole business together.

    The equipment will be maintained by the staff of Mod-Monsters and each month a form of what

    equipment is present will have to be filled in and handed so if any tools or other equipment are

    broken or lost they can be replaces.

    Materials such as the office stationary, printer paper will be taken care of by the owner and at the

    end of the week he will be responsible to replace any materials that have been used up. Materials

    such as the steel and plastic used for the actual creation of the products offered by Mod-Monsters

    will be taken care by the technician and a form filled out with the materials used so that at the

    end of each week they can be re ordered.

    SECTION E EVALUARE THE SUITABILITY OF AN E -COMMERCE SOLUTION

    Taking a look at the target audience Mod-Monsters is targeting, the majority of them will becomputer literate and no strangers to other online businesses. This means that although the

    website will be user friendly certain functions may be a little complex but still understandable by

    the target audience. Mod-Monsters audience will be looking for an online business which offers

    good quality items with reliable products and tools as well as low cost shipping and fast shipping

    and handling. This means that alongside a reliable website Mod-Monsters will have to have a

    policy of delivering items in a short period of time. So in conclusion the targeted audience fits

    well with the proposed solution and although Mod-Monsters is a startup online business it

    should do well if the targeted audience gets to know about the company

    Two competing companies that offer similar products to Mod-Monsters are Overclockers UK and

    Ultra Malta. Although these companies offer a lot of computer parts and tools for building yourown computer Mod-Monsters will have the lead on offering custom made parts which both these

    companies do not offer as well as a free delivery to Malta and low cost delivery on orders that

    are greater than 100 overseas. So the Unique Selling Proposition of Mod-Monsters would be

    that they offer custom parts which are special ordered by the company where these other two

    companies offer basic computer parts and tools.

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    BIBLIOGRAPHY

    Eurostat. (2013, May 17). Eurostat. Retrieved May 19, 2013, from

    http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/product_details/dataset?p_produc

    t_code=TIN00099

    Eurostat. (2013, May 17). Eurostat table graph and map interface. Retrieved May 19, 2013, from

    Eurostat:

    http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/graph.do?tab=graph&plugin=0&pcode=tin00099

    &language=en&toolbox=data

    Payment Gateways for Online Credit Cards Processing. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2013, from PayPal:

    https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/payflow-payment-gateway

    PayPal Business Products. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2013, from PayPal:

    https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/product-selection

    Small Business Web Design. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2013, from Stand Out Online:

    http://www.standoutonline.ca