designing an e-commerce solution
TRANSCRIPT
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Robert Charles Gosney 1HND3
BSEC DESIGNING AN E-COMMERCE SOLUTION
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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