UNIT – III

E-COMMERCE SOFTWARE Topics Covered :

Introduction

Web Hosting

Basic functions of ECS

•Catalog Display

•Shopping Cart

•Transaction Processing IV SEM BCA/PMC/MEC Introduction

• This chapter explains about the Ecommerce software. When software is installed in organizations it helps those organizations to conduct ecommerce.

• Web method software takes care of translating the different formats into a single form.

• Companies that engage in online business activities often combine software and tools from different vendors to accomplish their goals.

• Small companies can sometime use a single vendors to supply all their electronic ecommerce software.

• Most larger companies need to integrate a number of software products, each of which performs a particular tasks or process particularly well. Web Hosting

Web Hosting - Is a service that allows organizations and individuals to post a website or webpage on to the .

Web Hosting Service Provider – is a business that provides the technologies and services needed for the web site or webpage to be viewed in the internet.

When companies need to incorporate ecommerce components they may opt to run servers in- house: this is called self-hosting. Larger companies use this option.

Small web stores use a third party provider for both web services and ecommerce functions.

ISP Internet Service Provider – provides internet access to companies and individuals, they also offer web hosting services as well. Hosting services help companies to conduct ecommerce, these firms are called Commerce Service Provider(CSP) or Manages Service Providers(MSP) or Application Service Provider(ASP) These firms offer web server management and rent application software such as data bases, shopping carts content management programs to business. Service Providers offer client hosting arrangements that include shared hosting, dedicated hosting and co-location

Shared hosting – means that the clients web site is on a server that hosts other websites simultaneously and is operated by the service provider at its location.

Dedicated hosting – the service provider makes a web server available to the client, but the client does not share the server with other clients of the service provider.

Colocation – In a co-location service, the service provider rents a physical space to the client to install to its own server hardware. The client installs its own software and maintains the server. The service provider is responsible only for providing a reliable power supply and a connection to the internet through its and other networking hardware.

Service provider can be found in web directory Basic Functions of E-Commerce Software

The type of e-commerce software an organisation needs depends on several factors:

• The expected size of the enterprise and its projected traffic and sales

• Budget- creating an on-line store can be much less expensive than building a chain of retail stores.

• Whether the company should use an external host or host the e-commerce site in- house

Basic functions: a) Catalog display – is a listing of goods and services. Organises the goods and services being sold. static catalog – is simple list written in HTML that appears on a webpage or a series of webpages. To add or delete an item ,or change an items listing company must edit the HTML of one or more pages. Dynamic catalog – larger e-commerce sites use dynamic catalog, stores information about items in a , that is accessible to the server that is running the website itself. It features multiple photos of each item, detailed descriptions and a search tool. b) Shopping cart capabilities – also called shopping bag or shopping basket., keeps track of the items the customer has selected and allows a customer to view the contents of their carts, add new items or remove items. A number of companies like BIZNET Internet services, cartIt! , SalesCart and WebGenie software sell shopping cart software. c) Transaction Processing– occurs when the shopper proceeds to the virtual checkout counter by checking a checkout button and e-commerce performs any necessary calculations, such as volume discounts, sales tax and shipping costs.

Some software enables the web server to obtain updated shipping rates by connecting directly to shipping companies to retrieve information.

Other calculations include provisions for coupons, special promotions and time sensitive offers.