UNIT-2

Technologies used in e-commerce

The computers, servers, database, mobile apps, digital libraries, data interchange enabling the
e-commerce transactions:
a) Computer, Server and Database: These are the backbone for the success of the
venture. Big e-commerce organization invest huge amount of money and time in
creating these systems.
b) Mobile device: Just as with the personal computer, mobile devices such as tablet
computers and smart phones also have operating systems and application software. In
fact, these mobile devices are in many ways just smaller versions of personal
computers.
c) EFT Technology: Today EFT technology has improved a lot and encryption like
technologies have enhanced the security aspects of it. EFT has reduced our reliance
on physical banks. For instance, direct debit or deposit for payments or withdrawals,
credit and debit cards, e-bill payments and instant payments are bouquet of e-payment
options which determine our concurrent financial activities.
d) SCM Technology: The role of SCM technology has become more evident in the field
of e-commerce and given birth to various online portals for B2B, B2C, C2B, C2C like
business models. SCM covers both phases, pre-production and post production to ease
the flow on the one hand and efficiency on the other hand.
e) EDI: EDI technology helps e-commerce to accomplish communicating information
that a business does on paper in traditional ways. For instance, e-commerce merchants
and shoppers both enjoy automatically placing orders, creating invoices and tracking
the entire shipment process through various integrations of other systems or software.
f) Inventory Management: For e-commerce, tracking inventory levels, orders, sales and
shipments is a critical phase of the business. Out of the box inventory management
software can help an online business eliminate overstock. The modern inventory
management software comes with many attractive features, such as reorder points,
asset tracking, service management etc.
Evolution of WWW

 WWW was created as a project by Tim Berners Lee in 1989 at CERN in Geneva for
researchers to work together effectively at CERN.
 Sir Tim Berners Lee is generally credited as the inventor of the world wide web. He
created a program for himself that could store documents containing links between
them.
 In 1989, he proposed a global system that would use the internet. This would provide
scientists from around the world with a means of sharing their findings without the
need to send emails. The essential element of the development of the information age
is WWW and also the primary tool how billions of people use to interact on the
internet.

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  From 1991 onwards, Sir Tim Lee developed the WWW and established the W3C. The
objective of the consortium is to develop guidelines that ensure long term growth for
the web. W3C includes experts who work together for W3C objective.
World Wide Web
WWW stands for World Wide Web often known as web. It is the information system that
facilitates easy access to information about a wide range of topics.
According to Tim Berners Lee, “WWW is the universe of network accessible information, an
embodiment of human knowledge.”
In simple terms, it is a way of exchanging information between computer on the internet,
typing them together into a vast collection of interactive multimedia resources. It is a
collection of different websites around the world, containing different information shared via
local servers.
It is a collection of all the webpages that you can see on the internet by searching their URLs.
E-commerce has revised the meaning of the World Wide Web. It allows online
transactions of money for the trade of products and services directly online using
internet technology. Customers adorn the personalized shopping experience on the
web, and they expect the same in the local market. WWW evolutionized shopping
so much that shoppers often find customers coming with reference images of
products from the web, to find similar products in the local market. With the
increasing acceptance of online shopping, more customers moved to online
shopping. Considering the changing trends, presently, more businesses are forced
to move online for better conversions. E-commerce businesses employs many
things such as online shopping websites, participating in online marketplaces,
business to business buying and selling, electronic data interchange, marketing to
the customers through e-mail, gathering information using social contacts and
media. Over the last few years the fast development of the internet and world wide
web has led many technological, business and social shift.
Importance of WWW
1. Direct Selling- With the help of the World Wide Web, people from around the
globe can visit virtual shops and malls online, browse through various
product catalogs, and shop instantly from the website. All these functions of
an ecommerce store are possible only through the multimedia functions of
the World Wide Web. Also, any individual/business can now sell online to
any part of the world without visiting the place through such virtual shops
on the WWW.
2. Organized Communication- E-commerce is a business that requires active
communication between sellers and customers and among a network of
sellers. Email marketing is one of the powerful communication tactics that
businesses are deploying to have organized communications.

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 3. Marketing- The web became a medium that instills trust in a new business.
With the help of the World Wide Web, any e-commerce website can market
its services/products to the world at lower costs than traditional marketing
methods.
4. Provides knowledge and surplus information about the product and services.
5. Social Selling- With the motive of connecting information and people to
interact better, the World Wide Web gave us free and open-network to
connect with people on social platforms. Reach out to your potential buyers
across the globe without upfront investments, understand their requirements,
and fulfil orders instantly. Social selling is quite a trend in recent times and
several businesses are already leveraging its power for their business.
6. Strategic Commerce- The World Wide Web lets you collect a lot of
information about your shoppers while shopping online. That’s how
businesses get to solve concerns in seconds using online communication.
Keeping track of customers’ information with user information helps
businesses understand their customers and personalize their shopping
experience. The improved technology and its implementation on the web
plays a key role in building an outstanding shopping experience.
Internet
Internet is the foremost important tool and the prominent resource that is being used by
almost every person across the globe. It connects millions of computers, webpages, websites
etc. Using the internet we can send emails, photos, videos, messages to our loved ones.
Internet is a computer network, actually it is a set of computers connected to each other
exchanging information.
Origin

 The internet completely revolutionized communication and technology across the

globe. Initially, computerized devices were only used for large industries but later its
usage increased massively.
 It is also mandatory for people to know that it is not possible to develop something as
broad and wide as the internet all by himself. It was a combined effort of multiple
researchers and programmers that the internet was discovered.
 The first development was the introduction of host-to-host network interactions. This
was first observed in APRANET in 1969. It was developed by Advanced Research
Projects Agency.
 Next step was commercializing the usage and making the transistors and transmitters
fit in smaller devices for convenient internet usage for the general public.
 Moving forward satellites and wireless communication was the main target. The next
was the development of TCP. This enabled different machines and networks across
the world to assemble data packets.
 With the introduction of PC, the demand for commercial internet usage increased.
LAN came in the foreground.

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  And then 21st century brought in an amalgamation of technology and wireless internet
accessibility for users.
How to build an e-commerce website
E-commerce websites first started to grow in popularity when Amazon launched its site in
1995. A lot has changed since then, but one thing that has flourished is the desire (and some
might say need) to make purchases online.
1. Choose a domain name
2. Get a hosting provider
3. Study the competition
4. Create a wireframe
5. Upload your products
6. Implement a payment service
7. Test, refine and publish your site.
1. Choose a domain name- Your domain name is the name of your website—it’s what
people type into the address bar of their browser to access your site. It has two parts,
the name itself and a suffix, or extension, that goes after it. For example, in
“mailchimp.com,” “facebook” is the name and “.com” is the suffix. For the name, it’s
best to choose one that matches your business name (if that domain name is available)
or is close or strongly alludes to your name. For some businesses, it works to use an
acronym, with the first letter of each word in the business as the domain name. For
example, others may choose to abbreviate their business’s name and use that for the
domain name.
It can be easier to get a domain name that matches your business name if you choose
a suffix other than “.com” because there are so many .com sites already registered.
The same can be true for “.net” or “.org” because they’re also very popular. But don’t
worry—there are hundreds of other extensions to choose from. The flip side is that
you want your potential customers to remember your web address, including the
correct extension, so you might not want to choose one that’s too long or obscure.
Above all, make sure your domain name is easy to remember and share with others.
Choosing one that is overly complex will make it more difficult for potential
customers to directly access your site, which could lose you sales.
You can buy a domain name from a domain name registrar. A domain name registrar
registers your domain name under your identity or business and prevents anyone else
from having the same domain name. Some people also purchase additional extensions
with the same base domain name. For example, you may decide to buy not just
the .com, but also the .net, .org, .biz, and .tv, to ensure that if a customer types in the
wrong suffix, they can still get forwarded to the correct site.

2. Get a hosting provider- Your hosting provider gives you the space your site needs for
its online presence. Keep in mind that some website builders, including Mailchimp,
can provide hosting for you. Before starting to use a website builder, be sure to verify
whether or not you’ll need a separate hosting provider. The hosting company provides

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 a place for your website on the internet and gives you the storage space and
bandwidth to ensure your site runs the way it should. Bandwidth is the ability to
handle the data that’s transferred back and forth between your customers and your
site. You need bandwidth to ensure a seamless experience for your visitors. If you
don’t have enough bandwidth, it could slow things down, negatively impacting the
user experience. Adequate bandwidth makes it easy for users to:

 Navigate from one page to the next smoothly

 Watch video content
 View images of products, including close-ups

You should have enough bandwidth so that visitors don’t even think about how
seamless their visit is. This way, they can focus more on your products or services
than on how your page is functioning.

3. Study the competition- Be sure to check out what your competition has done with
their online stores. There are plenty of great e-commerce websites you can take
inspiration from and you can also think about what you can do better. By studying the
competition, you'll see what works and what doesn't. This way, when you create an e-
commerce website of your own, you'll know what to include and what to leave out.
You can do this by analyzing what the competition offers and figuring out how to
offer more than they are.
4. Create a wireframe- An important part of how to build an e-commerce website is
to create a wireframe. This will determine the layout of your site and how user-
friendly it is. The easier your site is to navigate, the more likely consumers will use it.
You can successfully build an e-commerce website by creating a low, medium, or
high-fidelity wireframe. The differences between the three types lie in the details,
with low fidelity being the simplest. By the time you get to the high-fidelity
wireframe, you have the basic layout of your website mapped out.

5. Uploads your products- You can't sell your products as well if your customers don't
see them first. A crucial part of e-commerce website building is to upload the highest
quality pictures of each product you sell. Ensure that every image is the same size so
that your site looks polished and professional. You'll also need to provide pictures of
your products from every possible angle so customers can get a full view of each
item.

6. Implement a payment service- A payment service is central to an e-commerce site’s

function because it lets customers purchase your products directly from your site. If
you already have a brick-and-mortar store, an effective online payment solution can
increase your sales volume by giving you another way to do business.

 You may have customers who are unwilling or unable to travel to a physical location.

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 Your customers might be used to online buying experiences like those provided by
Amazon and expect to be able to purchase from the comfort of their homes or while
on the go.
 Online shopping makes it easier and faster for customers to compare products, so the
ability for them to make a purchase immediately after choosing your product can
boost your bottom line.

Your payment solution can integrate with your business’s bank account, an online
payment provider like PayPal, or a mobile payment solution, such as Square.
Furthermore, you can accept a wide variety of payment methods, including direct
bank transfers, credit card transactions, and those provided by online payment
solutions. It may also be possible to accept cryptocurrencies, depending on your
payment preferences and provider. Aside from the functionality, you should also
consider your payment provider’s transaction fees. A payment service may charge a
fee for every transaction, which can impact how much you charge for your products.

Most e-commerce platforms offer built-in payment services. Some may give you and
your customers multiple options, while others may use just one payment service. For
example, Mailchimp uses Stripe to process payments. When choosing an e-commerce
platform, you’ll want to look into the details of what payment services they offer to
see if they work for you and your business.

7. Test, refine and publish your site- Once your e-commerce website is complete,
preview it to verify everything works as it should. This means testing links, buttons,
forms, and so forth. If you identify any issues, fix them promptly and test again before
publishing your site.