Deploying E-Commerce Solution - Essay Example

Project Deploying E-Commerce Solution Introduction: E-Commerce, also known as Electronic Commerce or Internet Commerce, is growing at lightening pace even beyond our wildest imagination. With its fast paced technology and preeminent emergence, many interested merchants are enquiring how they can really benefit from such an amazing technology (Browning, 2003).As the impact of several benefits of E-Commerce technology is increasingly perceived by merchants all over the world, its actual practical application is currently gaining a strong foothold in a highly competitive business environment. Though the concept of E-Commerce has been in continuous use for several years, it wasn't until the actual invention of internet, that the word "E-Commerce" became a familiar word (Web Transitions Inc, 2004). E-Commerce is assumed to grow at rapid rate in the next few years, when merchants design and operate their own E-Commerce enabled web portals, to distribute products and services to their consumers across the continents of the world. E-Commerce has also enabled a revolution in the way the business is conducted and managed. Being touted as the business of the millennium, E-Commerce is also sometimes described as "digital economy." Simply speaking, Electronic Commerce is the paperless exchange of goods or services through the use of electronic data" (Web Transitions Inc, 2004). Due to its innumerable advantages and benefits, E-Commerce and its web applications are adapted for conducting a hassle free business over the ever popular internet. E-Commerce solutions will also offer merchants a well defined strategic advantage of creating Business to Client (B2C) relation that is sometimes very stable and well glued. Deploying E-Commerce solutions for carrying out internet business is a matter that needs to be thoroughly analyzed and assessed, before actually implementing the final solution. E-Commerce portals is thought to be a highly personalized, secure web environment that allows a business to aggregate, share, trade and exchange contents, products and services with customers, partners, employees and suppliers ( Sun Microsystems, 2006). The future for E-Commerce based merchant solutions is very rosy too, with 70% of the Global 2000 companies turning over to E-Commerce portal strategies by the year 2002, whereas by the year 2006, an estimated 75% of Fortune 1000 companies will have their own web portals to conduct E-Commerce activities almost on a daily basis (Adam Sarner, 2004). This research paper attempts to highlight the commercial importance of E-Commerce solutions, available methods by which a merchant can deploy E-Commerce solutions, different types of Internet technologies and programs that can be used to create a viable solution, and to investigate some of the well known third party E-Commerce website store solutions. It will also compare and differentiate two types of E-Commerce solutions, one that is built from the scratch by the merchants themselves, while the other built and hosted by a reliable third party service provider. Practical Ways to Deploy E-Commerce Solutions: If a merchant wants to know what it takes to successfully implement effective E-Commerce solutions, there are several means currently available for exploration. In fact, there is a plenty of help and assistance, whether a merchant wants to deploy it all by oneself, by using the in-house expertise, or hire for a fee, outside professionals who are the experts in the field. There are valid reasons to look and explore both these approaches, though small and medium sized businesses may need to be extra careful about those sensitive things, that are needed to keep an E-Commerce system up to date and current in the face of a stifling competition. Going solo all by a merchant to set up and deploy an E-Commerce solution might look very strenuous at the initial glance. But, building an E-Commerce website within the house is not actually difficult, as there are several tools, utilities and e-commerce services available at very cheap prices. To deploy an E-Commerce website on one's own requires a considerable amount of intelligence, vision, skill and the required technical knowledge (Melissa Campanelli, 2006). Simply speaking, hosting an enterprising E-Commerce solution involves programming a good e-commerce enabled website, and then to host it on the worldwide web, so that people could find your site and then glance through the online content. There are several advantages of creating an E-Commerce website by using in-house, qualified talent, and one of the notable advantages of using the domestic technology is the low cost factor. "If you're a one- to two-person firm, [you have] someone on your staff [who] can design a website and you only sell a few products, there's no reason not to do it yourself, particularly with the out-of-the-box solutions available nowadays," outlines John Jantsch (2006), the author and creator of the famous Duct Tape Marketing system. To deploy an effective E-Commerce solution, the first basic step is to create a meaningful website that is not only attractive and eye catching, but also easy to navigate and explore. Recent advances in Internet Technology and Online Payment transaction has made consumers more comfortable with the idea of shopping online, but it is still essential on the part of a merchant to convince potential customer that they are transacting their business under a safe and trustworthy ambience (Paras Shah, 2005). As the concept implies, an e commerce portal deal with some form of online payment, so people may not simply trust a merchant, unless they are convinced that they are being offered safe and secure payment systems. In essence, E-Commerce is all about building trust and fidelity in the minds of those invisible customers. Setting up a store front is obviously the most important aspect of E-Commerce solution; a person's success hinges directly on how he/she presents the contents of the website to the public. The shopping interface that is presented to online consumers is probably the most important part of the overall strategy. A merchant is expected to create a website that is easy to navigate and attractive enough to make people stay on the site for more time. The E-Commerce websites that are created must ensure that, they are built to last with a real value content, product inventory and an extremely user friendly shopping interface (PSC Group, LLC, 2003). On one's own, E-Commerce web portals can be created either by using one of the several software products available at low prices or compose one by using standard software like MS Frontpage. A typical E-Commerce web portal is an amalgamation of a list of inventory, shopping carts, product descriptions and payment processing systems. If a web merchant is building a portal for the first time, it'll be a safe bet that he/she will be seeking to host the website with a well known web hosting company. These web hosting companies are usually customer friendly, and accommodate and entertain several demands made by the merchant. A good web host may have the required expertise to host the merchant's website, by providing such critical services like, payment gateways and secure servers (Paras Shah, 2005). However, to reduce the cost of outsourcing hosting work to a third party, merchants will have to host the site by themselves using an office computer that is dedicated as the E-Commerce server. But, such a system may work out very costly to own and operate, with the broadband internet connection and daily maintenance charges. A privately managed or a third party hosted E-Commerce web server will provide ample security for all transactions that take place on the portal. Such sites will need to be certified for safety and security; whatever the way a typical website is composed and built, they are useless until they are certified by the leading security agencies like Verisign and Thwate. According to Paras Shah (2005), most of the secure web portals are certified for their SSL Authentication and an extended version provides data encryption, server authentication, and message integrity and client authentication for TCP/IP connections, allowing client/server applications to communicate in a way that prevents eavesdropping, tampering or message forgery. E-commerce may not work without Trust, and there's no Trust without secure and safe online transactions. A web merchant's likely E-commerce customers are used to secure and authenticated shopping, and may not send their private details across the internet, unless their web surfing browser guarantees them it's absolutely safe to do so! (DigiCert Inc, 2006). Once the E-Commerce web portal is set up, the merchant will need to enable the site to accept payment from customers in a safe and secure ambience. To achieve this objective, merchants will deploy merchant accounts or a payment gateway, which establishes a relationship between a retailer, a merchant bank and payment processor for the settlement of credit card transactions. Any retailer who wants to take credit card orders must establish a merchant account (Ana Rincon, 2006). To qualify for such an account, the merchant must satisfy a variety of conditions like Certificate of Incorporation and Bank Account details. Using these merchant gateways, an E-Commerce portal can receive payment through credit cards, debit accounts and other certified payment methods. Merchant services are provided by specialized companies called Merchant Service providers or independent sales organizations that offer payment processing facilities. Another source for setting up merchant accounts is financial institutions (William Hamilton, 2006). Small businesses often choose several payment transaction processors other than the established credit card processors, just because these services offer them unbeatable services apart from very low processing fees. Some of these payment processors are www.paypal.com, www.moneybookers.com, www.egold.com, www.ikobo.com and www.clickbank.com. However, there are not many things that differentiate an E-Commerce portal created and hosted by an in-house team, and a portal which is hosted and managed by a third party vendor. When the E-Commerce web portal work is outsourced to a third party, the merchant will have the convenience of a well managed website that runs without obstacle and throughout the year. According to a recent research report from Forrester Research, "Mastering Commerce Logistics," about 85 percent of companies with e-commerce sites have no automated, real-time connection with any of their existing business applications (Elise Chow, 2000). Further, the same research also quotes that most mid sized e merchants should ponder over the possibility of deploying their E-Commerce solutions to third parties to gain economies of larger scale. Outsourcing agencies have the capacity to share warehouse space and scarce resources among online merchants for less than 10% of the total revenue. Another notable benefit of outsourcing the task to a third party is integrating merchant's inventory and logistic systems and letting the merchant to have the control of service experience. Overall, to stay competitive, a merchant may shed off excess baggage to focus on the parameter of core competency and increased access to a burgeoning market. Choosing the right partner can be a crucial factor in achieving a long term success goal. As a result, when a merchant chooses a third party vendor, there will be an instant access to a full spectrum of management, order processing, fulfillment, distribution, and IS services to its customers (Elise Chow, 2000). For example, an online service such as Microsoft's Commerce Manager can help you convert a merchant's small business into a full pledged online store. A typical e-commerce platform includes an online catalog, online shopping-cart software, 24/7 access for customer orders, secure transactions for credit card purchases and payments, plus continuous tech support, all for about $25 a month (Joanna L. Krotz, 2006) Online merchants can think of letting a third party to provide ancillary service to their E-Commerce venture under the following circumstances (Elise Chow, 2000): 1. If the online business do not have sufficient volume to set up a cost effective infrastructure and facility, 2. If the online merchant do not possess the capability to adhere to the system of fulfillment, 3. When the business doesn't possess an innate ability to handle a large inventory of products and other goods. Many online merchants may find it too hot to stick to the fulfillment of pending orders and under such circumstances, they may find the grip over their business gradually slipping over a period of time. Thus, sourcing out the job of fulfillment at this juncture sounds a very good idea. There is an intense debate, as to why an online merchant should hand over the fulfillment duties to a reliable outsourcer (Matthew Kresch, 2006). On the other hand, many experts still believe that a merchant can save a considerable amount of money, by managing a fully deployed E-Commerce system by utilizing the in-house expertise. But in reality, the decision of outsourcing the work out to a third party, belongs entirely to the merchants themselves, as they know what factors works best for them and others which do not really work. When merchants look forward to sell their products online to their customers, there three basic approaches available to them (Commerce5, Inc, 2005): Build their own E-Commerce infrastructure and facility, Buy a proprietary E-Commerce software package and customize it to provide the specific functionality needed by the business, Outsource the designated work to a reliable third party to manage the front and back end of the E-Commerce infrastructure. However, many Internet professionals still believe that outsourcing model is perhaps the best to run one's E-Commerce infrastructure. The main reason for this perception is possibly due to savings in time and reducing the risk of launching and expanding an E-Commerce network down the years. An online store that can cater to fast changing consumer demands and shifting business trends, will require several things like upgradeable support structure of servers, well maintained database, ultra fast networks, security applications, application tools and disaster recovery mechanisms (Commerce5, Inc, 2005). But the cache is how is one going to achieve these objectives It is possibly true that a merchant could do all these within their infrastructure facilities. Even though these goals could be reached with the help of in-house experts, the cost and time spent towards such dicey tasks could wean away a considerable amount of profits (Commerce5, Inc, 2005). Such a difficult possibility may force several merchants to outsource the work to an expert third party vendor. Matthew Kresch, (2006) opines that there are several benefits of outsourcing the E-Commerce managing task to a third party vendor, and some of those advantages vis--vis self managed E-Commerce solutions are: 1. Access to a new Technology: By choosing an outsourcer, a merchant can get instant access to modern and advanced E-Commerce technology. On the other hand, if a business is managing its own E-Commerce solutions, by using their own personnel and resources, it simply can't reach out to those difficult to acquire technologies. 2. Cost of Ownership: Cost of owning a well equipped E-Commerce portal could be very hefty and it may increase due to occurrence of some unforeseen, business interruptions. However, the cost of owning an E-Commerce portal and business is considerably lower, when it is outsourced to third party vendors. 3. Customer Service: With managed services, a business can devote its prime time to serve customer's interests and solve their genuine problems, which are otherwise, not possible if a business is managing everything by itself. 4. Capital Requirements: A self managed E-Commerce business will need to spend a lot of money on buying new technology to meet the peak demand, while with managed services, the owner can pay only for the extra capacity, as and when needed by the business. Using Appropriate Internet Development Technologies: Recent advances in software development and hardware innovations have enabled many E-Commerce merchants to adapt them to develop convenient Internet Development Technology suites. Several major software forms have also invested plenty of money and time in developing business friendly software suites that provide convenience and ease of application. This section attempts to highlight the advantage of using such Internet Development Technologies, to further develop and deploy E-Commerce solutions. To make a critical analysis, three well known front end technologies are considered: ASP, ASP.NET and PHP. ASP is one of the well known software suite and is developed by Microsoft Corporation, and the creation of Active Server Pages (ASP) is considered to be a major innovation in Internet development technology. Being a high end technology, ASP is currently used by thousands of E-Commerce firms. Microsoft's innovation of Active Server Pages (ASP) has lead to a new change in Web application development and Internet Technology that provided developers with a powerful server-side oriented platform for creating highly dynamic Web applications and E-Commerce platforms. ASP's runaway success can be linked to several reasons, including its wonderfully scripted language environment, the ease and flexibility with which data and information can be integrated into Web pages, and its seemingly low learning requirements (Dada Kalander, 2004). The main advantage with ASP is its seamless integration with Windows NT, the backbone of MS operating systems (Cary Griffith, 2000). It is also very easy to set up a database driven website with combination of convenient tools that accompany ASP pages. No matter how excellent a given technology is, there are always weakness and deficiencies that are found out as the technology comes to its age, and ASP is no exception. Developers have started realizing glaring inadequacies in this platform and they understood the need for modifications in the platform to fill in some of the technological deficiencies. This new innovation into the old technology is now known as .NET technology. ASP web pages are usually driven by various scripting languages such as VB Scripts and JScripts. Though these scripts can provide a developer a lightening quick developing ambience, each of the pages must be interpreted in its entirety, each time request is posted on the web server (Dada Kalander, 2004). As most of today's programs are object oriented, ASP codes are not really scalable and don't suit to the requirements of Object Oriented Programming (OOP). As a result, when the pages become complex and script oriented, the ASP code can become difficult to read and maintain. It is no wonder that most of the coders refer to ASP as "spaghetti codes". In addition, coders may have to develop a lot of code to perform menial tasks like adding content to a drop down list or composing a HTML table. Secondly, database records must be squeezed through using ActivX Data Objects (ADO) and introduced into the embedded HTML code. This task can turn out to be overtly exasperating and strenuous (Dada Kalander, 2004). Further, the coder may need to resort to languages such as C++ and Visual Basic, to write COM components, so that more advanced functionalities could be introduced to the pages. Due to their extra dependence on COM, ASP web pages have a limited caching functionality that can be used to store sensitive information in the pages. However, the biggest advantage with ASP is that great for GUI and its ability make the site start running in a short period of time. As of now, ASP technology offers web developers with a good Internet development tool, though perhaps not the best. Being one of the largest used technologies, ASP continues to rule the Internet Development Technology (Cary Griffith, 2000). ASP.NET: This is a programming script that has seen tremendous transformation from its earlier avatar, ASP. Coders depend on this programming script heavily, because of its object-oriented approach to development that can be used to compose web enabled, client-server, XML web service and many wireless applications (Dada Kalander, 2004). This highly innovative framework offers coders many developments, scalability, and architectural advantages, over its previous version called Component Object Model (COM), by providing a central execution engine module called the Common Language Runtime or CLR. Because the .NET framework and the CLR architecture never rely on the Windows registry, developers can easily deploy and integrate .NET applications without creating many setup packages. .NET's CLR is very handy and accommodates virtually all aspects of code execution and implementation, including handling memory management, supporting multiple languages such as C# and VB.NET, managing security and safety, and performing Just-in-Time (JIT) code compilation (Dada Kalander, 2004). ASP.NET contains many new features and user friendly application that allow for smoother developmental activity and enhanced application scalability and stability. The main advantage of this technology is that a coder can use all these wonderful applications, while still accessing the more classical features of ASP applications. This is made possible due to the introduction of a new .aspx file extension used by ASP.NET Web pages. However, one of the notable disadvantages is that coders still need to use Internet Information Server (IIS) 5, to enable the smooth running of ASP.NET applications (Dada Kalander, 2004). Some of the biggest advantages of ASDP.NET include: 1. Enhanced performance: Microsoft lab trials have proved that ASP.NET applications can handle two times more requests per second as classic ASP applications. 2. Increased stability and durability: All processes are closely monitored for malfunctions and managed solely by the ASP.NET run time features, so that if one of them crashes, a new process can be created and introduced in its place. 3. Increased developer productivity and efficiency: Advanced features like server controls, and event and feature handling in ASP.NET, help coders build applications more quickly and within few lines of codes. Apart from all these common features, ASP.NET, has many other beneficial aspects embedded with in its architecture, and such features allow the developers to bring in advanced innovations into languages, server and user control functions, caching and session management strategies, and other enhancing security features. PHP: One of the more popular web developing scripts is PHP, and this Open Source code is catching the imagination of thousands of coders for its flexibility and adaptability. Simply speaking, it is a scripting language that is based on the model of reprocessing HTML pages. Some of the notable features of this unique script are its syntactical similarities with Perl, C, and Java. While Java is an imperative programming script, it also makes use of the benefits like object oriented concepts. Though PHP borrows from this particular architecture, it doesn't rely entirely on the OOP language (Sean Hull, 2006). Since it is an Open Sourced Script, the pricing issues are menial, while licensing is very easy. Due to its open structure, the entire developing communities are working to add their improvements and bugs, if any, are found out immediately and fixed within a short time. It is also easy to dabble with the code, if you really do not like something. However, the biggest benefit is that PHP can work very well with Apache, and it can be easily embedded within the Apache binary code (Sean Hull, 2006). This seamless integration is often very helpful, as Apache can run on any platforms like Windows, Linux, Solaris, and various other Unix flavors. Security, however, remains a top priority with all Apache based web servers. PHP pages contain a smaller coder path, which helps a coder to use lesser server side codes and execute them to parse the PHP page. It also means that these pages will have an efficient memory module, combined with a lightening quick execution of codes. Even with its perceived benefits, PHP does display some shortcomings, like its lack of exceptions and event-based error-handling instances that interrupt the normal flow of a program. The basic structure of PHP is not yet standardized, so developers are left to their own inferences on how to create error handling modules, leading to lesser consistency and uniformity, and a tendency to work on the same script again and again, being repetitive in most cases (Sean Hull, 2006). PHP functional names could be very case sensitive and could annoy developers, while working on developing a web page. In most cases, PHP is not an object oriented language and thus may seriously impede the creativity of an active developer. Employing a Third Party Vendor to Deploy E-Commerce Solutions When online merchants decide to hand over the development to a third party vendor, this sensitive decision may provide them many unseen benefits and advantages in running their business with increased flexibility and efficiency. Deploying E-Commerce solution and its application technology is, as difficult and complex to design, execute and run as E-Commerce itself! To run a successful E-Commerce business, the merchant needs to do the job right by having a highly capable and always-on website whose basic architecture is easily scalable and upgradeable. To meet these challenges and tough tasks, a merchant can employ a host of developmental solutions provided by an array of manufacturers and vendors. However, Microsoft's Site Server and Commerce Server are the most suited E-Commerce developmental solutions currently available in the world (Microsoft, 2006). Commerce Server 2000 is a major step beyond Site Server 3.0 and it is designed to provide a business a feature-rich tool set for designing, developing, deploying, and managing e-commerce Web sites that are customizable, powerful, scalable, reliable, and above all, easily manageable. Microsoft Commerce Server was designed with a view to meet the demands of developers and online merchants to have a web developmental solution that is: Truly effective, Faster in its execution, Trustworthy and powerful Capable of allowing business managers to concentrate more on routine business functions. Commerce Server 2000 comes with an innovative system that allows the merchants to administer and manage users, track their activities, specifically target content to them, inventory the online catalogue, and liaise with associate's partner catalogues. A unique feature of this special software package is its ability to make site developments at tremendous speeds, including two complete model sites: A retail B2C site and a supplier B2B site. Equipped with a highly advanced auction interface and a tough SDK architecture, Commerce Server 2000 is a class on its own. The biggest advantage that comes bundled with Commerce 2000 server is the Microsoft Management Console and a Commerce Server 2000 Site Packager, which allows a user to package the entire site as a bundle and copy it to another location. The Business Analysis System that is embedded within the package consists of a set of special modules that allows business managers with the kind of data analysis necessary for making site-direction decisions. The Business Data Warehouse in the Commerce Server 2000 package stores all site data, and serves as the data foundation for the system, thus allowing the merchant to analyze the available business and consumer data (Microsoft, 2006). Building and deploying a full scale E-Commerce site is often very difficult and needs the active participation of IT, site developers, and business management. Microsoft also supplies a detailed tool kit to allow users to create a website and associated database programs with least hassles and obstacle. The reliable Windows 2000 platform allows developers to design a solution that is highly effective as well as easily manageable. Some of the well known benefits and advantages of Commerce Server 2000 are: Easy Online sales Processing, An impeccable fraud shield, Right customer service Authentic Licensing procedures and Online copyright protection, Key Account Management, Easy upgradeability and Interdependence between different servers, Highly efficient front and backend support features, Access to modern technology and Easy to Learn Module System, Easy Developmental Atmosphere. References: Adam Sarner. 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(2006), 6 Essential Questions for Selecting Merchant Services, Retrieved April 25, 2006, from http://sbinformation.about.com/cs/technology/a/paymt.htm Read More