Basics of e-commerce? 3

MBH · Sep 7, 1999

e-Commerce --> What is the high level view description of e-commerce? 
 
Is it hardware, software, applications, internet or all of the above?

Nomouth22 · Sep 8, 1999

it is more software and internet with e-Commerce you will set up on one end the "store front" which is the actual website here you will have the billing or secure info encrypted and forwarded to a secure server which then takes that encrypted msg and send it to a csp or who ever is verifying checks or credit cards then it will respond back to the secure server which relays the message back to the browser so depending on what type of set-up you got you will need an ISP for web hosting a csp for all electronic commerce related pieces and access to somesort of verification system.

MBH · Sep 8, 1999

It is my understanding that a good example of e-Commerce is AMAZON.COM. I understand that they provide the front end Web hosting, transaction security, and encryption. 
 
There seems that there must be a relatively strong back-end process. Inventory management, virtual warehousing, order processing, order fulfillment, and a slew of other services. 
 
How would you determine an Architecture, and process to enact a national e-commerce service to match these requirements?

slok · Nov 28, 1999

to conduct Commerce (business transaction) digitally (the E). 
 
about how company need to remodel their business approach to conduct 
business on the wire.

amosgreg · Nov 29, 1999

MBH mentioned the need for a very strong back-end. This is an area I feel is being overlooked in the grand scheme on E-Business in most peoples minds. The connection to the 'normal' day-to-day processing that is a regular part of any businesses daily routine(Order processing, Accounting functions, Payroll etc.) is overlooked. All existing business processes that are automated(ie. programmed) can be connected to E-commerce via interfaces and to provide any real RTI (return on investment)should be. The cost of programmers having to build things multiple times is high(both in terms of dollars and of maintance and error rework) and should be avoided if at all possible.

Roundley · Dec 14, 1999

Seems to me that e-commerce (or as I think of it, e-business) is about conducting business electronically. So, in answer to the original question: it's "software, applications, internet". But MBH is right too--you cannot have an e-commerce operation that is disjoint from your 'back office' operations. And your people need to understand and operate in this fully-interconnected enterprise. So, it's a whole-of-business thing; hence, e-business. 
 
Many organisations are throwing out doing those things that can't be implemented electronically in the "not adding value" argument. Others are out-sourcing the doing of such tasks and relying on excellent communications to coordinate various contractors. These, too, are valid elements of e-commerce. 
 
So it's a whole of business thing. If you're just thinking about it in terms of computer programming, you're missing the point, and most of the opportunity.

sinluz · Dec 30, 1999

It seems that the definition of ebusiness is expanding, and rightfully so. We have gone from a discussion about storefront ecommerce to back-end integration and now the next logical extension? The whole supply chain. Ebusiness practices are a reflection of "business practices." The fact is most modern businesses exist in a continuum of vendors and partners that have, more or less (some would argue less), integrated business processes and IT infrustructure. Vendors supply material goods and services inputs that are processed into some from of finished goods that are in turn sent to distribution (warehousing, inventory, logistics.) Many corporate entities are involved. The businesses that survive the next 10 years will be those that understand that businesses don't compete with other businesses, rather, supply chains compete with supply chains. The natural response to this realization is to integrate processes, information, and infrastructure to provide real-time business operations across the entire supply chain. This is truly ebusiness.

DanGage · Jan 24, 2000

sinluz has it right - but here's a more theoretical approach: 
 
Commerce involves three aspects: 
 
Discovery : finding the item you are looking for 
Fulfillment: having that item delivered to the consumer 
Reconciliation: Transferring payment from the consumer to the supplier 
 
Fulfillment and reconciliation can take place in either order. 
 
e-Commerce implies that ALL three of these issues are taking place electronically. At Amazon, they do. But in most B2B models they occur in my suggested order, and reconciliation is still a very manual process. This will change. 
 
Note that allowing users to manually enter part numbers (not to be confused with search keywords) violates true e-Commerce because it introduces potential for error. Likewise fulfillment in e-Commerce implies that the order is electronically transmitted from a shopping cart to the supplier's order processing system. Having a supplier re-key a fax, e-mail or other transmission is also a violation of true e-Commerce... 
 
Hope this helps all 
Dan

wduty · Jun 28, 2000

To look at your question by your terms "hardware, software, applications, internet". I would say it is certainly all of the above. However to piece it apart a little, I'll throw in my two cents on each one. hardware: You certainly want better hardware to run a typical ecommerce site than let's say a local high-school website or a personal website because ecommerce usually means allowing a potentially large number of concurrent users to access the site without serious performance loss. By hardware, I take it you mean things like higher MHz processors, large amount of memory and disk storage space, multiprocessing, possibly a web farm, a fast connection from the server to the internet etc. However, this consideration doesn't apply to ecommerce any more than it does to search engines, portal sites, news and entertainment sites and other kinds of sites which have to deal with large amounts of traffic. So I would say that hardware is important but not particular to ecommerce. software: The term software as applied to anything conducted on the internet often refers to server-side implementations like the kind of server software you are running (Solaris, NT, Apache, etc.), the operating system of the computer on which the server runs, executable objects which are called by the various pages of the site (like exe files in CGI/perl, COM objects in asp, java servlets, etc). It can also refer in a less obvious way to client side implementation. Examples of more involved client side "software" might include relatively complicated DHTML/javascript animation, interactive flash movies, java applets with swing components, RDBMS in IE explorer and so on. If you browse any handful of ecommerce sites you will notice that the fancy client-side features are unusual in ecommerce sites because not all browsers support them. You want ANYONE to be able to buy from your site so the lowest common denominator rules. However, ecommerce can often involve some of the more involved server-side software products even though the final output which the user sees in ecommerce sites is usually plain HTML with, at most some javascript to handle form validation. The bottom line is that ecommerce sites usually have to output the simplest kinds of websites with the most complicated tools, or in other words, ecommerce sites are server-heavy and client-light. applications: The collective set of pages, components, executable files, databases, security implementations, transaction processing which exist on a webserver for a particular ecommerce site can be thought of as an "application" although this is a very different sense of the word from that which refers to a standalone application to be run at a single computer (like MS word or Adobe Photoshop) or an industrial application like an HVAC system. "Application" is in my mind that which describes how ecommerce works most accurately becuase it is an interlocked set of things which interact and which are usually rather eclectic in nature (static HTML over here, interpreted scripting over there, compiled objects in many but not all cases, security handling at various levels and of various kinds, databases sitting under it all, etc. all operating as a kind of organic whole. internet: This term seems like the one most "high level" of the four to me becuase it begins to look not so much as how ecommerce is implemented but rather what the difference is between ecommerce and other kinds of commerce. Today, unlike ten years ago, I would probably never go to a store-front software store to buy software. It is cheaper easier, almost as fast to buy over the internet than at most places where you can look at the pretty box that an editing program comes in. And there is as much or more available. On the other hand I'm no more likely to order a screwdriver over the internet today than twenty years ago when the internet didn't exist. I will probably still go to a local hardware store. Some things are more applicable to being sold online than others. But though I will still go to a supermarket to buy groceries, I have heard that there is quite a market for delivery of food products because of the hassle of carrying big bags around on the street, and so on. And in the area of used items which I would have guessed people would be least likely to buy over the internet becuase they probably would want to see the goods first hand, there are supposedly now support groups for people who are addicted to ebay. Ecommerce is definitely different from other kinds of commerce in terms of what things are likely to be sold, which things are sold, which things are sold more than they were before, and so on. However in this area there is far more insightful and theoretical commentary than anything I have to offer in the responses above. --Will Duty <a href=mailto:wduty@radicalfringe.com>wduty@radicalfringe.com</a> <a href= > </a>

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Basics of e-commerce? 3

MBH

MIS

Nomouth22

ISP

MBH

MIS

slok

Programmer

amosgreg

Programmer

Roundley

MIS

sinluz

MIS

DanGage

IS-IT--Management

wduty

Programmer

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