E-COMMERCE EXERCISE

221.BUS1104E.B17E

Members of this group:

1. Bùi Tiến Anh
2. Bùi Thị Hương Giang
3. Chung Mỹ Linh
4. Pha Ry Thah
5. Nguyễn Hoàng Hải Đường

1. What are the main factors to consider when developing an e-commerce

presence?

The main factors are:

● Management ● Design
● Software ● Telecommunications
● Hardware architecture ● Human resources

2. What elements do you need to address when developing a vision for an e-

commerce presence?

The vision includes not just a statement of mission, but also identification of the
target audience, characterization of the market space, a strategic analysis, a
marketing matrix, and a development timeline.

It starts with a dream of what’s possible, and concludes with a timeline and
preliminary budget for development.

3. Name the main kinds of e-commerce presence and the different

platforms for each type.

Three different kinds of e-commerce presence: website/app, social media, and

offline media. For each of these types there are different platforms that you will
need to address.

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For instance, in the case of websites and/or apps, there are three different
platforms: traditional desktop, tablets, and smartphones, each with different
capabilities.

In the case of social media, there are five different platforms: Facebook,
Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Blogs.

Offline media, the third type of e-commerce presence, is included here because
many firms use multiplatform or integrated marketing where print, television, or
radio ads refer customers to websites and apps.

4. Identify the different phases used in a one-year timeline for the

development of an e-commerce presence and the related milestones for
each phase.

Phase 1: includes activities which are Envision e-commerce presence,

determine personnel which relates to the milestone called mission statement.

Phase 2: Website development: acquire content, develop a site design, arrange

for hosting the site which the related milestone is website plan.

Phase 3: Web implementation in which activities are to develop keywords and

metatags, focus on search engine optimization, identify potential sponsors
which milestone is a functional website.

Phase 4: Social media plan is about identifying appropriate social platforms and
content for your products and services and the milestone is a social media plan.

Phase 5: Social media implementation is about developing facebook, twitter

and pinterest presence which the related milestone is functioning social media
presence.

Phase 6: Mobile plan: develop a mobile plan, consider options for porting your
website to mobile devices which the related milestone is a mobile plan.

5. What are the major advantages and disadvantages of deciding to build

an e-commerce site in-house?

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Advantages of building a site in-house include the ability to change and adapt
the site quickly as the market demands and the ability to build a site that does
exactly what the company needs.

Disadvantages of building a site in-house include higher costs, greater risks of

failure, a more time-con-suming process, and a longer staff learning curve that
delays time to market.

6. What are the various components of a website budget?

● Hosting service (5%) ● Marketing (35%)

● Telecommunications (5%) ● Design (15%)
● Software (5%) ● Content development (30%)
● Hardware (5%)

7. What is multivariate testing and how does it differ from A/B testing (split
testing)?

Multivariate testing involves identifying specific elements, or variables, on a

web page, such as a headline, image, button, and text, creating versions for
each element, and then creating a unique combination of each element and
version to test.

So, for example, if there are three elements and two versions of each, there will
be eight possible combinations (2*2*2 = 8) to test. When used correctly,
multivariate testing enables designers to identify the most optimal layout, color,
content,and format.

Multivariate testing is a much more sophisticated form of testing than

A/B testing. A/B Testing (split testing) involves showing two versions (A and
B) of a web page or website to different users to see which one performs better.

8. What are the disadvantages of outsourcing hosting? What risks does a

small business face when hosting its own website?

There are several disadvantages to outsourcing hosting.

If you choose a vendor, make sure the vendor has the capability to grow with
you. You need to know what kinds of security provisions are in place for
backup copies of your site, internal monitoring of activity, and security track

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record. Is There a public record of a security breach at the vendor? Many
Fortune 500 firms have their own private cloud data centers so they can control
the web environment.

On the other hand, there are risks to hosting your own site if you are a small
business. Yourcosts will be higher than if you had used a large outsourcing firm
because you don’t have the market power to obtain low-cost hardware and
telecommunications. You will have to purchase hardware and software, have a
physical facility, lease communications lines, hire a staff, and build security and
backup capabilities yourself.

9. What is a content management system and what function does it serve?

A content manage- ment system (CMS) is a database software program

specifically designed to manage structured and unstructured data and objects in
a website environment. A CMS provides web managers and designers with a
centralized control structure to manage website content.

10. What is open source software and how can it be used in creating an e-
commerce presence?

Open source software is software developed by a community of programmers

and designers, and is free to use and modify.

Provides a description of some open source options. The advantage of using

open source web building tools is that you get exactly what you want, a truly
customized unique website. The disadvantage is that it will take several months
for a single programmer to develop the site and get all the tools to work together
seamlessly.

11. What is a SWOT analysis?

A SWOT analysis is a simple but powerful method for strategizing about your
business and understanding where you should focus your efforts. In a SWOT
analysis you describe your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
(SWOT).

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12. What are some methods for achieving personalization and
customization?

There are a number of methods for achieving personalization and

customization.

For instance, you could personalize web content if you knew the personal
background of the visitor. You could also analyze the pattern of clicks and sites
visited for every customer who enters your site. We discuss these methods in
later chapters on marketing.

The primary method for achieving personalization and customization is through

the placement of cookie files on the user’s client computer. A cookie is a small
text file placed on the user’s client computer that can contain any kind of
information about the customer, such as customer ID, campaign ID, or
purchases at the site. And then, when the user returns to the site, or indeed goes
further into your site, the customer’s prior history can be accessed from a
database. Information gathered on prior visits can then be used to personalize
the visit and customize the product.

13. Discuss some of the ways that you can optimize a website so that it will
appear higher up in search engine listings.

Some of the ways optimize a website so that it will appear higher up in search
engine listings :
● Meta Tags, keywords, titles, page contents: Search engines “crawl” your
site and identify keywords as well as title pages and then index them for
use in search arguments. Pepper your pages with keywords that
accurately describe what you say you do in your metatag site
“description” and “keywords” sections of your source code. The goal is to
find a balance of the different type of keywords, including shorter head
keywords that may be more generic (such as “car”), body keywords that
may be slightly more specific (such as “British sports car”), and long-tail
keywords that are much more detailed, such as “1968 red Jaguar XKE
convertible”).
● Offer expertise: White papers, industry analyses, FAQ pages, guides, and
histories are excellent ways to build confidence on the part of users and to

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 encourage them to see your website as the place to go for help and
guidance.
● Get linked up: Encourage other sites to link to your site; build a blog that
attracts people and who will share your URL with others and post links in
the process. Build a Facebook page for your company, and think about
using Instagram or Pinterest to develop a following or fan base for your
products.
● Buy ads: Complement your natural search optimization efforts with paid
search engine keywords and ads. Choose your keywords and purchase
direct exposure on web pages. You can set your budget and put a ceiling
on it to prevent large losses. See what works, and observe the number of
visits to your site produced by each keyword string.
● Local e-commerce: Developing a national market can take a long time. If
your website is particularly attractive to local people, or involves
products sold locally, use keywords that connote your location so people
can find you nearby. Town, city, and region names in your keywords can
be helpful, such as “Vermont cheese” or “San Francisco blues music.”

14. What is CGI and how does it enable interactivity?

Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a set of standards for communication

between a browser and a program running on a server that allows for interaction
between the user and the server.

CGI permits an executable program to access all the information within

incoming requests from clients. The program can then generate all the output
required to make up the return page (the HTML, script code, text, etc.), and
send it back to the client via the web server. For instance, if a user clicks the My
Shopping Cart button, the server receives this request and executes a CGI
program. The CGI program retrieves the contents of the shopping cart from the
database and returns it to the server. The server sends an HTML page that
displays the contents of the shopping cart on the user’s screen.

CGI programs can be written in nearly any programming language as long as

they conform to CGI standards. Currently, Perl is one of the most popular
languages for CGI scripting. CGI’s primary disadvantage is that it is not highly

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scalable because a new process must be created for each request, thereby
limiting the number of concurrent requests that can be handled.

15. What is Ruby on Rails? What role does it play in website design?

Ruby on Rails (Ruby, RoR, or Rails) is an open source web application

framework based on the Ruby programming language. RoR is based on a
philosophy known as convention over configuration, or coding by convention
(CoC), which means that the framework provides a structured layout that
minimizes the number of decisions that the programmer needs to make, thereby
simplifying and speeding development. JavaScript and Ajax are highly
integrated into RoR, which makes it easy to handle Ajax requests for page
updates.

16. How does agile development enable the release of applications more
rapidly than the traditional systems development life cycle?

DevOps also builds on agile development principles as an organizational

strategy to create a culture and environment that further promote rapid and agile
development practices.

DevOps stands for “development and operations” and emphasizes close

collaboration between the developers who create applications and the
operational staff that run and maintain the applications.

DevOps aims to promote better and more frequent communication and

collaboration between systems development and operations groups and a fast
and stable workflow throughout the entire development life cycle. With this
type of organizational change along with agile techniques, standardized
processes, and more powerful automated software creation and testing tools, it
is possible to release more reliable applications more rapidly and more
frequently.

17. Why is building a native app the most expensive method of creating a
mobile presence?

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A native app is an application designed specifically to operate using the mobile
device’s hardware and operating system.

Because the various types of smartphones have different hardware and

operating systems, apps are not “one size fits all” and therefore need to be
developed for different mobile platforms. An Apple app that runs on an iPhone
cannot operate on Android phones.

Native apps are built using different programming languages depending on the
device for which they are intended, which is then compiled into binary code,
and which executes extremely fast on mobile devices, much faster than HTML
or Java-based mobile web apps.

18. What unique features must be taken into account when designing a
mobile presence?

There ares 4 features:

● Hardware: Mobile hardware is smaller, and there are more resource
constraints in data storage and processing power.
● Connectivity: The mobile platform is constrained by slower connection
speeds than desktop websites.
● Displays: Mobile displays are much smaller and require simplification.
Some screens are not good in sunlight.
● Interface: Touch-screen technology introduces new interaction routines
different from the traditional mouse and keyboard. The mobile platform
is not a good data entry tool but can be a good navigational tool.

19. What is a mashup and what are they used for?

Mashups are a little more complicated and involve pulling functionality and
data from one program and including it in another. The most common mashup
involves using Google Maps data and software and combining it with other
data.

For instance, if you have a local real estate website, you can download Google
Maps and satellite image applications to your site so visitors can get a sense of
the neighborhood. There are thousands of Google Map mashups, from maps of

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Myanmar political protests, to maps of the Fortune 500 companies, all with
associated news stories and other content. Other mashups involve sports,
photos, video, shopping, and news.

20. What are web services and how are they used?

Web services are loosely coupled, reusable software components using

Extensible Markup Language (XML) and other open protocols and standards
that enable one application to communicate with another with no custom
programming required to share data and services.

In addition to supporting internal and external integration of systems, web

services can be used as tools for building new information system applications
or enhancing existing systems.

Web services can perform certain functions on their own and can also engage
other web services to complete more complex transactions, such as checking
credit, procurement, or ordering products.

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