Building an E-Commerce Presence PDF

Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Prof. Jigar M. Shah Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence ▪ Planning & Approach ▪ Elements & Tools ▪ Planning Canvas ▪ Software ▪ Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) ▪ Ha...

Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Prof. Jigar M. Shah Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence ▪ Planning & Approach ▪ Elements & Tools ▪ Planning Canvas ▪ Software ▪ Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) ▪ Hardware ▪ Alternative Web Development ▪ Other E-Commerce Site Tools Methodologies ▪ Mobile Website & Mobile Applications Prof. Jigar M. Shah 2 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Planning Canvas Idea & Vision Business & Revenue Model Target Audience Marketspace Dynamics Content Strategy SWOT Analysis E-Commerce Presence Map Timeline & Milestones Cost Estimation Prof. Jigar M. Shah 3 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Planning Canvas Idea & Vision Establishing the core purpose and the broader goal to accomplish E-COMMERCE PLANNING CANVAS Business & Revenue Model Developing a general idea of how the business will generate revenues and profits Target Audience Identifying who is the target audience? demographics - age, income, gender, location behavior patterns (lifestyle) current consumption patterns digital usage patterns content creation preferences buyer personas (profiles of typical customers) Determining where to best reach them? Marketspace Dynamics Analysis of the structure and nature of the market, suppliers, competitors, substitute products, market size, growth, & trends Prof. Jigar M. Shah 4 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Planning Canvas Content Strategy Planning for developing, sourcing & curating the content for the intended target audience E-COMMERCE PLANNING CANVAS Static content that does not change frequently, e.g., product descriptions, photos, text, etc. Dynamic content that changes regularly, e.g., user-generate content, blogs, etc. SWOT Analysis Analysis of the strengths & weakness of the business, and opportunities & threats in the market current sites do not address market needs, unique approach, easy navigation, better Strengths personalization, customer base growing, high-value market segment, superior social strategy limited financial resources, no prior online experience, no existing user base, no media Weaknesses attention, no web design expertise, no computer background ability to address large market with unmet needs, potential to capture significant share of the Opportunities market, potential to develop related sites approach could be copied by competitors, advertisers may not want to try a new site, rapid Threats pace of technological development, low market entry costs Prof. Jigar M. Shah 5 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Planning Canvas E-Commerce Presence Map Developing a plan to meet customers at the various touch-points, i.e., virtual places and platforms, E-COMMERCE PLANNING CANVAS across the various devices that they use at different times during the day in different ways and for different purposes Includes identifying the four different kinds of presence, the different platforms to be addressed for each of the presence, and the activities for customer engagement for each presence Types of Presence Platform Activity Website / App Traditional Desktop, Mobile, Tablet Search, Display, Affiliates, Sponsorships Social Media Facebook, X, Pinterest, Instagram, Blogs Conversation, Engagement, Sharing, Advice E-mail Internal lists, Purchased lists Newsletters, Updates, Sales Offline Media Print, TV, Radio Education, Exposure, Branding Prof. Jigar M. Shah 6 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Planning Canvas Timeline & Milestones Developing a rough idea of the time frame for developing the e-commerce presence E-COMMERCE PLANNING CANVAS Phase Activity Milestone 1: Planning Envision e-commerce presence, determine personnel Mission statement 2: Website Development Acquire content, develop site design, arrange site hosting Website plan Develop keywords & metatags, focus on search engine A functional 3: Web Implementation optimization, identify potential sponsors website Identify appropriate social platforms and content for your A social media 4: Social Media Plan products and services plan Develop Facebook, Instagram, X, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. Functioning social 5: Social Media Presence presence media presence Develop a mobile plan; consider options for porting your 6: Mobile Plan A mobile plan website to mobile devices Prof. Jigar M. Shah 7 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Planning Canvas Cost Estimation Developing a preliminary idea of the costs involved E-COMMERCE PLANNING CANVAS In general, the cost of hardware, software, & telecommunications for building & operating a website have fallen dramatically (by over 50%) in the last decade, while the costs of marketing, content development, & design have risen to make up more than half of typical website budgets. Longer-term costs must also include site & system maintenance. Costs of developing a mobile site and apps also need to be considered. Prof. Jigar M. Shah 8 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) ▪ Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) - a methodology for understanding business objectives of any system & designing an appropriate solution ▪ Involves five major steps: ▪ Analysis / Planning ▪ Design ▪ Development ▪ Testing ▪ Implementation & Maintenance Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Prof. Jigar M. Shah 9 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Analysis / Planning Involves identifying the business objectives, system functionalities, & the information requirements SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE Business Objectives business capabilities required in the site System Functionalities information systems capabilities required to achieve the business objectives Information Requirements information elements system must produce to achieve business objectives Business Objectives System Functionalities Information Requirements Display goods Digital catalog Dynamic text & graphics catalog Product description, stocking Provide product information (content) Product database numbers, inventory levels Execute a transaction Shopping cart / payment system Multiple payment options Software with blogging & Engage customers in conversations On-site blog, user forums community forum functionality Prof. Jigar M. Shah 10 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Design Involves describing how the system functionalities will be delivered SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE Consists of development of the System Design Specification System Design Specification description of the main components in a system & their relationship to one another The System Design Specification can be broken into parts, Logical Design, and Physical Design Logical Design describes the flow of information at the e-commerce site, the processing functions that must be performed, the databases that will be used, the security & emergency backup procedures that will be instituted, and the controls that will be used in the system Physical Design translates the logical design into physical components detailing the specific model of server to be purchased, the software to be used, the size of the telecommunications link that will be required, the way the system will be backed up and protected from outsiders, etc. Prof. Jigar M. Shah 11 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Design SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE Prof. Jigar M. Shah 12 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Design SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE Prof. Jigar M. Shah 13 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Development Involves building and hosting the system, the choice for which ranges from outsourcing everything SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE to building everything in-house Outsourcing hiring an outside vendor to provide services that would otherwise be performed by in-house personnel BUILDING In-house Outsource COMPLETELY IN-HOUSE MIXED RESPONSIBILITY In-house Build: Inhouse Build: Outsource HOSTING Host: Inhouse Host: Inhouse MIXED RESPONSIBILITY COMPLETELY OUTSOURCED Outsource Build: Inhouse Build: Outsource Host: Outsource Host: Outsource Prof. Jigar M. Shah 14 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Development Content Management System a database software program specifically designed to manage structured SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE (CMS) and unstructured data and objects in a website environment in order to organize, store, and process website content Least Expensive Options to Build In-house Most Expensive Using prebuilt templates (CMS) Building from scratch Using packaged site-building tools HTML/HTML5/CSS, Weebly, Wix, Sitecore Commerce, SQL Databases, Dreamweaver WordPress, Shopify CC, Visual Studio HCL Commerce Drawbacks of Building In-house high costs, risk of poor integration of complex functionalities, re-inventing the wheel, long & difficult learning curve, excessive time leading to delayed market entry Benefits of Building In-house better fitment to requirements, development of in-house knowledge, skills & capabilities allowing rapid changes as and when needed Prof. Jigar M. Shah 15 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Development On-premise Server Hosting deploying applications & services on servers located within an organization’s premises, with the organization owning & managing the SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE required hardware, software, and infrastructure (physical facility, power, cooling, etc.) Shared Server Hosting deploying applications & services on servers that host several other applications & services of other organizations, with the hosting service provide owning & managing the required hardware, software, and infrastructure (physical facility, power, cooling, etc.) VPS (Virtual Private Server) deploying applications & services on a dedicated portion of server, with the Hosting hosting service provide owning & managing the required hardware, software, and infrastructure (physical facility, power, cooling, etc.) Dedicated Server Hosting deploying applications & services on a dedicated server, with the organization leasing / renting the server from the hosting service provide & managing the software and the hosting service provider managing the required infrastructure (physical facility, power, cooling, etc.) Prof. Jigar M. Shah 16 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Development Co-located Server Hosting deploying applications & services on a server owned or leased by the SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE organization but is physically located on the premises of the hosting service provide with the hosting service provider managing the required infrastructure (physical facility, power, cooling, etc.) Cloud Server Hosting deploying applications & services on the cloud, i.e., on a network of physical & virtual servers, owned & managed by the hosting service provide allowing the organization to consume computing resources like a utility Testing Unit Testing testing the site’s program modules one at a time System Testing (ST) testing the site as a whole, in a way the typical user will use the site User Acceptance Testing (UAT) testing done by the end users (organization’s key personnel, managers in marketing, production, sales, and general management) to verify that the business objectives of the system as originally conceived are met A/B Testing testing different versions of the site to determine the better performing one Prof. Jigar M. Shah 17 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Testing Multivariate Testing a more sophisticated form of testing than A/B testing to test different versions of the site by identifying specific elements (headline, image, button, SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE text, etc.) and creating different versions of each element, and different combinations of the various versions of each element Implementation & Involves continual checking, testing, repair, improvement & optimization of the the website Maintenance Benchmarking comparing the site’s speed, quality of layout, design, etc. with other sites to understand and internalize the best practices, and to keep the site current on pricing and promotions Factors in optimizing the website include Page Generation server response time, device-based accelerators, efficient resource allocation, resource utilization thresholds, monitoring site performance Page Delivery content delivery networks, edge caching, bandwidth Page Content HTML & image optimization, site architecture, efficient page style Prof. Jigar M. Shah 18 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Alternative Web Development Methodologies Alternative Web Development Methodologies Prototyping building a sample or model rapidly and inexpensively to test a concept or process Agile breaking down a large project into a series of smaller subprojects that are completed in short periods of time using Development iteration and continuous feedback Scrum type of agile development that provides a framework for managing the development process involves a cross-functional team headed by a coach & uses the concept of a sprint, during which the team takes a small set of features of the project from idea to code to tested functionality & integrates them into the end product DevOps integration & automation of development (Dev) & operations (Ops) to improve & shorten the SDLC and increase the organization’s ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity by creating a single team of developers & operations engineers working across the entire application lifecycle, from development and test to deployment to operations Prof. Jigar M. Shah 19 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Planning & Approach ▪ Alternative Web Development Methodologies Alternative Web Development Methodologies Component- building a system by assembling and integrating various software components that already have been assembled based and which provide common functions, such as shopping carts, user authentication, search engines, and catalogs, Development etc., with pieces of software for unique business requirements of the organization Web Services loosely coupled, reusable software components using Extensible Markup Language (XML) and other open protocols and standards that enable one application to communicate with another via an application programming interface (API) with no custom programming required to share data and services Service Oriented a style of software design that employs a set of self-contained services that communicate with each other to create a working software application Architecture (SOA) Microservices very granular implementation of SOA, in which an application is decomposed into a number of smaller services, each responsible for a discrete task that can communicate with other services to solve a larger complex business problem Prof. Jigar M. Shah 20 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Elements & Tools ▪ Software ▪ System Architecture - the arrangement of software, machinery, and tasks in an information system needed to achieve a specific functionality ▪ Two-tier Architecture - two-tier architecture e-commerce system architecture in which a web server responds to requests for web pages and a database server provides backend data storage Prof. Jigar M. Shah 21 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Elements & Tools ▪ Software ▪ Multi-tier architecture - e-commerce system architecture in which the web server is linked to a middle-tier layer that typically includes a series of application servers that perform specific tasks as well as a backend layer of existing corporate systems Prof. Jigar M. Shah 22 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Elements & Tools ▪ Software ▪ E-Commerce Merchant Server Software - software that provides the basic functionality needed for online sales, including an online catalog, order taking via an online shopping cart, and online payment processing ▪ Open-Source Software - Open-Source Software Options software is developed Web Server Apache by a community of programmers and Shopping Cart, Online Catalog osCommerce, Zen Cart, AgoraCart, X-cart designers, and is free to Database MySQL use and modify Programming / Scripting Language PHP, Ruby on Rails (RoR, Rails), Django, Python, Perl Analytics Matomo, Open Web Analytics Prof. Jigar M. Shah 23 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Elements & Tools ▪ Software ▪ Merchant Server Software Package (E-Commerce Software Platform) - offers an integrated environment that provides most or all of the functionality and capabilities needed to develop a sophisticated, customer-centric site (e.g., Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, HCL Commerce, by SAP Hybris Commerce, Oracle ATG Web Commerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, etc.) Considerations in Choosing an E-Commerce Software Platform Functionality, including availability on SaaS basis Business process modeling tools Compliance with standards Support for different business models, including m-commerce Connectivity to existing systems Performance and scalability Visual site management tools and reporting Global and multicultural capability Local tax and shipping rules Prof. Jigar M. Shah 24 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Elements & Tools ▪ Hardware Considerations in Right-Sizing the Hardware Platform Demand Side Considerations Content Security Percent Secure Pages Legacy Integration Complexity Page Views (Hits) Searches Unique Items Transaction Volume Cross Session Information Supply Side Considerations Scalability Vertical Scaling Horizonal Scaling Processing Architecture the ability of a site increasing the employing multiple combination of vertical & horizontal scaling, combined with artful designing to vary in size as processing power of computers to share the (e.g., caching static content, caching database lookup tables, consolidating individual components workload business logic on dedicated servers, optimizing code, optimizing the database demand warrants schema, etc.) Prof. Jigar M. Shah 25 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Elements & Tools ▪ Other E-Commerce Site Tools Other E-Commerce Site Tools Search Engine Optimization metatags, keywords, titles, page contents, links, ads, etc. Interactivity & Active Content a programming language that allows programmers to create interactivity & active Java content on the client computer, thereby saving considerable load on the server web page coding standard that allows developers to dynamically generate web Java Server Pages (JSP) pages in response to user requests a programming language invented by Netscape that is used to control the objects JavaScript on an HTML page and handle interactions with the browser a proprietary software development tool that enables programmers using Active Server Pages (ASP) Microsoft’s IIS package to build dynamic pages ColdFusion an integrated server-side environment for developing interactive web applications open source, general-purpose scripting language most frequently used in server- PHP side web applications to generate dynamic web page content Prof. Jigar M. Shah 26 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Elements & Tools ▪ Other E-Commerce Site Tools Other E-Commerce Site Tools Interactivity & Active Content Ruby on Rails (Ruby, RoR, open source web application framework based on Ruby programming language Rails) Django open source web application framework based on Python programming language mall, prebuilt chunks of code executing automatically in HTML web pages & Widgets capable of performing a wide variety of tasks Personalization Cookies, and tools such as Montetate, Barilliance, Evergage, Google Optimizer Privacy Policy a set of public statements declaring to customers how their personal information gathered on the site will be treated Accessibility Rules a set of design objectives that ensure disabled / differently-abled users can effectively access the site Prof. Jigar M. Shah 27 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Elements & Tools ▪ Mobile Website & Mobile Applications Options for Mobile Presence Mobile Website a version of a regular website that is scaled down in content and navigation so that users can find what they want and move quickly to a decision or purchase Mobile Web an application built to run on the mobile web browser and specifically designed for the mobile platform in terms of App screen size, finger navigation, and graphical simplicity Mobile App an application designed specifically to operate on the mobile device without needing a web browser to access it Native App a mobile app designed to specifically to operate on a particular mobile platform (i.e., a specific combination of the mobile device hardware and operating system) Hybrid App a combination of a native mobile app and mobile web app designed to operate on a several mobile platforms (i.e., different combinations of the mobile device hardware and operating system) Prof. Jigar M. Shah 28 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Elements & Tools ▪ Mobile Website & Mobile Applications Considerations for Mobile Presence Hardware mobile hardware is smaller with more resource constraints in data storage & processing power Connectivity mobile platform is constrained by slower connection speeds than desktop websites Displays mobile displays are much smaller & require simplification, some are not good to view in sunlight mobile platform is not a good data entry tool but can be a good navigational tool, especially with touch-screen Interface technology that allows introducing new interaction routines different from the traditional mouse & keyboard Mobile First Design beginning the e-commerce development process with a mobile presence rather than a desktop website Performance & mobile websites are cheaper than mobile web apps but limit the graphics & interactivity with the users, whereas native mobile apps are the most expensive but provide the opportunity to create stunning & unique customer Cost experiences Prof. Jigar M. Shah 29 Session 9 - 14 Building an E-Commerce Presence Elements & Tools ▪ Mobile Website & Mobile Applications Trends in Building a Mobile Presence Responsive Web involves employing a web design technique that automatically adjusts the layout of a website depending on the Design screen resolution of the device on which it is being viewed Adaptive Web involves employing a server-side web design technique that detects the attributes of the device making the request and, using predefined templates based on device screen size along with CSS and JavaScript, loads a Design version of the site that is optimized for the device Cross-Platform involves using development toolkits (such as Flutter, Reactive Native, etc.) that allow developing cross-platform Mobile App mobile apps (that operate on several different mobile platforms) in a relatively easy & inexpensive manner Development without having to use different platform-specific development tools for each platform No-Code or Low- using low-code or no-code platforms (such as Glide, Draftbit, FlutterFlow, etc.) that require little or no coding to create mobile apps allowing easy & quick development of mobile apps without much technical skill in mobile Code Platform app development Prof. Jigar M. Shah 30 Thank You Prof. Jigar M. Shah