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04/02/99 Electronic Commerce Issues Overview

John TullisDePaul Instructorjohn.d.tullis@us.arthurandersen.com

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EC Issues

Issue areas• SITE FEATURES• INVENTORY• PRICING• CONTENT MANAGEMENT• CUSTOMER SERVICE• INTERNATIONALIZATION• LEGAL ISSUES• SYSTEM INFORMATION

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EC Issues

Site features•Will purchasing agents be restricted in catalog viewing?

•Will B2B partners see their own logos and specific B2B personalization features when they access the site?

•How will pricing be handled considering business partner contractual arrangements?

•How will authorization/registration be handled?

• Are there PO limits? Are they enforced on a purchasing agent basis? How is this handled?

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EC Issues

Inventory•How is the online inventory to be managed?

•Will there be a separate inventory for the online store?•Is there an existing order fulfillment system with an associated inventory management system?•If there is more than one inventory set, how will the sets be coordinated?•If the online store has its own inventory set, how will the order points be established? Safety allowances?•Is the anticipated sales order size known?•What is the basis for anticipating sales order size?•How will backordered items be handled?•How will out of stock items be handled?

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EC Issues

Pricing•What is the source of pricing for each item?

•How is item pricing to be maintained when the site is up and running?

•Will items be only priced on an individual basis, or will group pricing be applied?

•Will discounts be applied, and if so what types of discount methods will be applied to items? (Percentages, fixed amounts.)

•Will discounts apply only to individual items, or to orders as a whole, or both?

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EC Issues

Content Management•How is the site "look and feel” to be maintained?

•Are there restrictions to updating the site due to the hosting organization?

•How is the catalog data to be maintained?

•How are the site programs to be maintained?

•Are there software limitations to updating the site pages?

•What is the strategy for maintaining old order information?

•When does it make sense to outsource the content management?

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EC Issues

Customer Service•Is the customer service role to be performed internally or is this service to be outsourced?

•Do they have a 1-800 number for business partner purchasing agents?

•Does the customer service organization have to speak multiple languages?

•How are the customer service representatives to be trained?

•What level of access to the system is permitted to the CSRs?

•How are returns handled?

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EC Issues

Internationalization•Are orders shipped out of the country?

•Does the site handle one currency or several?

•Does the site handle one language or several?

•Is there a multinational organization that fulfills orders regionally?

•If so, do they intend to implement the online system by integrating with the regional order fulfillment systems?

•Does there need to be a multisite system?

•Are there export limitations on any of the products available in the online store?

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EC Issues

Legal Aspects

•Are there limitations provided by the hosting organization?

•Can the hosting organization cut off the site's access to the Web?

•What are the liabilities for marketing items that are legal in some jurisdictions and not others?

•Can prosecution result for selling items over the Web to people in a state or country where such items are banned?

•What disclaimers will be provided on the site?

•What policies will be posted on the site?

•What protections are there for intellectual property?

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EC Issues

System Information (Decision Support)

•Can purchasing agent actions be monitored and tracked? Customer services reps? Site administrators?

•Can the system be used to develop site visitor profile information?

•Can the site date be data mined? Is it integrated with other data stores existing in legacy systems?

•Personalization - would collaborative filtering be implemented ? Or rules based filtering? Why? When is each appropriate?