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Dezyne E'cole College BCA Student Work
Citation preview
ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
Rahul Mathur BCA-III Year Bachelor of Computer Applications
Dezyne Ersquocole College Ajmer
wwwdezyneecolecom
Information Technology -------------------------
Submitted By
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I Am Thankful To Dezyne Ersquocole College To Help In Making This Project On E-
Commerce A Special Thanks To Ms Jyoti Phulwani to Guide Us Step By Step in the
Making of This Project Report
Thanking You
Rahul Mathur
Bachelor of Computer Applications
III Year
CONTENTS
1 Chapter 1
Introduction
2 Chapter 2
Electronic Commerce and the World Wide Web
3 Chapter 3
Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
4 Chapter 4
Technology Behind the Web
5 Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
6 Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
7 Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
8 Chapter 8
Conclusion
Chapter 1
Introduction
Every individual of company that wants to make money and become the next
Microsoft needs to understand the market potential business implication and
technological foundations of electronic commerce But what is electronic commerce
everybody is talking about How does it affect the organisation way of doing
business What sort of technical and business skills are needed to be successful
Companies and consumers are discovering that global networking and other
technological innovations are powerful assets if used as competitive weapons in their
day to day activities E-Commerce is associated with the buying and selling of
information products and services via computer network today
Consumer desires are very hard to predict pin point or decipher in electronic markets
whose shape structure and population are still in early stages Needs envisioned
include entertainment on demand including 500 channel TV video on demand
games on demand electronic retailing via catalogues and Kiosks and home shopping
networks In future viewers will decide what they want to see and when they want to
participate and successful market places are expected to those that cater to
consumerrsquos loneliness boredom education and career In highly competitive society
where neighbours seldom talk to one another these outlets give consumer someone
to talk after going home
Letrsquos take a look at the changing conditions in the ldquonew economyrdquo with respect to the
retail industry Consumers are pushing retailers to the wall demanding lower prices
better quality and a large section of in-season goods Retailers are scrambling to fill
the order They are slashing back-office cost reducing profit-margins reducing cycle
times buying more wisely and making huge investment in technology They are
revamping distribution channels to make sure that warehouses costs are down by
reducing their average inventory levels and coordinating the consumer demand and
supply pattern
In the push to reduce prices more and more retailers are turning to overseas suppliers
in part because of cheaper labour costs Retail are the immediate line of fire and had
to do the cost cutting They put the pressure on the manufacturer and then to the
supplier end of the pipeline Electronic commerce is forcing companies to rethink the
existing ways of doing target marketing relationship marketing and even event
marketing Adaptation would include moving towards computerised ldquopaperlessrdquo
operations to reduce trading costs and facilitate the adoption of new business
process Japanese approach JIT (Just in Time) system total quality control and
quality circles are focused now for delivery of goods through electronic commerce
Chapter 2
Electronic Commerce and the World-Wide-Web We have broadly defined electronic commerce as a modern business methodology
that addresses the desire of the firm consumer and management to cut cost while
improving the quality of goods and increasing the speed of services The need for
electronic commerce stems from the demand within business and government to
make better use of computing that is better apply computer technology to improve
business process and information exchange both within an enterprise and across
organisations In short electronic commerce appears to be an integrating force that
represents the digital conversions of twenty-first century business applications and
computing technologies
Electronic commerce applications emphasize the generation and exploitation of new
business opportunity and to use the popular buzzword ldquogenerate business valuerdquo
For instance when buyer-seller transactions occur in the electronic marketplace
information is accessed absorbed arranged and sold in different ways In fact the
information a product or service is separated from the physical product or service and
has become important on its own In some cases the information can become as
crucial as the actual product or service in terms of its effect on a companyrsquos profits
In short information based business transactions are creating new ways of doing
business and even new types of business
Electronic commerce application are quite varied In its most common form E-
Commerce is also used to donate the paperless exchange of business information
using EDI Electronic Mail (E-Mail) Electronic Bulletin Boards Electronic Fund
Transfer (EFT) and other similar technologies These technologies are normally
applied in high-payoff areas recognizing that paper-handling activities usually
increase expense without adding value On the other hand the term electronic
commerce is used to describe a new on-line approach to perform traditional
functions such as payment and funds transfer order entry and processing invoicing
inventory management cargo tracking electronic catalogue and point-of-sale data
gathering More recently companies have realised that the advertising marketing
and customer support functions are also part of electronic commerce application
domain These business functions acts as initiators to the entire order management
cycle that incorporates the more established notions of electronic commerce In
short what we are witnessing is the use of the term electronic commerce as an
umbrella concept to integrate a wide range of new and old applications
Despite the changes taking place businesses have three goals stay competitive
improve productivity and deliver quality service These goals are the guiding boys for
firms plotting their course in the turbulent waters of electronic commerce There are
other factors that companies need to keep in mind First most companies have
already made enormous information technology investments to automate their key
internal processes such as purchasing invoicing and other similar functions So
some aspects of the technological infrastructure for electronic commerce are already
in place The challenge now become How to effectively leverage this investment
Second prices for computer hardware and network equipment continue to fall
marking information technology an appealing investment for many businesses
especially when itrsquos used for high-impact applications such as linking their distributed
operations However investment without a clear idea of the electronic commerce
architecture being built would be akin to driving with blinders on As a result
companies that have decided that electronic commerce applications represent one
of the best strategic investment they can make must first exert some effort to
understand the technology underlying electronic commerce applications
At first glance it appears that messaging based technologies such as EDI and Male-
Enabled applications combined with database and information management service
form the technical foundation for effective electronic commerce solutions No single
one of these technologies can deliver the full potential of electronic commerce
however What we require is an integrated architecture the likes of which has never
been seen before This integrated architecture is emerging in the form of the World
Wide Web (WWW) As electronic commerce becomes more mature we are
beginning to see sophisticated applications being developed on WWW Technically
and commercially the WWW client-server model seems poised to become a
dominant technology
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)
Information Sharing
Collaborative Work
Corporate
Digital
Library
Electronic Commerce
Marketing Advertising
Sales Customer Support
Electronic
Publishing
E-mail Fax
Electronic Messaging
Electronic Document Interchange
Chapter 3
Architectural framework for Electronic Commerce
The software framework necessary for building electronic commerce applications is
little understood in existing literature In general a framework is intended to define
and create tools that integrate the information found in todayrsquos closed systems and
allow the development of e-commerce applications It is important to understand that
the aim of the architectural framework itself is not to build new database management
systems data repository computer languages software agent-based transaction
monitors or communication protocols Rather the architecture should focus on
synthesizing the diverse resources already in place in corporations to facilitate the
integration of data and software for better applications
We propound that the electronic commerce application architecture consist of six
layers of functionality or services
1) Application
2) Brokerage services data or transaction management
3) Interface and support layers
4) Secure messaging and electronic document interchange
5) Middleware and structured document interchange
6) Network infrastructure and basic communication services
Applications Services
Customer-to-Business Business-to-Business Intra-organisational
Brokerage and data management
Order processing-mail order houses Payment scheme-electronic cash Clearinghouse or virtual mall
Interface layer
Interactive catalogue Directory support function Software agents
Secure messaging
Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol Encrypted e-mail EDI Remote programming (RPC)
Middleware services
Structure documents (SGML HTML) Compound document (OLE OpenDoc)
Network infrastructure
Wireless-cellular radio PCS Wire line-POTS Coaxial Fibre Optics
These layers cooperate to provide a seamless transition between todayrsquos computing
resources and those of tomorrow by transparently integrating information access and
exchange within the context of the chosen application As seen in above figure
electronic commerce applications are based on several elegant technologies But
only when they are integrated do they provide uniquely powerful solutions
In the ensuing discussion of each of these layers we will not elaborate on the various
aspects of the network infrastructure that transports information
Electronic Commerce Application Services
The application services layer of e-commerce will be comprised of existing and
future applications built on innate architecture Three distinct classes of electronic
applications can be distinguished Customer-to-Business Business-to-Business
and Intra-organisation
Accounting
Finance and
Management
Manufacturing
and
Production
Engineering
and
Research
Procurement Distribution and Logistics
Advertising Sales Customer Service
Global Suppliers
Classic EDI
Customers
Customer Oriented
Electronic Commerce
Private
Commerce
Internal
Publishing
o Customer-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market place transaction In a market place transaction
customers learn about products differently through electronic publishing buy them
differently using electronic cash and secure payment systems and have them
delivered differently Also how customers allocate their loyalty may also be
different
In light of this organisation itself has to adapt to a world where the traditional
concepts of brand differentiation no longer hold-where ldquoQualityrdquo has a new meaning
where ldquoContentrdquo may not be equated to ldquoProductrdquo where ldquoDistributionrdquo may not
automatically mean ldquoPhysical Transportrdquo In this new environment brand equity can
rapidly evaporate forcing firms to develop new ways of doing business
o Business-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market-link transactions Here businesses government and
other organisations depend on computer-to-computer communication as a fast an
economical and a dependable way to conduct business transactions Small
companies are also beginning to see the benefits of adopting the same methods
Business-to-business transactions include the use of EDI and Electronic mail for
purchasing goods and services buying information and consulting services
submitting request for proposals and receive proposals
For example the current accounts payable process occurs through the exchange
of paper documents Each year the trading partners exchange millions of invoices
checks purchase orders financial reports and other transactions Most of the
documents are in electronic form at their point of origin but are printed and key-
entered at the point of receipt The current manual process of printing mailing and
rekeying is costly time consuming and error-prone Given this situation and faced
with the need to reduce costs small businesses are looking towards electronic
commerce as possible saviour
o Intra-organisational transaction
We call this category market-driven transactions A company becomes market
driven by dispersing throughout the firm information about its customers and
competitors by spreading strategic and tactical decision making so that all units can
participate and by continuously monitoring their customer commitment by making
improve customer satisfaction an ongoing objective To maintain the relationships
that are critical to delivering superior customer value management must play close
attention to service both before and after sales
Information Brokerage and Management
The information brokerage and management layer provide service integration
through the notion of information brokerages the development of which is
necessitated by the increasing information resource fragmentation We use the
notion of information brokerage to represent an intermediary who provides service
integration between customers and information providers given some constraint
such as a low price fast service or profit maximisation for a client
Information brokers for example are rapidly becoming necessary in dealing with the
voluminous amounts of information on the networks As online database migrate to
consumer information utilities consumers and information professionals will have
to keep up the knowledge and ownership of all these systems Whorsquos got what
How do you use it What do they charge Most professionals have enough trouble
keeping track of files of interest on one or two database services With all the
complexity associated with large number of online database and service bureaus
itrsquos impossible to expect humans to do the searching It will have to be software
programs-information brokers or software agents to use the most popular term-Act
on searcherrsquos behalf Information brokerage does more than just searching
Interface and Support Services
The third layer interface and support services will provide interfaces for electronic
commerce applications such as interactive catalogues and will support directory
services-functions necessary for information search and access These two
concepts are very different Interactive catalogues are the customized interface to
consumer applications such as home shopping An interactive catalogue is an
extension of the paper-based catalogue and incorporates additional features such
as sophisticated graphics and video to make the advertising more attractive
Directories on the other hand operate behind the scenes and attempt to organise
the enormous amount of information and transactions generated to facilitate
electronic commerce Directory services database make data from any server
appear as a local file A classic example of a directory is the telephone White Pages
which allows us to locate people and telephone numbers In the case of electronic
commerce directories would play an important role in information management
functions For instance take the case of buying an airline ticket with several
stopovers with a caveat that the time between layovers be minimized This search
would require several queries to various online directories to find empty seats on
various airlines and then the availability of seats would be coordinated with the
amount of time spent in the airport terminals
Secure Messaging and Structured Document Interchange
Services
The importance of the fourth layer secure messaging is clear Everyone in
business knows that electronic messaging is a critical business issue Consider a
familiar business scenario you hand over an urgent fax on Monday and find out on
Tuesday that itrsquos still sitting on your fax operatorrsquos desk What happened The line
was busy and he thought he would try again later Or the number was wrong but
he forgot to let you know Or you are in London and you need to send a spreadsheet
that details a marketing plan for a product introduction strategy to co-worker in New
York This must be done today not tomorrow when the courier service would
deliver There is a solution to these common and frustrating problems Itrsquos called
integrated messaging a group of computer services that through the use of a
network send receive and combine messages faxes and large data file Some
better known examples are electronic mail enhance fax and electronic data
interchange
Broadly defined messaging is the software that sits between the network
infrastructure and the clients or electronic commerce applications masking the
peculiarities of the environment Others define messaging as a framework for the
total implementation of portable applications divorcing you from the architectural
primitives of your system In general messaging products are not applications that
solve problems they are more enablers of the application that solve problems
Messaging services offer solution for communicating non-formatted (unstructured)
data such as purchase orders shipping notices and invoices Unstructured
messaging consist of fax e-mail and form based system like Lotus Notes
Structured documents messaging consist of the automated interchange of
standardized and approved messages between computer applications via
telecommunication lines Examples of structured document messaging include EDI
Messaging is gaining momentum in electronic commerce and seems to have many
advantages It supports both synchronous (immediate) and asynchronous (delayed)
message delivery and processing With asynchronous when a message is sent
work continues (software doesnrsquot wait for a response) This allows the transfer of
messages through store-and-forward methods
The main disadvantages of messaging are the new types of applications it enables-
which appear to be more complex especially to traditional programmers-and the
jungle of standards it involves Because of the lack of standards there is often no
interoperability between messaging vendors leading to islands of messaging Also
security privacy and confidentiality through data encryption and authentication
techniques are important issues that need to be resolved for ensuring the legality of
the message-based transactions themselves
Middleware Services
Middleware is a relatively new concept that emerged only recently like so many
other innovations it came into being out of necessity Users in the 1970s when
vendors delivered homogenous systems that worked didnrsquot have a need for
middleware When conditions changed-along with the hardware and the software
the organisations couldnrsquot cope The tools were inadequate the backlog was
enormous and the pressure was overwhelming And the users were dissatisfied
Something was needed to solve all the interface translation transformation and
interpretation problems that were driving application developers crazy
With the growth of networks client-server technology and all other forms of
communicating betweenamong unlike platforms the problems of getting all the
pieces to work together grew from formidable to horrendous As the cry for
distributed computing spread users demanded interaction between dissimilar
systems networks that permitted shared resources and applications that could be
accessed by multiple software programs In simple terms middleware is the ultimate
mediator between diverse software programs that enables them talk to one another
Transparency
Transparency implies that users should be unaware that they are accessing multiple
systems Transparency is essential for dealing with higher-level issues than
physical media and interconnection that the underlying network infrastructure is in
charge of The ideal picture is one of a ldquoVirtualrdquo network a collection of work-group
departmental enterprise and enterprise LANs that appears to the end user or client
application to be a seamless and easily accessed whole
Transparency is accomplished using middleware that facilitates a distributed
computing environment This gives users and applications transparent access to
data computation and other resources across collections of multivendor
heterogeneous systems The strategic architectures of every major system vendor
are now based on some form of middleware The key to realising the theoretical
benefit of such an architecture is transparency Users need not spend their time
trying to understand where something is Nor should application developers have to
code into their applications the exact locations of resources over the network The
goal is for the applications to send a request to the middleware layer which then
satisfies the request anyway it can using remote information
Transaction Security and Management
Support for transaction processing (TP) is fundamental to success in the electronic
commerce market Security and management are essential to all layers in the
electronic commerce model Transaction integrity must be given for businesses that
cannot afford any loss or inconsistency in data For electronic commerce
middleware provides the qualities expected in the standard TP System the so-
called ACID properties (Atomicity Consistency Isolation and Durability)
World Wide Web (WWW) As the Architecture
Electronic commerce depends on the unspoken assumption that computers
cooperate efficiently for seamless information sharing Unfortunately this
assumption of interoperability has been supported by the realities of practical
computing Computing is still a world made up of many technical directions product
implementations and competing vendors This diversity while good for innovation
causes problem as the e-commerce applications try to impose a certain discipline
on the proliferating computers and networks It is ironic that real effect of computing
is all too often then prevention of data sharing due to incompatibilities-architectures
data formats and communication protocols
What does the Web Encompass
The web has become an umbrella for wide range of concepts and technologies that
differ markedly in purpose and scope These include the global hypertext publishing
concept the universal reader concept and the client-server concept
The global hypertext publishing concept promotes the idea of a seamless
information world in which all on-line information can be accessed and retrieved in
a consistent and simple way To access information in this seamless world we will
need the ability to address many types of data-text files images sound files and
animation sequences
The universal readership concept promotes the idea that unlike the segmented
applications of the past we can use one application-a universal (or common) user
interface-to read a variety of documents This concept implies that once information
is published it is accessible from any type of computer in any country and that any
(authorised) person merely needs to use one simple program to access it This is
accomplished in the web by using a core browser or application that is augmented
by supporting applications The core browser implements only minimal functionality
and attempts to offload more specialised work onto the supporting applications
The client server concept allows the web to grow easily without any centralised
control Anyone can publish information and anyone (as long as he or she is
authorized) can read and download it Publishing information requires a server
program and reading data requires a client browser All the clients and all the
servers are connected to one another by the Internet The various standard
protocols allows all clients to communicate with all servers In practice the web
hangs on a number of essential concepts including the following
The addressing scheme known as uniform resource locator (URL) makes the
hyper media world possible despite many different protocols
A network protocol known as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used by client
browsers and servers offers performance and features not otherwise available
A mark-up language (HTML) which every web client is required to understand
is used for the representation of hypertext documents containing text list boxes
and graphics information across the net
Chapter 4
Technology behind the Web
Information providers (or publishers) run programs (called servers) from which the
browsers (clients) can obtain information These programs can either be Web servers
that understand the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) ldquoGatewayrdquo programs that
convert an existing information format to hypertext or a non-HTTP server that Web
browser can access-anonymous FTP or Gopher servers
Web servers are composed of two major parts the hypertext transfer protocol for
transmitting documents between servers and clients and the hypertext mark-up
language (HTML) format for documents The link between HTML files and the HTTP
servers is provided by the uniform resource locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext that contains pointers to other
documents The browser let you deal with the pointers in a transparent way-select
the pointer and you are presented with the text to which it points This pointer is
implemented using a concept that is central to Web browsers Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs) One way to think about URLs is to use the libraries and location on
a shelf as a metaphor A URL for a digital library wold be a unique call number that
provides the exact location of every book in the world including the country city
street and library shelf location
In practice URLs are the string used as addresses of objects (documents images)
on the web Think of them as analogous to your e-mail address Just as your address
is unique and may be used by any other Internet user to send you mail without
knowing exactly where you are a URL marks the unique location on the Internet
where a file or service can be found
URLs follow a fairly consistent pattern The first part describes the type of resource
the second part gives the name of the server housing the resource and the third part
gives full filename of the resource URLs are universal in that they provide access to
a wide range of network services which required separate applications in the past
For a new network protocol one can easily form an address as the set of parameters
necessary to retrieve the object If these parameters are encoded into a concise
string with a prefix to identify the protocols and encoding one has a new URL
scheme Take a look at the URL format below
FTP ftpserveraddresscompletefilename
Gopher gopherserveraddressportdirectoryfilename
TELNET telnetserveraddressport
HTTP httpserveraddressporthomepagehtml
New newsmiscstocksinvest
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I Am Thankful To Dezyne Ersquocole College To Help In Making This Project On E-
Commerce A Special Thanks To Ms Jyoti Phulwani to Guide Us Step By Step in the
Making of This Project Report
Thanking You
Rahul Mathur
Bachelor of Computer Applications
III Year
CONTENTS
1 Chapter 1
Introduction
2 Chapter 2
Electronic Commerce and the World Wide Web
3 Chapter 3
Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
4 Chapter 4
Technology Behind the Web
5 Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
6 Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
7 Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
8 Chapter 8
Conclusion
Chapter 1
Introduction
Every individual of company that wants to make money and become the next
Microsoft needs to understand the market potential business implication and
technological foundations of electronic commerce But what is electronic commerce
everybody is talking about How does it affect the organisation way of doing
business What sort of technical and business skills are needed to be successful
Companies and consumers are discovering that global networking and other
technological innovations are powerful assets if used as competitive weapons in their
day to day activities E-Commerce is associated with the buying and selling of
information products and services via computer network today
Consumer desires are very hard to predict pin point or decipher in electronic markets
whose shape structure and population are still in early stages Needs envisioned
include entertainment on demand including 500 channel TV video on demand
games on demand electronic retailing via catalogues and Kiosks and home shopping
networks In future viewers will decide what they want to see and when they want to
participate and successful market places are expected to those that cater to
consumerrsquos loneliness boredom education and career In highly competitive society
where neighbours seldom talk to one another these outlets give consumer someone
to talk after going home
Letrsquos take a look at the changing conditions in the ldquonew economyrdquo with respect to the
retail industry Consumers are pushing retailers to the wall demanding lower prices
better quality and a large section of in-season goods Retailers are scrambling to fill
the order They are slashing back-office cost reducing profit-margins reducing cycle
times buying more wisely and making huge investment in technology They are
revamping distribution channels to make sure that warehouses costs are down by
reducing their average inventory levels and coordinating the consumer demand and
supply pattern
In the push to reduce prices more and more retailers are turning to overseas suppliers
in part because of cheaper labour costs Retail are the immediate line of fire and had
to do the cost cutting They put the pressure on the manufacturer and then to the
supplier end of the pipeline Electronic commerce is forcing companies to rethink the
existing ways of doing target marketing relationship marketing and even event
marketing Adaptation would include moving towards computerised ldquopaperlessrdquo
operations to reduce trading costs and facilitate the adoption of new business
process Japanese approach JIT (Just in Time) system total quality control and
quality circles are focused now for delivery of goods through electronic commerce
Chapter 2
Electronic Commerce and the World-Wide-Web We have broadly defined electronic commerce as a modern business methodology
that addresses the desire of the firm consumer and management to cut cost while
improving the quality of goods and increasing the speed of services The need for
electronic commerce stems from the demand within business and government to
make better use of computing that is better apply computer technology to improve
business process and information exchange both within an enterprise and across
organisations In short electronic commerce appears to be an integrating force that
represents the digital conversions of twenty-first century business applications and
computing technologies
Electronic commerce applications emphasize the generation and exploitation of new
business opportunity and to use the popular buzzword ldquogenerate business valuerdquo
For instance when buyer-seller transactions occur in the electronic marketplace
information is accessed absorbed arranged and sold in different ways In fact the
information a product or service is separated from the physical product or service and
has become important on its own In some cases the information can become as
crucial as the actual product or service in terms of its effect on a companyrsquos profits
In short information based business transactions are creating new ways of doing
business and even new types of business
Electronic commerce application are quite varied In its most common form E-
Commerce is also used to donate the paperless exchange of business information
using EDI Electronic Mail (E-Mail) Electronic Bulletin Boards Electronic Fund
Transfer (EFT) and other similar technologies These technologies are normally
applied in high-payoff areas recognizing that paper-handling activities usually
increase expense without adding value On the other hand the term electronic
commerce is used to describe a new on-line approach to perform traditional
functions such as payment and funds transfer order entry and processing invoicing
inventory management cargo tracking electronic catalogue and point-of-sale data
gathering More recently companies have realised that the advertising marketing
and customer support functions are also part of electronic commerce application
domain These business functions acts as initiators to the entire order management
cycle that incorporates the more established notions of electronic commerce In
short what we are witnessing is the use of the term electronic commerce as an
umbrella concept to integrate a wide range of new and old applications
Despite the changes taking place businesses have three goals stay competitive
improve productivity and deliver quality service These goals are the guiding boys for
firms plotting their course in the turbulent waters of electronic commerce There are
other factors that companies need to keep in mind First most companies have
already made enormous information technology investments to automate their key
internal processes such as purchasing invoicing and other similar functions So
some aspects of the technological infrastructure for electronic commerce are already
in place The challenge now become How to effectively leverage this investment
Second prices for computer hardware and network equipment continue to fall
marking information technology an appealing investment for many businesses
especially when itrsquos used for high-impact applications such as linking their distributed
operations However investment without a clear idea of the electronic commerce
architecture being built would be akin to driving with blinders on As a result
companies that have decided that electronic commerce applications represent one
of the best strategic investment they can make must first exert some effort to
understand the technology underlying electronic commerce applications
At first glance it appears that messaging based technologies such as EDI and Male-
Enabled applications combined with database and information management service
form the technical foundation for effective electronic commerce solutions No single
one of these technologies can deliver the full potential of electronic commerce
however What we require is an integrated architecture the likes of which has never
been seen before This integrated architecture is emerging in the form of the World
Wide Web (WWW) As electronic commerce becomes more mature we are
beginning to see sophisticated applications being developed on WWW Technically
and commercially the WWW client-server model seems poised to become a
dominant technology
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)
Information Sharing
Collaborative Work
Corporate
Digital
Library
Electronic Commerce
Marketing Advertising
Sales Customer Support
Electronic
Publishing
E-mail Fax
Electronic Messaging
Electronic Document Interchange
Chapter 3
Architectural framework for Electronic Commerce
The software framework necessary for building electronic commerce applications is
little understood in existing literature In general a framework is intended to define
and create tools that integrate the information found in todayrsquos closed systems and
allow the development of e-commerce applications It is important to understand that
the aim of the architectural framework itself is not to build new database management
systems data repository computer languages software agent-based transaction
monitors or communication protocols Rather the architecture should focus on
synthesizing the diverse resources already in place in corporations to facilitate the
integration of data and software for better applications
We propound that the electronic commerce application architecture consist of six
layers of functionality or services
1) Application
2) Brokerage services data or transaction management
3) Interface and support layers
4) Secure messaging and electronic document interchange
5) Middleware and structured document interchange
6) Network infrastructure and basic communication services
Applications Services
Customer-to-Business Business-to-Business Intra-organisational
Brokerage and data management
Order processing-mail order houses Payment scheme-electronic cash Clearinghouse or virtual mall
Interface layer
Interactive catalogue Directory support function Software agents
Secure messaging
Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol Encrypted e-mail EDI Remote programming (RPC)
Middleware services
Structure documents (SGML HTML) Compound document (OLE OpenDoc)
Network infrastructure
Wireless-cellular radio PCS Wire line-POTS Coaxial Fibre Optics
These layers cooperate to provide a seamless transition between todayrsquos computing
resources and those of tomorrow by transparently integrating information access and
exchange within the context of the chosen application As seen in above figure
electronic commerce applications are based on several elegant technologies But
only when they are integrated do they provide uniquely powerful solutions
In the ensuing discussion of each of these layers we will not elaborate on the various
aspects of the network infrastructure that transports information
Electronic Commerce Application Services
The application services layer of e-commerce will be comprised of existing and
future applications built on innate architecture Three distinct classes of electronic
applications can be distinguished Customer-to-Business Business-to-Business
and Intra-organisation
Accounting
Finance and
Management
Manufacturing
and
Production
Engineering
and
Research
Procurement Distribution and Logistics
Advertising Sales Customer Service
Global Suppliers
Classic EDI
Customers
Customer Oriented
Electronic Commerce
Private
Commerce
Internal
Publishing
o Customer-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market place transaction In a market place transaction
customers learn about products differently through electronic publishing buy them
differently using electronic cash and secure payment systems and have them
delivered differently Also how customers allocate their loyalty may also be
different
In light of this organisation itself has to adapt to a world where the traditional
concepts of brand differentiation no longer hold-where ldquoQualityrdquo has a new meaning
where ldquoContentrdquo may not be equated to ldquoProductrdquo where ldquoDistributionrdquo may not
automatically mean ldquoPhysical Transportrdquo In this new environment brand equity can
rapidly evaporate forcing firms to develop new ways of doing business
o Business-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market-link transactions Here businesses government and
other organisations depend on computer-to-computer communication as a fast an
economical and a dependable way to conduct business transactions Small
companies are also beginning to see the benefits of adopting the same methods
Business-to-business transactions include the use of EDI and Electronic mail for
purchasing goods and services buying information and consulting services
submitting request for proposals and receive proposals
For example the current accounts payable process occurs through the exchange
of paper documents Each year the trading partners exchange millions of invoices
checks purchase orders financial reports and other transactions Most of the
documents are in electronic form at their point of origin but are printed and key-
entered at the point of receipt The current manual process of printing mailing and
rekeying is costly time consuming and error-prone Given this situation and faced
with the need to reduce costs small businesses are looking towards electronic
commerce as possible saviour
o Intra-organisational transaction
We call this category market-driven transactions A company becomes market
driven by dispersing throughout the firm information about its customers and
competitors by spreading strategic and tactical decision making so that all units can
participate and by continuously monitoring their customer commitment by making
improve customer satisfaction an ongoing objective To maintain the relationships
that are critical to delivering superior customer value management must play close
attention to service both before and after sales
Information Brokerage and Management
The information brokerage and management layer provide service integration
through the notion of information brokerages the development of which is
necessitated by the increasing information resource fragmentation We use the
notion of information brokerage to represent an intermediary who provides service
integration between customers and information providers given some constraint
such as a low price fast service or profit maximisation for a client
Information brokers for example are rapidly becoming necessary in dealing with the
voluminous amounts of information on the networks As online database migrate to
consumer information utilities consumers and information professionals will have
to keep up the knowledge and ownership of all these systems Whorsquos got what
How do you use it What do they charge Most professionals have enough trouble
keeping track of files of interest on one or two database services With all the
complexity associated with large number of online database and service bureaus
itrsquos impossible to expect humans to do the searching It will have to be software
programs-information brokers or software agents to use the most popular term-Act
on searcherrsquos behalf Information brokerage does more than just searching
Interface and Support Services
The third layer interface and support services will provide interfaces for electronic
commerce applications such as interactive catalogues and will support directory
services-functions necessary for information search and access These two
concepts are very different Interactive catalogues are the customized interface to
consumer applications such as home shopping An interactive catalogue is an
extension of the paper-based catalogue and incorporates additional features such
as sophisticated graphics and video to make the advertising more attractive
Directories on the other hand operate behind the scenes and attempt to organise
the enormous amount of information and transactions generated to facilitate
electronic commerce Directory services database make data from any server
appear as a local file A classic example of a directory is the telephone White Pages
which allows us to locate people and telephone numbers In the case of electronic
commerce directories would play an important role in information management
functions For instance take the case of buying an airline ticket with several
stopovers with a caveat that the time between layovers be minimized This search
would require several queries to various online directories to find empty seats on
various airlines and then the availability of seats would be coordinated with the
amount of time spent in the airport terminals
Secure Messaging and Structured Document Interchange
Services
The importance of the fourth layer secure messaging is clear Everyone in
business knows that electronic messaging is a critical business issue Consider a
familiar business scenario you hand over an urgent fax on Monday and find out on
Tuesday that itrsquos still sitting on your fax operatorrsquos desk What happened The line
was busy and he thought he would try again later Or the number was wrong but
he forgot to let you know Or you are in London and you need to send a spreadsheet
that details a marketing plan for a product introduction strategy to co-worker in New
York This must be done today not tomorrow when the courier service would
deliver There is a solution to these common and frustrating problems Itrsquos called
integrated messaging a group of computer services that through the use of a
network send receive and combine messages faxes and large data file Some
better known examples are electronic mail enhance fax and electronic data
interchange
Broadly defined messaging is the software that sits between the network
infrastructure and the clients or electronic commerce applications masking the
peculiarities of the environment Others define messaging as a framework for the
total implementation of portable applications divorcing you from the architectural
primitives of your system In general messaging products are not applications that
solve problems they are more enablers of the application that solve problems
Messaging services offer solution for communicating non-formatted (unstructured)
data such as purchase orders shipping notices and invoices Unstructured
messaging consist of fax e-mail and form based system like Lotus Notes
Structured documents messaging consist of the automated interchange of
standardized and approved messages between computer applications via
telecommunication lines Examples of structured document messaging include EDI
Messaging is gaining momentum in electronic commerce and seems to have many
advantages It supports both synchronous (immediate) and asynchronous (delayed)
message delivery and processing With asynchronous when a message is sent
work continues (software doesnrsquot wait for a response) This allows the transfer of
messages through store-and-forward methods
The main disadvantages of messaging are the new types of applications it enables-
which appear to be more complex especially to traditional programmers-and the
jungle of standards it involves Because of the lack of standards there is often no
interoperability between messaging vendors leading to islands of messaging Also
security privacy and confidentiality through data encryption and authentication
techniques are important issues that need to be resolved for ensuring the legality of
the message-based transactions themselves
Middleware Services
Middleware is a relatively new concept that emerged only recently like so many
other innovations it came into being out of necessity Users in the 1970s when
vendors delivered homogenous systems that worked didnrsquot have a need for
middleware When conditions changed-along with the hardware and the software
the organisations couldnrsquot cope The tools were inadequate the backlog was
enormous and the pressure was overwhelming And the users were dissatisfied
Something was needed to solve all the interface translation transformation and
interpretation problems that were driving application developers crazy
With the growth of networks client-server technology and all other forms of
communicating betweenamong unlike platforms the problems of getting all the
pieces to work together grew from formidable to horrendous As the cry for
distributed computing spread users demanded interaction between dissimilar
systems networks that permitted shared resources and applications that could be
accessed by multiple software programs In simple terms middleware is the ultimate
mediator between diverse software programs that enables them talk to one another
Transparency
Transparency implies that users should be unaware that they are accessing multiple
systems Transparency is essential for dealing with higher-level issues than
physical media and interconnection that the underlying network infrastructure is in
charge of The ideal picture is one of a ldquoVirtualrdquo network a collection of work-group
departmental enterprise and enterprise LANs that appears to the end user or client
application to be a seamless and easily accessed whole
Transparency is accomplished using middleware that facilitates a distributed
computing environment This gives users and applications transparent access to
data computation and other resources across collections of multivendor
heterogeneous systems The strategic architectures of every major system vendor
are now based on some form of middleware The key to realising the theoretical
benefit of such an architecture is transparency Users need not spend their time
trying to understand where something is Nor should application developers have to
code into their applications the exact locations of resources over the network The
goal is for the applications to send a request to the middleware layer which then
satisfies the request anyway it can using remote information
Transaction Security and Management
Support for transaction processing (TP) is fundamental to success in the electronic
commerce market Security and management are essential to all layers in the
electronic commerce model Transaction integrity must be given for businesses that
cannot afford any loss or inconsistency in data For electronic commerce
middleware provides the qualities expected in the standard TP System the so-
called ACID properties (Atomicity Consistency Isolation and Durability)
World Wide Web (WWW) As the Architecture
Electronic commerce depends on the unspoken assumption that computers
cooperate efficiently for seamless information sharing Unfortunately this
assumption of interoperability has been supported by the realities of practical
computing Computing is still a world made up of many technical directions product
implementations and competing vendors This diversity while good for innovation
causes problem as the e-commerce applications try to impose a certain discipline
on the proliferating computers and networks It is ironic that real effect of computing
is all too often then prevention of data sharing due to incompatibilities-architectures
data formats and communication protocols
What does the Web Encompass
The web has become an umbrella for wide range of concepts and technologies that
differ markedly in purpose and scope These include the global hypertext publishing
concept the universal reader concept and the client-server concept
The global hypertext publishing concept promotes the idea of a seamless
information world in which all on-line information can be accessed and retrieved in
a consistent and simple way To access information in this seamless world we will
need the ability to address many types of data-text files images sound files and
animation sequences
The universal readership concept promotes the idea that unlike the segmented
applications of the past we can use one application-a universal (or common) user
interface-to read a variety of documents This concept implies that once information
is published it is accessible from any type of computer in any country and that any
(authorised) person merely needs to use one simple program to access it This is
accomplished in the web by using a core browser or application that is augmented
by supporting applications The core browser implements only minimal functionality
and attempts to offload more specialised work onto the supporting applications
The client server concept allows the web to grow easily without any centralised
control Anyone can publish information and anyone (as long as he or she is
authorized) can read and download it Publishing information requires a server
program and reading data requires a client browser All the clients and all the
servers are connected to one another by the Internet The various standard
protocols allows all clients to communicate with all servers In practice the web
hangs on a number of essential concepts including the following
The addressing scheme known as uniform resource locator (URL) makes the
hyper media world possible despite many different protocols
A network protocol known as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used by client
browsers and servers offers performance and features not otherwise available
A mark-up language (HTML) which every web client is required to understand
is used for the representation of hypertext documents containing text list boxes
and graphics information across the net
Chapter 4
Technology behind the Web
Information providers (or publishers) run programs (called servers) from which the
browsers (clients) can obtain information These programs can either be Web servers
that understand the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) ldquoGatewayrdquo programs that
convert an existing information format to hypertext or a non-HTTP server that Web
browser can access-anonymous FTP or Gopher servers
Web servers are composed of two major parts the hypertext transfer protocol for
transmitting documents between servers and clients and the hypertext mark-up
language (HTML) format for documents The link between HTML files and the HTTP
servers is provided by the uniform resource locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext that contains pointers to other
documents The browser let you deal with the pointers in a transparent way-select
the pointer and you are presented with the text to which it points This pointer is
implemented using a concept that is central to Web browsers Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs) One way to think about URLs is to use the libraries and location on
a shelf as a metaphor A URL for a digital library wold be a unique call number that
provides the exact location of every book in the world including the country city
street and library shelf location
In practice URLs are the string used as addresses of objects (documents images)
on the web Think of them as analogous to your e-mail address Just as your address
is unique and may be used by any other Internet user to send you mail without
knowing exactly where you are a URL marks the unique location on the Internet
where a file or service can be found
URLs follow a fairly consistent pattern The first part describes the type of resource
the second part gives the name of the server housing the resource and the third part
gives full filename of the resource URLs are universal in that they provide access to
a wide range of network services which required separate applications in the past
For a new network protocol one can easily form an address as the set of parameters
necessary to retrieve the object If these parameters are encoded into a concise
string with a prefix to identify the protocols and encoding one has a new URL
scheme Take a look at the URL format below
FTP ftpserveraddresscompletefilename
Gopher gopherserveraddressportdirectoryfilename
TELNET telnetserveraddressport
HTTP httpserveraddressporthomepagehtml
New newsmiscstocksinvest
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
CONTENTS
1 Chapter 1
Introduction
2 Chapter 2
Electronic Commerce and the World Wide Web
3 Chapter 3
Architectural Framework for Electronic Commerce
4 Chapter 4
Technology Behind the Web
5 Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
6 Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
7 Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
8 Chapter 8
Conclusion
Chapter 1
Introduction
Every individual of company that wants to make money and become the next
Microsoft needs to understand the market potential business implication and
technological foundations of electronic commerce But what is electronic commerce
everybody is talking about How does it affect the organisation way of doing
business What sort of technical and business skills are needed to be successful
Companies and consumers are discovering that global networking and other
technological innovations are powerful assets if used as competitive weapons in their
day to day activities E-Commerce is associated with the buying and selling of
information products and services via computer network today
Consumer desires are very hard to predict pin point or decipher in electronic markets
whose shape structure and population are still in early stages Needs envisioned
include entertainment on demand including 500 channel TV video on demand
games on demand electronic retailing via catalogues and Kiosks and home shopping
networks In future viewers will decide what they want to see and when they want to
participate and successful market places are expected to those that cater to
consumerrsquos loneliness boredom education and career In highly competitive society
where neighbours seldom talk to one another these outlets give consumer someone
to talk after going home
Letrsquos take a look at the changing conditions in the ldquonew economyrdquo with respect to the
retail industry Consumers are pushing retailers to the wall demanding lower prices
better quality and a large section of in-season goods Retailers are scrambling to fill
the order They are slashing back-office cost reducing profit-margins reducing cycle
times buying more wisely and making huge investment in technology They are
revamping distribution channels to make sure that warehouses costs are down by
reducing their average inventory levels and coordinating the consumer demand and
supply pattern
In the push to reduce prices more and more retailers are turning to overseas suppliers
in part because of cheaper labour costs Retail are the immediate line of fire and had
to do the cost cutting They put the pressure on the manufacturer and then to the
supplier end of the pipeline Electronic commerce is forcing companies to rethink the
existing ways of doing target marketing relationship marketing and even event
marketing Adaptation would include moving towards computerised ldquopaperlessrdquo
operations to reduce trading costs and facilitate the adoption of new business
process Japanese approach JIT (Just in Time) system total quality control and
quality circles are focused now for delivery of goods through electronic commerce
Chapter 2
Electronic Commerce and the World-Wide-Web We have broadly defined electronic commerce as a modern business methodology
that addresses the desire of the firm consumer and management to cut cost while
improving the quality of goods and increasing the speed of services The need for
electronic commerce stems from the demand within business and government to
make better use of computing that is better apply computer technology to improve
business process and information exchange both within an enterprise and across
organisations In short electronic commerce appears to be an integrating force that
represents the digital conversions of twenty-first century business applications and
computing technologies
Electronic commerce applications emphasize the generation and exploitation of new
business opportunity and to use the popular buzzword ldquogenerate business valuerdquo
For instance when buyer-seller transactions occur in the electronic marketplace
information is accessed absorbed arranged and sold in different ways In fact the
information a product or service is separated from the physical product or service and
has become important on its own In some cases the information can become as
crucial as the actual product or service in terms of its effect on a companyrsquos profits
In short information based business transactions are creating new ways of doing
business and even new types of business
Electronic commerce application are quite varied In its most common form E-
Commerce is also used to donate the paperless exchange of business information
using EDI Electronic Mail (E-Mail) Electronic Bulletin Boards Electronic Fund
Transfer (EFT) and other similar technologies These technologies are normally
applied in high-payoff areas recognizing that paper-handling activities usually
increase expense without adding value On the other hand the term electronic
commerce is used to describe a new on-line approach to perform traditional
functions such as payment and funds transfer order entry and processing invoicing
inventory management cargo tracking electronic catalogue and point-of-sale data
gathering More recently companies have realised that the advertising marketing
and customer support functions are also part of electronic commerce application
domain These business functions acts as initiators to the entire order management
cycle that incorporates the more established notions of electronic commerce In
short what we are witnessing is the use of the term electronic commerce as an
umbrella concept to integrate a wide range of new and old applications
Despite the changes taking place businesses have three goals stay competitive
improve productivity and deliver quality service These goals are the guiding boys for
firms plotting their course in the turbulent waters of electronic commerce There are
other factors that companies need to keep in mind First most companies have
already made enormous information technology investments to automate their key
internal processes such as purchasing invoicing and other similar functions So
some aspects of the technological infrastructure for electronic commerce are already
in place The challenge now become How to effectively leverage this investment
Second prices for computer hardware and network equipment continue to fall
marking information technology an appealing investment for many businesses
especially when itrsquos used for high-impact applications such as linking their distributed
operations However investment without a clear idea of the electronic commerce
architecture being built would be akin to driving with blinders on As a result
companies that have decided that electronic commerce applications represent one
of the best strategic investment they can make must first exert some effort to
understand the technology underlying electronic commerce applications
At first glance it appears that messaging based technologies such as EDI and Male-
Enabled applications combined with database and information management service
form the technical foundation for effective electronic commerce solutions No single
one of these technologies can deliver the full potential of electronic commerce
however What we require is an integrated architecture the likes of which has never
been seen before This integrated architecture is emerging in the form of the World
Wide Web (WWW) As electronic commerce becomes more mature we are
beginning to see sophisticated applications being developed on WWW Technically
and commercially the WWW client-server model seems poised to become a
dominant technology
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)
Information Sharing
Collaborative Work
Corporate
Digital
Library
Electronic Commerce
Marketing Advertising
Sales Customer Support
Electronic
Publishing
E-mail Fax
Electronic Messaging
Electronic Document Interchange
Chapter 3
Architectural framework for Electronic Commerce
The software framework necessary for building electronic commerce applications is
little understood in existing literature In general a framework is intended to define
and create tools that integrate the information found in todayrsquos closed systems and
allow the development of e-commerce applications It is important to understand that
the aim of the architectural framework itself is not to build new database management
systems data repository computer languages software agent-based transaction
monitors or communication protocols Rather the architecture should focus on
synthesizing the diverse resources already in place in corporations to facilitate the
integration of data and software for better applications
We propound that the electronic commerce application architecture consist of six
layers of functionality or services
1) Application
2) Brokerage services data or transaction management
3) Interface and support layers
4) Secure messaging and electronic document interchange
5) Middleware and structured document interchange
6) Network infrastructure and basic communication services
Applications Services
Customer-to-Business Business-to-Business Intra-organisational
Brokerage and data management
Order processing-mail order houses Payment scheme-electronic cash Clearinghouse or virtual mall
Interface layer
Interactive catalogue Directory support function Software agents
Secure messaging
Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol Encrypted e-mail EDI Remote programming (RPC)
Middleware services
Structure documents (SGML HTML) Compound document (OLE OpenDoc)
Network infrastructure
Wireless-cellular radio PCS Wire line-POTS Coaxial Fibre Optics
These layers cooperate to provide a seamless transition between todayrsquos computing
resources and those of tomorrow by transparently integrating information access and
exchange within the context of the chosen application As seen in above figure
electronic commerce applications are based on several elegant technologies But
only when they are integrated do they provide uniquely powerful solutions
In the ensuing discussion of each of these layers we will not elaborate on the various
aspects of the network infrastructure that transports information
Electronic Commerce Application Services
The application services layer of e-commerce will be comprised of existing and
future applications built on innate architecture Three distinct classes of electronic
applications can be distinguished Customer-to-Business Business-to-Business
and Intra-organisation
Accounting
Finance and
Management
Manufacturing
and
Production
Engineering
and
Research
Procurement Distribution and Logistics
Advertising Sales Customer Service
Global Suppliers
Classic EDI
Customers
Customer Oriented
Electronic Commerce
Private
Commerce
Internal
Publishing
o Customer-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market place transaction In a market place transaction
customers learn about products differently through electronic publishing buy them
differently using electronic cash and secure payment systems and have them
delivered differently Also how customers allocate their loyalty may also be
different
In light of this organisation itself has to adapt to a world where the traditional
concepts of brand differentiation no longer hold-where ldquoQualityrdquo has a new meaning
where ldquoContentrdquo may not be equated to ldquoProductrdquo where ldquoDistributionrdquo may not
automatically mean ldquoPhysical Transportrdquo In this new environment brand equity can
rapidly evaporate forcing firms to develop new ways of doing business
o Business-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market-link transactions Here businesses government and
other organisations depend on computer-to-computer communication as a fast an
economical and a dependable way to conduct business transactions Small
companies are also beginning to see the benefits of adopting the same methods
Business-to-business transactions include the use of EDI and Electronic mail for
purchasing goods and services buying information and consulting services
submitting request for proposals and receive proposals
For example the current accounts payable process occurs through the exchange
of paper documents Each year the trading partners exchange millions of invoices
checks purchase orders financial reports and other transactions Most of the
documents are in electronic form at their point of origin but are printed and key-
entered at the point of receipt The current manual process of printing mailing and
rekeying is costly time consuming and error-prone Given this situation and faced
with the need to reduce costs small businesses are looking towards electronic
commerce as possible saviour
o Intra-organisational transaction
We call this category market-driven transactions A company becomes market
driven by dispersing throughout the firm information about its customers and
competitors by spreading strategic and tactical decision making so that all units can
participate and by continuously monitoring their customer commitment by making
improve customer satisfaction an ongoing objective To maintain the relationships
that are critical to delivering superior customer value management must play close
attention to service both before and after sales
Information Brokerage and Management
The information brokerage and management layer provide service integration
through the notion of information brokerages the development of which is
necessitated by the increasing information resource fragmentation We use the
notion of information brokerage to represent an intermediary who provides service
integration between customers and information providers given some constraint
such as a low price fast service or profit maximisation for a client
Information brokers for example are rapidly becoming necessary in dealing with the
voluminous amounts of information on the networks As online database migrate to
consumer information utilities consumers and information professionals will have
to keep up the knowledge and ownership of all these systems Whorsquos got what
How do you use it What do they charge Most professionals have enough trouble
keeping track of files of interest on one or two database services With all the
complexity associated with large number of online database and service bureaus
itrsquos impossible to expect humans to do the searching It will have to be software
programs-information brokers or software agents to use the most popular term-Act
on searcherrsquos behalf Information brokerage does more than just searching
Interface and Support Services
The third layer interface and support services will provide interfaces for electronic
commerce applications such as interactive catalogues and will support directory
services-functions necessary for information search and access These two
concepts are very different Interactive catalogues are the customized interface to
consumer applications such as home shopping An interactive catalogue is an
extension of the paper-based catalogue and incorporates additional features such
as sophisticated graphics and video to make the advertising more attractive
Directories on the other hand operate behind the scenes and attempt to organise
the enormous amount of information and transactions generated to facilitate
electronic commerce Directory services database make data from any server
appear as a local file A classic example of a directory is the telephone White Pages
which allows us to locate people and telephone numbers In the case of electronic
commerce directories would play an important role in information management
functions For instance take the case of buying an airline ticket with several
stopovers with a caveat that the time between layovers be minimized This search
would require several queries to various online directories to find empty seats on
various airlines and then the availability of seats would be coordinated with the
amount of time spent in the airport terminals
Secure Messaging and Structured Document Interchange
Services
The importance of the fourth layer secure messaging is clear Everyone in
business knows that electronic messaging is a critical business issue Consider a
familiar business scenario you hand over an urgent fax on Monday and find out on
Tuesday that itrsquos still sitting on your fax operatorrsquos desk What happened The line
was busy and he thought he would try again later Or the number was wrong but
he forgot to let you know Or you are in London and you need to send a spreadsheet
that details a marketing plan for a product introduction strategy to co-worker in New
York This must be done today not tomorrow when the courier service would
deliver There is a solution to these common and frustrating problems Itrsquos called
integrated messaging a group of computer services that through the use of a
network send receive and combine messages faxes and large data file Some
better known examples are electronic mail enhance fax and electronic data
interchange
Broadly defined messaging is the software that sits between the network
infrastructure and the clients or electronic commerce applications masking the
peculiarities of the environment Others define messaging as a framework for the
total implementation of portable applications divorcing you from the architectural
primitives of your system In general messaging products are not applications that
solve problems they are more enablers of the application that solve problems
Messaging services offer solution for communicating non-formatted (unstructured)
data such as purchase orders shipping notices and invoices Unstructured
messaging consist of fax e-mail and form based system like Lotus Notes
Structured documents messaging consist of the automated interchange of
standardized and approved messages between computer applications via
telecommunication lines Examples of structured document messaging include EDI
Messaging is gaining momentum in electronic commerce and seems to have many
advantages It supports both synchronous (immediate) and asynchronous (delayed)
message delivery and processing With asynchronous when a message is sent
work continues (software doesnrsquot wait for a response) This allows the transfer of
messages through store-and-forward methods
The main disadvantages of messaging are the new types of applications it enables-
which appear to be more complex especially to traditional programmers-and the
jungle of standards it involves Because of the lack of standards there is often no
interoperability between messaging vendors leading to islands of messaging Also
security privacy and confidentiality through data encryption and authentication
techniques are important issues that need to be resolved for ensuring the legality of
the message-based transactions themselves
Middleware Services
Middleware is a relatively new concept that emerged only recently like so many
other innovations it came into being out of necessity Users in the 1970s when
vendors delivered homogenous systems that worked didnrsquot have a need for
middleware When conditions changed-along with the hardware and the software
the organisations couldnrsquot cope The tools were inadequate the backlog was
enormous and the pressure was overwhelming And the users were dissatisfied
Something was needed to solve all the interface translation transformation and
interpretation problems that were driving application developers crazy
With the growth of networks client-server technology and all other forms of
communicating betweenamong unlike platforms the problems of getting all the
pieces to work together grew from formidable to horrendous As the cry for
distributed computing spread users demanded interaction between dissimilar
systems networks that permitted shared resources and applications that could be
accessed by multiple software programs In simple terms middleware is the ultimate
mediator between diverse software programs that enables them talk to one another
Transparency
Transparency implies that users should be unaware that they are accessing multiple
systems Transparency is essential for dealing with higher-level issues than
physical media and interconnection that the underlying network infrastructure is in
charge of The ideal picture is one of a ldquoVirtualrdquo network a collection of work-group
departmental enterprise and enterprise LANs that appears to the end user or client
application to be a seamless and easily accessed whole
Transparency is accomplished using middleware that facilitates a distributed
computing environment This gives users and applications transparent access to
data computation and other resources across collections of multivendor
heterogeneous systems The strategic architectures of every major system vendor
are now based on some form of middleware The key to realising the theoretical
benefit of such an architecture is transparency Users need not spend their time
trying to understand where something is Nor should application developers have to
code into their applications the exact locations of resources over the network The
goal is for the applications to send a request to the middleware layer which then
satisfies the request anyway it can using remote information
Transaction Security and Management
Support for transaction processing (TP) is fundamental to success in the electronic
commerce market Security and management are essential to all layers in the
electronic commerce model Transaction integrity must be given for businesses that
cannot afford any loss or inconsistency in data For electronic commerce
middleware provides the qualities expected in the standard TP System the so-
called ACID properties (Atomicity Consistency Isolation and Durability)
World Wide Web (WWW) As the Architecture
Electronic commerce depends on the unspoken assumption that computers
cooperate efficiently for seamless information sharing Unfortunately this
assumption of interoperability has been supported by the realities of practical
computing Computing is still a world made up of many technical directions product
implementations and competing vendors This diversity while good for innovation
causes problem as the e-commerce applications try to impose a certain discipline
on the proliferating computers and networks It is ironic that real effect of computing
is all too often then prevention of data sharing due to incompatibilities-architectures
data formats and communication protocols
What does the Web Encompass
The web has become an umbrella for wide range of concepts and technologies that
differ markedly in purpose and scope These include the global hypertext publishing
concept the universal reader concept and the client-server concept
The global hypertext publishing concept promotes the idea of a seamless
information world in which all on-line information can be accessed and retrieved in
a consistent and simple way To access information in this seamless world we will
need the ability to address many types of data-text files images sound files and
animation sequences
The universal readership concept promotes the idea that unlike the segmented
applications of the past we can use one application-a universal (or common) user
interface-to read a variety of documents This concept implies that once information
is published it is accessible from any type of computer in any country and that any
(authorised) person merely needs to use one simple program to access it This is
accomplished in the web by using a core browser or application that is augmented
by supporting applications The core browser implements only minimal functionality
and attempts to offload more specialised work onto the supporting applications
The client server concept allows the web to grow easily without any centralised
control Anyone can publish information and anyone (as long as he or she is
authorized) can read and download it Publishing information requires a server
program and reading data requires a client browser All the clients and all the
servers are connected to one another by the Internet The various standard
protocols allows all clients to communicate with all servers In practice the web
hangs on a number of essential concepts including the following
The addressing scheme known as uniform resource locator (URL) makes the
hyper media world possible despite many different protocols
A network protocol known as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used by client
browsers and servers offers performance and features not otherwise available
A mark-up language (HTML) which every web client is required to understand
is used for the representation of hypertext documents containing text list boxes
and graphics information across the net
Chapter 4
Technology behind the Web
Information providers (or publishers) run programs (called servers) from which the
browsers (clients) can obtain information These programs can either be Web servers
that understand the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) ldquoGatewayrdquo programs that
convert an existing information format to hypertext or a non-HTTP server that Web
browser can access-anonymous FTP or Gopher servers
Web servers are composed of two major parts the hypertext transfer protocol for
transmitting documents between servers and clients and the hypertext mark-up
language (HTML) format for documents The link between HTML files and the HTTP
servers is provided by the uniform resource locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext that contains pointers to other
documents The browser let you deal with the pointers in a transparent way-select
the pointer and you are presented with the text to which it points This pointer is
implemented using a concept that is central to Web browsers Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs) One way to think about URLs is to use the libraries and location on
a shelf as a metaphor A URL for a digital library wold be a unique call number that
provides the exact location of every book in the world including the country city
street and library shelf location
In practice URLs are the string used as addresses of objects (documents images)
on the web Think of them as analogous to your e-mail address Just as your address
is unique and may be used by any other Internet user to send you mail without
knowing exactly where you are a URL marks the unique location on the Internet
where a file or service can be found
URLs follow a fairly consistent pattern The first part describes the type of resource
the second part gives the name of the server housing the resource and the third part
gives full filename of the resource URLs are universal in that they provide access to
a wide range of network services which required separate applications in the past
For a new network protocol one can easily form an address as the set of parameters
necessary to retrieve the object If these parameters are encoded into a concise
string with a prefix to identify the protocols and encoding one has a new URL
scheme Take a look at the URL format below
FTP ftpserveraddresscompletefilename
Gopher gopherserveraddressportdirectoryfilename
TELNET telnetserveraddressport
HTTP httpserveraddressporthomepagehtml
New newsmiscstocksinvest
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Chapter 1
Introduction
Every individual of company that wants to make money and become the next
Microsoft needs to understand the market potential business implication and
technological foundations of electronic commerce But what is electronic commerce
everybody is talking about How does it affect the organisation way of doing
business What sort of technical and business skills are needed to be successful
Companies and consumers are discovering that global networking and other
technological innovations are powerful assets if used as competitive weapons in their
day to day activities E-Commerce is associated with the buying and selling of
information products and services via computer network today
Consumer desires are very hard to predict pin point or decipher in electronic markets
whose shape structure and population are still in early stages Needs envisioned
include entertainment on demand including 500 channel TV video on demand
games on demand electronic retailing via catalogues and Kiosks and home shopping
networks In future viewers will decide what they want to see and when they want to
participate and successful market places are expected to those that cater to
consumerrsquos loneliness boredom education and career In highly competitive society
where neighbours seldom talk to one another these outlets give consumer someone
to talk after going home
Letrsquos take a look at the changing conditions in the ldquonew economyrdquo with respect to the
retail industry Consumers are pushing retailers to the wall demanding lower prices
better quality and a large section of in-season goods Retailers are scrambling to fill
the order They are slashing back-office cost reducing profit-margins reducing cycle
times buying more wisely and making huge investment in technology They are
revamping distribution channels to make sure that warehouses costs are down by
reducing their average inventory levels and coordinating the consumer demand and
supply pattern
In the push to reduce prices more and more retailers are turning to overseas suppliers
in part because of cheaper labour costs Retail are the immediate line of fire and had
to do the cost cutting They put the pressure on the manufacturer and then to the
supplier end of the pipeline Electronic commerce is forcing companies to rethink the
existing ways of doing target marketing relationship marketing and even event
marketing Adaptation would include moving towards computerised ldquopaperlessrdquo
operations to reduce trading costs and facilitate the adoption of new business
process Japanese approach JIT (Just in Time) system total quality control and
quality circles are focused now for delivery of goods through electronic commerce
Chapter 2
Electronic Commerce and the World-Wide-Web We have broadly defined electronic commerce as a modern business methodology
that addresses the desire of the firm consumer and management to cut cost while
improving the quality of goods and increasing the speed of services The need for
electronic commerce stems from the demand within business and government to
make better use of computing that is better apply computer technology to improve
business process and information exchange both within an enterprise and across
organisations In short electronic commerce appears to be an integrating force that
represents the digital conversions of twenty-first century business applications and
computing technologies
Electronic commerce applications emphasize the generation and exploitation of new
business opportunity and to use the popular buzzword ldquogenerate business valuerdquo
For instance when buyer-seller transactions occur in the electronic marketplace
information is accessed absorbed arranged and sold in different ways In fact the
information a product or service is separated from the physical product or service and
has become important on its own In some cases the information can become as
crucial as the actual product or service in terms of its effect on a companyrsquos profits
In short information based business transactions are creating new ways of doing
business and even new types of business
Electronic commerce application are quite varied In its most common form E-
Commerce is also used to donate the paperless exchange of business information
using EDI Electronic Mail (E-Mail) Electronic Bulletin Boards Electronic Fund
Transfer (EFT) and other similar technologies These technologies are normally
applied in high-payoff areas recognizing that paper-handling activities usually
increase expense without adding value On the other hand the term electronic
commerce is used to describe a new on-line approach to perform traditional
functions such as payment and funds transfer order entry and processing invoicing
inventory management cargo tracking electronic catalogue and point-of-sale data
gathering More recently companies have realised that the advertising marketing
and customer support functions are also part of electronic commerce application
domain These business functions acts as initiators to the entire order management
cycle that incorporates the more established notions of electronic commerce In
short what we are witnessing is the use of the term electronic commerce as an
umbrella concept to integrate a wide range of new and old applications
Despite the changes taking place businesses have three goals stay competitive
improve productivity and deliver quality service These goals are the guiding boys for
firms plotting their course in the turbulent waters of electronic commerce There are
other factors that companies need to keep in mind First most companies have
already made enormous information technology investments to automate their key
internal processes such as purchasing invoicing and other similar functions So
some aspects of the technological infrastructure for electronic commerce are already
in place The challenge now become How to effectively leverage this investment
Second prices for computer hardware and network equipment continue to fall
marking information technology an appealing investment for many businesses
especially when itrsquos used for high-impact applications such as linking their distributed
operations However investment without a clear idea of the electronic commerce
architecture being built would be akin to driving with blinders on As a result
companies that have decided that electronic commerce applications represent one
of the best strategic investment they can make must first exert some effort to
understand the technology underlying electronic commerce applications
At first glance it appears that messaging based technologies such as EDI and Male-
Enabled applications combined with database and information management service
form the technical foundation for effective electronic commerce solutions No single
one of these technologies can deliver the full potential of electronic commerce
however What we require is an integrated architecture the likes of which has never
been seen before This integrated architecture is emerging in the form of the World
Wide Web (WWW) As electronic commerce becomes more mature we are
beginning to see sophisticated applications being developed on WWW Technically
and commercially the WWW client-server model seems poised to become a
dominant technology
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)
Information Sharing
Collaborative Work
Corporate
Digital
Library
Electronic Commerce
Marketing Advertising
Sales Customer Support
Electronic
Publishing
E-mail Fax
Electronic Messaging
Electronic Document Interchange
Chapter 3
Architectural framework for Electronic Commerce
The software framework necessary for building electronic commerce applications is
little understood in existing literature In general a framework is intended to define
and create tools that integrate the information found in todayrsquos closed systems and
allow the development of e-commerce applications It is important to understand that
the aim of the architectural framework itself is not to build new database management
systems data repository computer languages software agent-based transaction
monitors or communication protocols Rather the architecture should focus on
synthesizing the diverse resources already in place in corporations to facilitate the
integration of data and software for better applications
We propound that the electronic commerce application architecture consist of six
layers of functionality or services
1) Application
2) Brokerage services data or transaction management
3) Interface and support layers
4) Secure messaging and electronic document interchange
5) Middleware and structured document interchange
6) Network infrastructure and basic communication services
Applications Services
Customer-to-Business Business-to-Business Intra-organisational
Brokerage and data management
Order processing-mail order houses Payment scheme-electronic cash Clearinghouse or virtual mall
Interface layer
Interactive catalogue Directory support function Software agents
Secure messaging
Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol Encrypted e-mail EDI Remote programming (RPC)
Middleware services
Structure documents (SGML HTML) Compound document (OLE OpenDoc)
Network infrastructure
Wireless-cellular radio PCS Wire line-POTS Coaxial Fibre Optics
These layers cooperate to provide a seamless transition between todayrsquos computing
resources and those of tomorrow by transparently integrating information access and
exchange within the context of the chosen application As seen in above figure
electronic commerce applications are based on several elegant technologies But
only when they are integrated do they provide uniquely powerful solutions
In the ensuing discussion of each of these layers we will not elaborate on the various
aspects of the network infrastructure that transports information
Electronic Commerce Application Services
The application services layer of e-commerce will be comprised of existing and
future applications built on innate architecture Three distinct classes of electronic
applications can be distinguished Customer-to-Business Business-to-Business
and Intra-organisation
Accounting
Finance and
Management
Manufacturing
and
Production
Engineering
and
Research
Procurement Distribution and Logistics
Advertising Sales Customer Service
Global Suppliers
Classic EDI
Customers
Customer Oriented
Electronic Commerce
Private
Commerce
Internal
Publishing
o Customer-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market place transaction In a market place transaction
customers learn about products differently through electronic publishing buy them
differently using electronic cash and secure payment systems and have them
delivered differently Also how customers allocate their loyalty may also be
different
In light of this organisation itself has to adapt to a world where the traditional
concepts of brand differentiation no longer hold-where ldquoQualityrdquo has a new meaning
where ldquoContentrdquo may not be equated to ldquoProductrdquo where ldquoDistributionrdquo may not
automatically mean ldquoPhysical Transportrdquo In this new environment brand equity can
rapidly evaporate forcing firms to develop new ways of doing business
o Business-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market-link transactions Here businesses government and
other organisations depend on computer-to-computer communication as a fast an
economical and a dependable way to conduct business transactions Small
companies are also beginning to see the benefits of adopting the same methods
Business-to-business transactions include the use of EDI and Electronic mail for
purchasing goods and services buying information and consulting services
submitting request for proposals and receive proposals
For example the current accounts payable process occurs through the exchange
of paper documents Each year the trading partners exchange millions of invoices
checks purchase orders financial reports and other transactions Most of the
documents are in electronic form at their point of origin but are printed and key-
entered at the point of receipt The current manual process of printing mailing and
rekeying is costly time consuming and error-prone Given this situation and faced
with the need to reduce costs small businesses are looking towards electronic
commerce as possible saviour
o Intra-organisational transaction
We call this category market-driven transactions A company becomes market
driven by dispersing throughout the firm information about its customers and
competitors by spreading strategic and tactical decision making so that all units can
participate and by continuously monitoring their customer commitment by making
improve customer satisfaction an ongoing objective To maintain the relationships
that are critical to delivering superior customer value management must play close
attention to service both before and after sales
Information Brokerage and Management
The information brokerage and management layer provide service integration
through the notion of information brokerages the development of which is
necessitated by the increasing information resource fragmentation We use the
notion of information brokerage to represent an intermediary who provides service
integration between customers and information providers given some constraint
such as a low price fast service or profit maximisation for a client
Information brokers for example are rapidly becoming necessary in dealing with the
voluminous amounts of information on the networks As online database migrate to
consumer information utilities consumers and information professionals will have
to keep up the knowledge and ownership of all these systems Whorsquos got what
How do you use it What do they charge Most professionals have enough trouble
keeping track of files of interest on one or two database services With all the
complexity associated with large number of online database and service bureaus
itrsquos impossible to expect humans to do the searching It will have to be software
programs-information brokers or software agents to use the most popular term-Act
on searcherrsquos behalf Information brokerage does more than just searching
Interface and Support Services
The third layer interface and support services will provide interfaces for electronic
commerce applications such as interactive catalogues and will support directory
services-functions necessary for information search and access These two
concepts are very different Interactive catalogues are the customized interface to
consumer applications such as home shopping An interactive catalogue is an
extension of the paper-based catalogue and incorporates additional features such
as sophisticated graphics and video to make the advertising more attractive
Directories on the other hand operate behind the scenes and attempt to organise
the enormous amount of information and transactions generated to facilitate
electronic commerce Directory services database make data from any server
appear as a local file A classic example of a directory is the telephone White Pages
which allows us to locate people and telephone numbers In the case of electronic
commerce directories would play an important role in information management
functions For instance take the case of buying an airline ticket with several
stopovers with a caveat that the time between layovers be minimized This search
would require several queries to various online directories to find empty seats on
various airlines and then the availability of seats would be coordinated with the
amount of time spent in the airport terminals
Secure Messaging and Structured Document Interchange
Services
The importance of the fourth layer secure messaging is clear Everyone in
business knows that electronic messaging is a critical business issue Consider a
familiar business scenario you hand over an urgent fax on Monday and find out on
Tuesday that itrsquos still sitting on your fax operatorrsquos desk What happened The line
was busy and he thought he would try again later Or the number was wrong but
he forgot to let you know Or you are in London and you need to send a spreadsheet
that details a marketing plan for a product introduction strategy to co-worker in New
York This must be done today not tomorrow when the courier service would
deliver There is a solution to these common and frustrating problems Itrsquos called
integrated messaging a group of computer services that through the use of a
network send receive and combine messages faxes and large data file Some
better known examples are electronic mail enhance fax and electronic data
interchange
Broadly defined messaging is the software that sits between the network
infrastructure and the clients or electronic commerce applications masking the
peculiarities of the environment Others define messaging as a framework for the
total implementation of portable applications divorcing you from the architectural
primitives of your system In general messaging products are not applications that
solve problems they are more enablers of the application that solve problems
Messaging services offer solution for communicating non-formatted (unstructured)
data such as purchase orders shipping notices and invoices Unstructured
messaging consist of fax e-mail and form based system like Lotus Notes
Structured documents messaging consist of the automated interchange of
standardized and approved messages between computer applications via
telecommunication lines Examples of structured document messaging include EDI
Messaging is gaining momentum in electronic commerce and seems to have many
advantages It supports both synchronous (immediate) and asynchronous (delayed)
message delivery and processing With asynchronous when a message is sent
work continues (software doesnrsquot wait for a response) This allows the transfer of
messages through store-and-forward methods
The main disadvantages of messaging are the new types of applications it enables-
which appear to be more complex especially to traditional programmers-and the
jungle of standards it involves Because of the lack of standards there is often no
interoperability between messaging vendors leading to islands of messaging Also
security privacy and confidentiality through data encryption and authentication
techniques are important issues that need to be resolved for ensuring the legality of
the message-based transactions themselves
Middleware Services
Middleware is a relatively new concept that emerged only recently like so many
other innovations it came into being out of necessity Users in the 1970s when
vendors delivered homogenous systems that worked didnrsquot have a need for
middleware When conditions changed-along with the hardware and the software
the organisations couldnrsquot cope The tools were inadequate the backlog was
enormous and the pressure was overwhelming And the users were dissatisfied
Something was needed to solve all the interface translation transformation and
interpretation problems that were driving application developers crazy
With the growth of networks client-server technology and all other forms of
communicating betweenamong unlike platforms the problems of getting all the
pieces to work together grew from formidable to horrendous As the cry for
distributed computing spread users demanded interaction between dissimilar
systems networks that permitted shared resources and applications that could be
accessed by multiple software programs In simple terms middleware is the ultimate
mediator between diverse software programs that enables them talk to one another
Transparency
Transparency implies that users should be unaware that they are accessing multiple
systems Transparency is essential for dealing with higher-level issues than
physical media and interconnection that the underlying network infrastructure is in
charge of The ideal picture is one of a ldquoVirtualrdquo network a collection of work-group
departmental enterprise and enterprise LANs that appears to the end user or client
application to be a seamless and easily accessed whole
Transparency is accomplished using middleware that facilitates a distributed
computing environment This gives users and applications transparent access to
data computation and other resources across collections of multivendor
heterogeneous systems The strategic architectures of every major system vendor
are now based on some form of middleware The key to realising the theoretical
benefit of such an architecture is transparency Users need not spend their time
trying to understand where something is Nor should application developers have to
code into their applications the exact locations of resources over the network The
goal is for the applications to send a request to the middleware layer which then
satisfies the request anyway it can using remote information
Transaction Security and Management
Support for transaction processing (TP) is fundamental to success in the electronic
commerce market Security and management are essential to all layers in the
electronic commerce model Transaction integrity must be given for businesses that
cannot afford any loss or inconsistency in data For electronic commerce
middleware provides the qualities expected in the standard TP System the so-
called ACID properties (Atomicity Consistency Isolation and Durability)
World Wide Web (WWW) As the Architecture
Electronic commerce depends on the unspoken assumption that computers
cooperate efficiently for seamless information sharing Unfortunately this
assumption of interoperability has been supported by the realities of practical
computing Computing is still a world made up of many technical directions product
implementations and competing vendors This diversity while good for innovation
causes problem as the e-commerce applications try to impose a certain discipline
on the proliferating computers and networks It is ironic that real effect of computing
is all too often then prevention of data sharing due to incompatibilities-architectures
data formats and communication protocols
What does the Web Encompass
The web has become an umbrella for wide range of concepts and technologies that
differ markedly in purpose and scope These include the global hypertext publishing
concept the universal reader concept and the client-server concept
The global hypertext publishing concept promotes the idea of a seamless
information world in which all on-line information can be accessed and retrieved in
a consistent and simple way To access information in this seamless world we will
need the ability to address many types of data-text files images sound files and
animation sequences
The universal readership concept promotes the idea that unlike the segmented
applications of the past we can use one application-a universal (or common) user
interface-to read a variety of documents This concept implies that once information
is published it is accessible from any type of computer in any country and that any
(authorised) person merely needs to use one simple program to access it This is
accomplished in the web by using a core browser or application that is augmented
by supporting applications The core browser implements only minimal functionality
and attempts to offload more specialised work onto the supporting applications
The client server concept allows the web to grow easily without any centralised
control Anyone can publish information and anyone (as long as he or she is
authorized) can read and download it Publishing information requires a server
program and reading data requires a client browser All the clients and all the
servers are connected to one another by the Internet The various standard
protocols allows all clients to communicate with all servers In practice the web
hangs on a number of essential concepts including the following
The addressing scheme known as uniform resource locator (URL) makes the
hyper media world possible despite many different protocols
A network protocol known as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used by client
browsers and servers offers performance and features not otherwise available
A mark-up language (HTML) which every web client is required to understand
is used for the representation of hypertext documents containing text list boxes
and graphics information across the net
Chapter 4
Technology behind the Web
Information providers (or publishers) run programs (called servers) from which the
browsers (clients) can obtain information These programs can either be Web servers
that understand the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) ldquoGatewayrdquo programs that
convert an existing information format to hypertext or a non-HTTP server that Web
browser can access-anonymous FTP or Gopher servers
Web servers are composed of two major parts the hypertext transfer protocol for
transmitting documents between servers and clients and the hypertext mark-up
language (HTML) format for documents The link between HTML files and the HTTP
servers is provided by the uniform resource locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext that contains pointers to other
documents The browser let you deal with the pointers in a transparent way-select
the pointer and you are presented with the text to which it points This pointer is
implemented using a concept that is central to Web browsers Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs) One way to think about URLs is to use the libraries and location on
a shelf as a metaphor A URL for a digital library wold be a unique call number that
provides the exact location of every book in the world including the country city
street and library shelf location
In practice URLs are the string used as addresses of objects (documents images)
on the web Think of them as analogous to your e-mail address Just as your address
is unique and may be used by any other Internet user to send you mail without
knowing exactly where you are a URL marks the unique location on the Internet
where a file or service can be found
URLs follow a fairly consistent pattern The first part describes the type of resource
the second part gives the name of the server housing the resource and the third part
gives full filename of the resource URLs are universal in that they provide access to
a wide range of network services which required separate applications in the past
For a new network protocol one can easily form an address as the set of parameters
necessary to retrieve the object If these parameters are encoded into a concise
string with a prefix to identify the protocols and encoding one has a new URL
scheme Take a look at the URL format below
FTP ftpserveraddresscompletefilename
Gopher gopherserveraddressportdirectoryfilename
TELNET telnetserveraddressport
HTTP httpserveraddressporthomepagehtml
New newsmiscstocksinvest
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Chapter 2
Electronic Commerce and the World-Wide-Web We have broadly defined electronic commerce as a modern business methodology
that addresses the desire of the firm consumer and management to cut cost while
improving the quality of goods and increasing the speed of services The need for
electronic commerce stems from the demand within business and government to
make better use of computing that is better apply computer technology to improve
business process and information exchange both within an enterprise and across
organisations In short electronic commerce appears to be an integrating force that
represents the digital conversions of twenty-first century business applications and
computing technologies
Electronic commerce applications emphasize the generation and exploitation of new
business opportunity and to use the popular buzzword ldquogenerate business valuerdquo
For instance when buyer-seller transactions occur in the electronic marketplace
information is accessed absorbed arranged and sold in different ways In fact the
information a product or service is separated from the physical product or service and
has become important on its own In some cases the information can become as
crucial as the actual product or service in terms of its effect on a companyrsquos profits
In short information based business transactions are creating new ways of doing
business and even new types of business
Electronic commerce application are quite varied In its most common form E-
Commerce is also used to donate the paperless exchange of business information
using EDI Electronic Mail (E-Mail) Electronic Bulletin Boards Electronic Fund
Transfer (EFT) and other similar technologies These technologies are normally
applied in high-payoff areas recognizing that paper-handling activities usually
increase expense without adding value On the other hand the term electronic
commerce is used to describe a new on-line approach to perform traditional
functions such as payment and funds transfer order entry and processing invoicing
inventory management cargo tracking electronic catalogue and point-of-sale data
gathering More recently companies have realised that the advertising marketing
and customer support functions are also part of electronic commerce application
domain These business functions acts as initiators to the entire order management
cycle that incorporates the more established notions of electronic commerce In
short what we are witnessing is the use of the term electronic commerce as an
umbrella concept to integrate a wide range of new and old applications
Despite the changes taking place businesses have three goals stay competitive
improve productivity and deliver quality service These goals are the guiding boys for
firms plotting their course in the turbulent waters of electronic commerce There are
other factors that companies need to keep in mind First most companies have
already made enormous information technology investments to automate their key
internal processes such as purchasing invoicing and other similar functions So
some aspects of the technological infrastructure for electronic commerce are already
in place The challenge now become How to effectively leverage this investment
Second prices for computer hardware and network equipment continue to fall
marking information technology an appealing investment for many businesses
especially when itrsquos used for high-impact applications such as linking their distributed
operations However investment without a clear idea of the electronic commerce
architecture being built would be akin to driving with blinders on As a result
companies that have decided that electronic commerce applications represent one
of the best strategic investment they can make must first exert some effort to
understand the technology underlying electronic commerce applications
At first glance it appears that messaging based technologies such as EDI and Male-
Enabled applications combined with database and information management service
form the technical foundation for effective electronic commerce solutions No single
one of these technologies can deliver the full potential of electronic commerce
however What we require is an integrated architecture the likes of which has never
been seen before This integrated architecture is emerging in the form of the World
Wide Web (WWW) As electronic commerce becomes more mature we are
beginning to see sophisticated applications being developed on WWW Technically
and commercially the WWW client-server model seems poised to become a
dominant technology
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)
Information Sharing
Collaborative Work
Corporate
Digital
Library
Electronic Commerce
Marketing Advertising
Sales Customer Support
Electronic
Publishing
E-mail Fax
Electronic Messaging
Electronic Document Interchange
Chapter 3
Architectural framework for Electronic Commerce
The software framework necessary for building electronic commerce applications is
little understood in existing literature In general a framework is intended to define
and create tools that integrate the information found in todayrsquos closed systems and
allow the development of e-commerce applications It is important to understand that
the aim of the architectural framework itself is not to build new database management
systems data repository computer languages software agent-based transaction
monitors or communication protocols Rather the architecture should focus on
synthesizing the diverse resources already in place in corporations to facilitate the
integration of data and software for better applications
We propound that the electronic commerce application architecture consist of six
layers of functionality or services
1) Application
2) Brokerage services data or transaction management
3) Interface and support layers
4) Secure messaging and electronic document interchange
5) Middleware and structured document interchange
6) Network infrastructure and basic communication services
Applications Services
Customer-to-Business Business-to-Business Intra-organisational
Brokerage and data management
Order processing-mail order houses Payment scheme-electronic cash Clearinghouse or virtual mall
Interface layer
Interactive catalogue Directory support function Software agents
Secure messaging
Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol Encrypted e-mail EDI Remote programming (RPC)
Middleware services
Structure documents (SGML HTML) Compound document (OLE OpenDoc)
Network infrastructure
Wireless-cellular radio PCS Wire line-POTS Coaxial Fibre Optics
These layers cooperate to provide a seamless transition between todayrsquos computing
resources and those of tomorrow by transparently integrating information access and
exchange within the context of the chosen application As seen in above figure
electronic commerce applications are based on several elegant technologies But
only when they are integrated do they provide uniquely powerful solutions
In the ensuing discussion of each of these layers we will not elaborate on the various
aspects of the network infrastructure that transports information
Electronic Commerce Application Services
The application services layer of e-commerce will be comprised of existing and
future applications built on innate architecture Three distinct classes of electronic
applications can be distinguished Customer-to-Business Business-to-Business
and Intra-organisation
Accounting
Finance and
Management
Manufacturing
and
Production
Engineering
and
Research
Procurement Distribution and Logistics
Advertising Sales Customer Service
Global Suppliers
Classic EDI
Customers
Customer Oriented
Electronic Commerce
Private
Commerce
Internal
Publishing
o Customer-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market place transaction In a market place transaction
customers learn about products differently through electronic publishing buy them
differently using electronic cash and secure payment systems and have them
delivered differently Also how customers allocate their loyalty may also be
different
In light of this organisation itself has to adapt to a world where the traditional
concepts of brand differentiation no longer hold-where ldquoQualityrdquo has a new meaning
where ldquoContentrdquo may not be equated to ldquoProductrdquo where ldquoDistributionrdquo may not
automatically mean ldquoPhysical Transportrdquo In this new environment brand equity can
rapidly evaporate forcing firms to develop new ways of doing business
o Business-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market-link transactions Here businesses government and
other organisations depend on computer-to-computer communication as a fast an
economical and a dependable way to conduct business transactions Small
companies are also beginning to see the benefits of adopting the same methods
Business-to-business transactions include the use of EDI and Electronic mail for
purchasing goods and services buying information and consulting services
submitting request for proposals and receive proposals
For example the current accounts payable process occurs through the exchange
of paper documents Each year the trading partners exchange millions of invoices
checks purchase orders financial reports and other transactions Most of the
documents are in electronic form at their point of origin but are printed and key-
entered at the point of receipt The current manual process of printing mailing and
rekeying is costly time consuming and error-prone Given this situation and faced
with the need to reduce costs small businesses are looking towards electronic
commerce as possible saviour
o Intra-organisational transaction
We call this category market-driven transactions A company becomes market
driven by dispersing throughout the firm information about its customers and
competitors by spreading strategic and tactical decision making so that all units can
participate and by continuously monitoring their customer commitment by making
improve customer satisfaction an ongoing objective To maintain the relationships
that are critical to delivering superior customer value management must play close
attention to service both before and after sales
Information Brokerage and Management
The information brokerage and management layer provide service integration
through the notion of information brokerages the development of which is
necessitated by the increasing information resource fragmentation We use the
notion of information brokerage to represent an intermediary who provides service
integration between customers and information providers given some constraint
such as a low price fast service or profit maximisation for a client
Information brokers for example are rapidly becoming necessary in dealing with the
voluminous amounts of information on the networks As online database migrate to
consumer information utilities consumers and information professionals will have
to keep up the knowledge and ownership of all these systems Whorsquos got what
How do you use it What do they charge Most professionals have enough trouble
keeping track of files of interest on one or two database services With all the
complexity associated with large number of online database and service bureaus
itrsquos impossible to expect humans to do the searching It will have to be software
programs-information brokers or software agents to use the most popular term-Act
on searcherrsquos behalf Information brokerage does more than just searching
Interface and Support Services
The third layer interface and support services will provide interfaces for electronic
commerce applications such as interactive catalogues and will support directory
services-functions necessary for information search and access These two
concepts are very different Interactive catalogues are the customized interface to
consumer applications such as home shopping An interactive catalogue is an
extension of the paper-based catalogue and incorporates additional features such
as sophisticated graphics and video to make the advertising more attractive
Directories on the other hand operate behind the scenes and attempt to organise
the enormous amount of information and transactions generated to facilitate
electronic commerce Directory services database make data from any server
appear as a local file A classic example of a directory is the telephone White Pages
which allows us to locate people and telephone numbers In the case of electronic
commerce directories would play an important role in information management
functions For instance take the case of buying an airline ticket with several
stopovers with a caveat that the time between layovers be minimized This search
would require several queries to various online directories to find empty seats on
various airlines and then the availability of seats would be coordinated with the
amount of time spent in the airport terminals
Secure Messaging and Structured Document Interchange
Services
The importance of the fourth layer secure messaging is clear Everyone in
business knows that electronic messaging is a critical business issue Consider a
familiar business scenario you hand over an urgent fax on Monday and find out on
Tuesday that itrsquos still sitting on your fax operatorrsquos desk What happened The line
was busy and he thought he would try again later Or the number was wrong but
he forgot to let you know Or you are in London and you need to send a spreadsheet
that details a marketing plan for a product introduction strategy to co-worker in New
York This must be done today not tomorrow when the courier service would
deliver There is a solution to these common and frustrating problems Itrsquos called
integrated messaging a group of computer services that through the use of a
network send receive and combine messages faxes and large data file Some
better known examples are electronic mail enhance fax and electronic data
interchange
Broadly defined messaging is the software that sits between the network
infrastructure and the clients or electronic commerce applications masking the
peculiarities of the environment Others define messaging as a framework for the
total implementation of portable applications divorcing you from the architectural
primitives of your system In general messaging products are not applications that
solve problems they are more enablers of the application that solve problems
Messaging services offer solution for communicating non-formatted (unstructured)
data such as purchase orders shipping notices and invoices Unstructured
messaging consist of fax e-mail and form based system like Lotus Notes
Structured documents messaging consist of the automated interchange of
standardized and approved messages between computer applications via
telecommunication lines Examples of structured document messaging include EDI
Messaging is gaining momentum in electronic commerce and seems to have many
advantages It supports both synchronous (immediate) and asynchronous (delayed)
message delivery and processing With asynchronous when a message is sent
work continues (software doesnrsquot wait for a response) This allows the transfer of
messages through store-and-forward methods
The main disadvantages of messaging are the new types of applications it enables-
which appear to be more complex especially to traditional programmers-and the
jungle of standards it involves Because of the lack of standards there is often no
interoperability between messaging vendors leading to islands of messaging Also
security privacy and confidentiality through data encryption and authentication
techniques are important issues that need to be resolved for ensuring the legality of
the message-based transactions themselves
Middleware Services
Middleware is a relatively new concept that emerged only recently like so many
other innovations it came into being out of necessity Users in the 1970s when
vendors delivered homogenous systems that worked didnrsquot have a need for
middleware When conditions changed-along with the hardware and the software
the organisations couldnrsquot cope The tools were inadequate the backlog was
enormous and the pressure was overwhelming And the users were dissatisfied
Something was needed to solve all the interface translation transformation and
interpretation problems that were driving application developers crazy
With the growth of networks client-server technology and all other forms of
communicating betweenamong unlike platforms the problems of getting all the
pieces to work together grew from formidable to horrendous As the cry for
distributed computing spread users demanded interaction between dissimilar
systems networks that permitted shared resources and applications that could be
accessed by multiple software programs In simple terms middleware is the ultimate
mediator between diverse software programs that enables them talk to one another
Transparency
Transparency implies that users should be unaware that they are accessing multiple
systems Transparency is essential for dealing with higher-level issues than
physical media and interconnection that the underlying network infrastructure is in
charge of The ideal picture is one of a ldquoVirtualrdquo network a collection of work-group
departmental enterprise and enterprise LANs that appears to the end user or client
application to be a seamless and easily accessed whole
Transparency is accomplished using middleware that facilitates a distributed
computing environment This gives users and applications transparent access to
data computation and other resources across collections of multivendor
heterogeneous systems The strategic architectures of every major system vendor
are now based on some form of middleware The key to realising the theoretical
benefit of such an architecture is transparency Users need not spend their time
trying to understand where something is Nor should application developers have to
code into their applications the exact locations of resources over the network The
goal is for the applications to send a request to the middleware layer which then
satisfies the request anyway it can using remote information
Transaction Security and Management
Support for transaction processing (TP) is fundamental to success in the electronic
commerce market Security and management are essential to all layers in the
electronic commerce model Transaction integrity must be given for businesses that
cannot afford any loss or inconsistency in data For electronic commerce
middleware provides the qualities expected in the standard TP System the so-
called ACID properties (Atomicity Consistency Isolation and Durability)
World Wide Web (WWW) As the Architecture
Electronic commerce depends on the unspoken assumption that computers
cooperate efficiently for seamless information sharing Unfortunately this
assumption of interoperability has been supported by the realities of practical
computing Computing is still a world made up of many technical directions product
implementations and competing vendors This diversity while good for innovation
causes problem as the e-commerce applications try to impose a certain discipline
on the proliferating computers and networks It is ironic that real effect of computing
is all too often then prevention of data sharing due to incompatibilities-architectures
data formats and communication protocols
What does the Web Encompass
The web has become an umbrella for wide range of concepts and technologies that
differ markedly in purpose and scope These include the global hypertext publishing
concept the universal reader concept and the client-server concept
The global hypertext publishing concept promotes the idea of a seamless
information world in which all on-line information can be accessed and retrieved in
a consistent and simple way To access information in this seamless world we will
need the ability to address many types of data-text files images sound files and
animation sequences
The universal readership concept promotes the idea that unlike the segmented
applications of the past we can use one application-a universal (or common) user
interface-to read a variety of documents This concept implies that once information
is published it is accessible from any type of computer in any country and that any
(authorised) person merely needs to use one simple program to access it This is
accomplished in the web by using a core browser or application that is augmented
by supporting applications The core browser implements only minimal functionality
and attempts to offload more specialised work onto the supporting applications
The client server concept allows the web to grow easily without any centralised
control Anyone can publish information and anyone (as long as he or she is
authorized) can read and download it Publishing information requires a server
program and reading data requires a client browser All the clients and all the
servers are connected to one another by the Internet The various standard
protocols allows all clients to communicate with all servers In practice the web
hangs on a number of essential concepts including the following
The addressing scheme known as uniform resource locator (URL) makes the
hyper media world possible despite many different protocols
A network protocol known as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used by client
browsers and servers offers performance and features not otherwise available
A mark-up language (HTML) which every web client is required to understand
is used for the representation of hypertext documents containing text list boxes
and graphics information across the net
Chapter 4
Technology behind the Web
Information providers (or publishers) run programs (called servers) from which the
browsers (clients) can obtain information These programs can either be Web servers
that understand the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) ldquoGatewayrdquo programs that
convert an existing information format to hypertext or a non-HTTP server that Web
browser can access-anonymous FTP or Gopher servers
Web servers are composed of two major parts the hypertext transfer protocol for
transmitting documents between servers and clients and the hypertext mark-up
language (HTML) format for documents The link between HTML files and the HTTP
servers is provided by the uniform resource locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext that contains pointers to other
documents The browser let you deal with the pointers in a transparent way-select
the pointer and you are presented with the text to which it points This pointer is
implemented using a concept that is central to Web browsers Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs) One way to think about URLs is to use the libraries and location on
a shelf as a metaphor A URL for a digital library wold be a unique call number that
provides the exact location of every book in the world including the country city
street and library shelf location
In practice URLs are the string used as addresses of objects (documents images)
on the web Think of them as analogous to your e-mail address Just as your address
is unique and may be used by any other Internet user to send you mail without
knowing exactly where you are a URL marks the unique location on the Internet
where a file or service can be found
URLs follow a fairly consistent pattern The first part describes the type of resource
the second part gives the name of the server housing the resource and the third part
gives full filename of the resource URLs are universal in that they provide access to
a wide range of network services which required separate applications in the past
For a new network protocol one can easily form an address as the set of parameters
necessary to retrieve the object If these parameters are encoded into a concise
string with a prefix to identify the protocols and encoding one has a new URL
scheme Take a look at the URL format below
FTP ftpserveraddresscompletefilename
Gopher gopherserveraddressportdirectoryfilename
TELNET telnetserveraddressport
HTTP httpserveraddressporthomepagehtml
New newsmiscstocksinvest
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Despite the changes taking place businesses have three goals stay competitive
improve productivity and deliver quality service These goals are the guiding boys for
firms plotting their course in the turbulent waters of electronic commerce There are
other factors that companies need to keep in mind First most companies have
already made enormous information technology investments to automate their key
internal processes such as purchasing invoicing and other similar functions So
some aspects of the technological infrastructure for electronic commerce are already
in place The challenge now become How to effectively leverage this investment
Second prices for computer hardware and network equipment continue to fall
marking information technology an appealing investment for many businesses
especially when itrsquos used for high-impact applications such as linking their distributed
operations However investment without a clear idea of the electronic commerce
architecture being built would be akin to driving with blinders on As a result
companies that have decided that electronic commerce applications represent one
of the best strategic investment they can make must first exert some effort to
understand the technology underlying electronic commerce applications
At first glance it appears that messaging based technologies such as EDI and Male-
Enabled applications combined with database and information management service
form the technical foundation for effective electronic commerce solutions No single
one of these technologies can deliver the full potential of electronic commerce
however What we require is an integrated architecture the likes of which has never
been seen before This integrated architecture is emerging in the form of the World
Wide Web (WWW) As electronic commerce becomes more mature we are
beginning to see sophisticated applications being developed on WWW Technically
and commercially the WWW client-server model seems poised to become a
dominant technology
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)
Information Sharing
Collaborative Work
Corporate
Digital
Library
Electronic Commerce
Marketing Advertising
Sales Customer Support
Electronic
Publishing
E-mail Fax
Electronic Messaging
Electronic Document Interchange
Chapter 3
Architectural framework for Electronic Commerce
The software framework necessary for building electronic commerce applications is
little understood in existing literature In general a framework is intended to define
and create tools that integrate the information found in todayrsquos closed systems and
allow the development of e-commerce applications It is important to understand that
the aim of the architectural framework itself is not to build new database management
systems data repository computer languages software agent-based transaction
monitors or communication protocols Rather the architecture should focus on
synthesizing the diverse resources already in place in corporations to facilitate the
integration of data and software for better applications
We propound that the electronic commerce application architecture consist of six
layers of functionality or services
1) Application
2) Brokerage services data or transaction management
3) Interface and support layers
4) Secure messaging and electronic document interchange
5) Middleware and structured document interchange
6) Network infrastructure and basic communication services
Applications Services
Customer-to-Business Business-to-Business Intra-organisational
Brokerage and data management
Order processing-mail order houses Payment scheme-electronic cash Clearinghouse or virtual mall
Interface layer
Interactive catalogue Directory support function Software agents
Secure messaging
Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol Encrypted e-mail EDI Remote programming (RPC)
Middleware services
Structure documents (SGML HTML) Compound document (OLE OpenDoc)
Network infrastructure
Wireless-cellular radio PCS Wire line-POTS Coaxial Fibre Optics
These layers cooperate to provide a seamless transition between todayrsquos computing
resources and those of tomorrow by transparently integrating information access and
exchange within the context of the chosen application As seen in above figure
electronic commerce applications are based on several elegant technologies But
only when they are integrated do they provide uniquely powerful solutions
In the ensuing discussion of each of these layers we will not elaborate on the various
aspects of the network infrastructure that transports information
Electronic Commerce Application Services
The application services layer of e-commerce will be comprised of existing and
future applications built on innate architecture Three distinct classes of electronic
applications can be distinguished Customer-to-Business Business-to-Business
and Intra-organisation
Accounting
Finance and
Management
Manufacturing
and
Production
Engineering
and
Research
Procurement Distribution and Logistics
Advertising Sales Customer Service
Global Suppliers
Classic EDI
Customers
Customer Oriented
Electronic Commerce
Private
Commerce
Internal
Publishing
o Customer-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market place transaction In a market place transaction
customers learn about products differently through electronic publishing buy them
differently using electronic cash and secure payment systems and have them
delivered differently Also how customers allocate their loyalty may also be
different
In light of this organisation itself has to adapt to a world where the traditional
concepts of brand differentiation no longer hold-where ldquoQualityrdquo has a new meaning
where ldquoContentrdquo may not be equated to ldquoProductrdquo where ldquoDistributionrdquo may not
automatically mean ldquoPhysical Transportrdquo In this new environment brand equity can
rapidly evaporate forcing firms to develop new ways of doing business
o Business-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market-link transactions Here businesses government and
other organisations depend on computer-to-computer communication as a fast an
economical and a dependable way to conduct business transactions Small
companies are also beginning to see the benefits of adopting the same methods
Business-to-business transactions include the use of EDI and Electronic mail for
purchasing goods and services buying information and consulting services
submitting request for proposals and receive proposals
For example the current accounts payable process occurs through the exchange
of paper documents Each year the trading partners exchange millions of invoices
checks purchase orders financial reports and other transactions Most of the
documents are in electronic form at their point of origin but are printed and key-
entered at the point of receipt The current manual process of printing mailing and
rekeying is costly time consuming and error-prone Given this situation and faced
with the need to reduce costs small businesses are looking towards electronic
commerce as possible saviour
o Intra-organisational transaction
We call this category market-driven transactions A company becomes market
driven by dispersing throughout the firm information about its customers and
competitors by spreading strategic and tactical decision making so that all units can
participate and by continuously monitoring their customer commitment by making
improve customer satisfaction an ongoing objective To maintain the relationships
that are critical to delivering superior customer value management must play close
attention to service both before and after sales
Information Brokerage and Management
The information brokerage and management layer provide service integration
through the notion of information brokerages the development of which is
necessitated by the increasing information resource fragmentation We use the
notion of information brokerage to represent an intermediary who provides service
integration between customers and information providers given some constraint
such as a low price fast service or profit maximisation for a client
Information brokers for example are rapidly becoming necessary in dealing with the
voluminous amounts of information on the networks As online database migrate to
consumer information utilities consumers and information professionals will have
to keep up the knowledge and ownership of all these systems Whorsquos got what
How do you use it What do they charge Most professionals have enough trouble
keeping track of files of interest on one or two database services With all the
complexity associated with large number of online database and service bureaus
itrsquos impossible to expect humans to do the searching It will have to be software
programs-information brokers or software agents to use the most popular term-Act
on searcherrsquos behalf Information brokerage does more than just searching
Interface and Support Services
The third layer interface and support services will provide interfaces for electronic
commerce applications such as interactive catalogues and will support directory
services-functions necessary for information search and access These two
concepts are very different Interactive catalogues are the customized interface to
consumer applications such as home shopping An interactive catalogue is an
extension of the paper-based catalogue and incorporates additional features such
as sophisticated graphics and video to make the advertising more attractive
Directories on the other hand operate behind the scenes and attempt to organise
the enormous amount of information and transactions generated to facilitate
electronic commerce Directory services database make data from any server
appear as a local file A classic example of a directory is the telephone White Pages
which allows us to locate people and telephone numbers In the case of electronic
commerce directories would play an important role in information management
functions For instance take the case of buying an airline ticket with several
stopovers with a caveat that the time between layovers be minimized This search
would require several queries to various online directories to find empty seats on
various airlines and then the availability of seats would be coordinated with the
amount of time spent in the airport terminals
Secure Messaging and Structured Document Interchange
Services
The importance of the fourth layer secure messaging is clear Everyone in
business knows that electronic messaging is a critical business issue Consider a
familiar business scenario you hand over an urgent fax on Monday and find out on
Tuesday that itrsquos still sitting on your fax operatorrsquos desk What happened The line
was busy and he thought he would try again later Or the number was wrong but
he forgot to let you know Or you are in London and you need to send a spreadsheet
that details a marketing plan for a product introduction strategy to co-worker in New
York This must be done today not tomorrow when the courier service would
deliver There is a solution to these common and frustrating problems Itrsquos called
integrated messaging a group of computer services that through the use of a
network send receive and combine messages faxes and large data file Some
better known examples are electronic mail enhance fax and electronic data
interchange
Broadly defined messaging is the software that sits between the network
infrastructure and the clients or electronic commerce applications masking the
peculiarities of the environment Others define messaging as a framework for the
total implementation of portable applications divorcing you from the architectural
primitives of your system In general messaging products are not applications that
solve problems they are more enablers of the application that solve problems
Messaging services offer solution for communicating non-formatted (unstructured)
data such as purchase orders shipping notices and invoices Unstructured
messaging consist of fax e-mail and form based system like Lotus Notes
Structured documents messaging consist of the automated interchange of
standardized and approved messages between computer applications via
telecommunication lines Examples of structured document messaging include EDI
Messaging is gaining momentum in electronic commerce and seems to have many
advantages It supports both synchronous (immediate) and asynchronous (delayed)
message delivery and processing With asynchronous when a message is sent
work continues (software doesnrsquot wait for a response) This allows the transfer of
messages through store-and-forward methods
The main disadvantages of messaging are the new types of applications it enables-
which appear to be more complex especially to traditional programmers-and the
jungle of standards it involves Because of the lack of standards there is often no
interoperability between messaging vendors leading to islands of messaging Also
security privacy and confidentiality through data encryption and authentication
techniques are important issues that need to be resolved for ensuring the legality of
the message-based transactions themselves
Middleware Services
Middleware is a relatively new concept that emerged only recently like so many
other innovations it came into being out of necessity Users in the 1970s when
vendors delivered homogenous systems that worked didnrsquot have a need for
middleware When conditions changed-along with the hardware and the software
the organisations couldnrsquot cope The tools were inadequate the backlog was
enormous and the pressure was overwhelming And the users were dissatisfied
Something was needed to solve all the interface translation transformation and
interpretation problems that were driving application developers crazy
With the growth of networks client-server technology and all other forms of
communicating betweenamong unlike platforms the problems of getting all the
pieces to work together grew from formidable to horrendous As the cry for
distributed computing spread users demanded interaction between dissimilar
systems networks that permitted shared resources and applications that could be
accessed by multiple software programs In simple terms middleware is the ultimate
mediator between diverse software programs that enables them talk to one another
Transparency
Transparency implies that users should be unaware that they are accessing multiple
systems Transparency is essential for dealing with higher-level issues than
physical media and interconnection that the underlying network infrastructure is in
charge of The ideal picture is one of a ldquoVirtualrdquo network a collection of work-group
departmental enterprise and enterprise LANs that appears to the end user or client
application to be a seamless and easily accessed whole
Transparency is accomplished using middleware that facilitates a distributed
computing environment This gives users and applications transparent access to
data computation and other resources across collections of multivendor
heterogeneous systems The strategic architectures of every major system vendor
are now based on some form of middleware The key to realising the theoretical
benefit of such an architecture is transparency Users need not spend their time
trying to understand where something is Nor should application developers have to
code into their applications the exact locations of resources over the network The
goal is for the applications to send a request to the middleware layer which then
satisfies the request anyway it can using remote information
Transaction Security and Management
Support for transaction processing (TP) is fundamental to success in the electronic
commerce market Security and management are essential to all layers in the
electronic commerce model Transaction integrity must be given for businesses that
cannot afford any loss or inconsistency in data For electronic commerce
middleware provides the qualities expected in the standard TP System the so-
called ACID properties (Atomicity Consistency Isolation and Durability)
World Wide Web (WWW) As the Architecture
Electronic commerce depends on the unspoken assumption that computers
cooperate efficiently for seamless information sharing Unfortunately this
assumption of interoperability has been supported by the realities of practical
computing Computing is still a world made up of many technical directions product
implementations and competing vendors This diversity while good for innovation
causes problem as the e-commerce applications try to impose a certain discipline
on the proliferating computers and networks It is ironic that real effect of computing
is all too often then prevention of data sharing due to incompatibilities-architectures
data formats and communication protocols
What does the Web Encompass
The web has become an umbrella for wide range of concepts and technologies that
differ markedly in purpose and scope These include the global hypertext publishing
concept the universal reader concept and the client-server concept
The global hypertext publishing concept promotes the idea of a seamless
information world in which all on-line information can be accessed and retrieved in
a consistent and simple way To access information in this seamless world we will
need the ability to address many types of data-text files images sound files and
animation sequences
The universal readership concept promotes the idea that unlike the segmented
applications of the past we can use one application-a universal (or common) user
interface-to read a variety of documents This concept implies that once information
is published it is accessible from any type of computer in any country and that any
(authorised) person merely needs to use one simple program to access it This is
accomplished in the web by using a core browser or application that is augmented
by supporting applications The core browser implements only minimal functionality
and attempts to offload more specialised work onto the supporting applications
The client server concept allows the web to grow easily without any centralised
control Anyone can publish information and anyone (as long as he or she is
authorized) can read and download it Publishing information requires a server
program and reading data requires a client browser All the clients and all the
servers are connected to one another by the Internet The various standard
protocols allows all clients to communicate with all servers In practice the web
hangs on a number of essential concepts including the following
The addressing scheme known as uniform resource locator (URL) makes the
hyper media world possible despite many different protocols
A network protocol known as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used by client
browsers and servers offers performance and features not otherwise available
A mark-up language (HTML) which every web client is required to understand
is used for the representation of hypertext documents containing text list boxes
and graphics information across the net
Chapter 4
Technology behind the Web
Information providers (or publishers) run programs (called servers) from which the
browsers (clients) can obtain information These programs can either be Web servers
that understand the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) ldquoGatewayrdquo programs that
convert an existing information format to hypertext or a non-HTTP server that Web
browser can access-anonymous FTP or Gopher servers
Web servers are composed of two major parts the hypertext transfer protocol for
transmitting documents between servers and clients and the hypertext mark-up
language (HTML) format for documents The link between HTML files and the HTTP
servers is provided by the uniform resource locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext that contains pointers to other
documents The browser let you deal with the pointers in a transparent way-select
the pointer and you are presented with the text to which it points This pointer is
implemented using a concept that is central to Web browsers Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs) One way to think about URLs is to use the libraries and location on
a shelf as a metaphor A URL for a digital library wold be a unique call number that
provides the exact location of every book in the world including the country city
street and library shelf location
In practice URLs are the string used as addresses of objects (documents images)
on the web Think of them as analogous to your e-mail address Just as your address
is unique and may be used by any other Internet user to send you mail without
knowing exactly where you are a URL marks the unique location on the Internet
where a file or service can be found
URLs follow a fairly consistent pattern The first part describes the type of resource
the second part gives the name of the server housing the resource and the third part
gives full filename of the resource URLs are universal in that they provide access to
a wide range of network services which required separate applications in the past
For a new network protocol one can easily form an address as the set of parameters
necessary to retrieve the object If these parameters are encoded into a concise
string with a prefix to identify the protocols and encoding one has a new URL
scheme Take a look at the URL format below
FTP ftpserveraddresscompletefilename
Gopher gopherserveraddressportdirectoryfilename
TELNET telnetserveraddressport
HTTP httpserveraddressporthomepagehtml
New newsmiscstocksinvest
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Chapter 3
Architectural framework for Electronic Commerce
The software framework necessary for building electronic commerce applications is
little understood in existing literature In general a framework is intended to define
and create tools that integrate the information found in todayrsquos closed systems and
allow the development of e-commerce applications It is important to understand that
the aim of the architectural framework itself is not to build new database management
systems data repository computer languages software agent-based transaction
monitors or communication protocols Rather the architecture should focus on
synthesizing the diverse resources already in place in corporations to facilitate the
integration of data and software for better applications
We propound that the electronic commerce application architecture consist of six
layers of functionality or services
1) Application
2) Brokerage services data or transaction management
3) Interface and support layers
4) Secure messaging and electronic document interchange
5) Middleware and structured document interchange
6) Network infrastructure and basic communication services
Applications Services
Customer-to-Business Business-to-Business Intra-organisational
Brokerage and data management
Order processing-mail order houses Payment scheme-electronic cash Clearinghouse or virtual mall
Interface layer
Interactive catalogue Directory support function Software agents
Secure messaging
Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol Encrypted e-mail EDI Remote programming (RPC)
Middleware services
Structure documents (SGML HTML) Compound document (OLE OpenDoc)
Network infrastructure
Wireless-cellular radio PCS Wire line-POTS Coaxial Fibre Optics
These layers cooperate to provide a seamless transition between todayrsquos computing
resources and those of tomorrow by transparently integrating information access and
exchange within the context of the chosen application As seen in above figure
electronic commerce applications are based on several elegant technologies But
only when they are integrated do they provide uniquely powerful solutions
In the ensuing discussion of each of these layers we will not elaborate on the various
aspects of the network infrastructure that transports information
Electronic Commerce Application Services
The application services layer of e-commerce will be comprised of existing and
future applications built on innate architecture Three distinct classes of electronic
applications can be distinguished Customer-to-Business Business-to-Business
and Intra-organisation
Accounting
Finance and
Management
Manufacturing
and
Production
Engineering
and
Research
Procurement Distribution and Logistics
Advertising Sales Customer Service
Global Suppliers
Classic EDI
Customers
Customer Oriented
Electronic Commerce
Private
Commerce
Internal
Publishing
o Customer-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market place transaction In a market place transaction
customers learn about products differently through electronic publishing buy them
differently using electronic cash and secure payment systems and have them
delivered differently Also how customers allocate their loyalty may also be
different
In light of this organisation itself has to adapt to a world where the traditional
concepts of brand differentiation no longer hold-where ldquoQualityrdquo has a new meaning
where ldquoContentrdquo may not be equated to ldquoProductrdquo where ldquoDistributionrdquo may not
automatically mean ldquoPhysical Transportrdquo In this new environment brand equity can
rapidly evaporate forcing firms to develop new ways of doing business
o Business-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market-link transactions Here businesses government and
other organisations depend on computer-to-computer communication as a fast an
economical and a dependable way to conduct business transactions Small
companies are also beginning to see the benefits of adopting the same methods
Business-to-business transactions include the use of EDI and Electronic mail for
purchasing goods and services buying information and consulting services
submitting request for proposals and receive proposals
For example the current accounts payable process occurs through the exchange
of paper documents Each year the trading partners exchange millions of invoices
checks purchase orders financial reports and other transactions Most of the
documents are in electronic form at their point of origin but are printed and key-
entered at the point of receipt The current manual process of printing mailing and
rekeying is costly time consuming and error-prone Given this situation and faced
with the need to reduce costs small businesses are looking towards electronic
commerce as possible saviour
o Intra-organisational transaction
We call this category market-driven transactions A company becomes market
driven by dispersing throughout the firm information about its customers and
competitors by spreading strategic and tactical decision making so that all units can
participate and by continuously monitoring their customer commitment by making
improve customer satisfaction an ongoing objective To maintain the relationships
that are critical to delivering superior customer value management must play close
attention to service both before and after sales
Information Brokerage and Management
The information brokerage and management layer provide service integration
through the notion of information brokerages the development of which is
necessitated by the increasing information resource fragmentation We use the
notion of information brokerage to represent an intermediary who provides service
integration between customers and information providers given some constraint
such as a low price fast service or profit maximisation for a client
Information brokers for example are rapidly becoming necessary in dealing with the
voluminous amounts of information on the networks As online database migrate to
consumer information utilities consumers and information professionals will have
to keep up the knowledge and ownership of all these systems Whorsquos got what
How do you use it What do they charge Most professionals have enough trouble
keeping track of files of interest on one or two database services With all the
complexity associated with large number of online database and service bureaus
itrsquos impossible to expect humans to do the searching It will have to be software
programs-information brokers or software agents to use the most popular term-Act
on searcherrsquos behalf Information brokerage does more than just searching
Interface and Support Services
The third layer interface and support services will provide interfaces for electronic
commerce applications such as interactive catalogues and will support directory
services-functions necessary for information search and access These two
concepts are very different Interactive catalogues are the customized interface to
consumer applications such as home shopping An interactive catalogue is an
extension of the paper-based catalogue and incorporates additional features such
as sophisticated graphics and video to make the advertising more attractive
Directories on the other hand operate behind the scenes and attempt to organise
the enormous amount of information and transactions generated to facilitate
electronic commerce Directory services database make data from any server
appear as a local file A classic example of a directory is the telephone White Pages
which allows us to locate people and telephone numbers In the case of electronic
commerce directories would play an important role in information management
functions For instance take the case of buying an airline ticket with several
stopovers with a caveat that the time between layovers be minimized This search
would require several queries to various online directories to find empty seats on
various airlines and then the availability of seats would be coordinated with the
amount of time spent in the airport terminals
Secure Messaging and Structured Document Interchange
Services
The importance of the fourth layer secure messaging is clear Everyone in
business knows that electronic messaging is a critical business issue Consider a
familiar business scenario you hand over an urgent fax on Monday and find out on
Tuesday that itrsquos still sitting on your fax operatorrsquos desk What happened The line
was busy and he thought he would try again later Or the number was wrong but
he forgot to let you know Or you are in London and you need to send a spreadsheet
that details a marketing plan for a product introduction strategy to co-worker in New
York This must be done today not tomorrow when the courier service would
deliver There is a solution to these common and frustrating problems Itrsquos called
integrated messaging a group of computer services that through the use of a
network send receive and combine messages faxes and large data file Some
better known examples are electronic mail enhance fax and electronic data
interchange
Broadly defined messaging is the software that sits between the network
infrastructure and the clients or electronic commerce applications masking the
peculiarities of the environment Others define messaging as a framework for the
total implementation of portable applications divorcing you from the architectural
primitives of your system In general messaging products are not applications that
solve problems they are more enablers of the application that solve problems
Messaging services offer solution for communicating non-formatted (unstructured)
data such as purchase orders shipping notices and invoices Unstructured
messaging consist of fax e-mail and form based system like Lotus Notes
Structured documents messaging consist of the automated interchange of
standardized and approved messages between computer applications via
telecommunication lines Examples of structured document messaging include EDI
Messaging is gaining momentum in electronic commerce and seems to have many
advantages It supports both synchronous (immediate) and asynchronous (delayed)
message delivery and processing With asynchronous when a message is sent
work continues (software doesnrsquot wait for a response) This allows the transfer of
messages through store-and-forward methods
The main disadvantages of messaging are the new types of applications it enables-
which appear to be more complex especially to traditional programmers-and the
jungle of standards it involves Because of the lack of standards there is often no
interoperability between messaging vendors leading to islands of messaging Also
security privacy and confidentiality through data encryption and authentication
techniques are important issues that need to be resolved for ensuring the legality of
the message-based transactions themselves
Middleware Services
Middleware is a relatively new concept that emerged only recently like so many
other innovations it came into being out of necessity Users in the 1970s when
vendors delivered homogenous systems that worked didnrsquot have a need for
middleware When conditions changed-along with the hardware and the software
the organisations couldnrsquot cope The tools were inadequate the backlog was
enormous and the pressure was overwhelming And the users were dissatisfied
Something was needed to solve all the interface translation transformation and
interpretation problems that were driving application developers crazy
With the growth of networks client-server technology and all other forms of
communicating betweenamong unlike platforms the problems of getting all the
pieces to work together grew from formidable to horrendous As the cry for
distributed computing spread users demanded interaction between dissimilar
systems networks that permitted shared resources and applications that could be
accessed by multiple software programs In simple terms middleware is the ultimate
mediator between diverse software programs that enables them talk to one another
Transparency
Transparency implies that users should be unaware that they are accessing multiple
systems Transparency is essential for dealing with higher-level issues than
physical media and interconnection that the underlying network infrastructure is in
charge of The ideal picture is one of a ldquoVirtualrdquo network a collection of work-group
departmental enterprise and enterprise LANs that appears to the end user or client
application to be a seamless and easily accessed whole
Transparency is accomplished using middleware that facilitates a distributed
computing environment This gives users and applications transparent access to
data computation and other resources across collections of multivendor
heterogeneous systems The strategic architectures of every major system vendor
are now based on some form of middleware The key to realising the theoretical
benefit of such an architecture is transparency Users need not spend their time
trying to understand where something is Nor should application developers have to
code into their applications the exact locations of resources over the network The
goal is for the applications to send a request to the middleware layer which then
satisfies the request anyway it can using remote information
Transaction Security and Management
Support for transaction processing (TP) is fundamental to success in the electronic
commerce market Security and management are essential to all layers in the
electronic commerce model Transaction integrity must be given for businesses that
cannot afford any loss or inconsistency in data For electronic commerce
middleware provides the qualities expected in the standard TP System the so-
called ACID properties (Atomicity Consistency Isolation and Durability)
World Wide Web (WWW) As the Architecture
Electronic commerce depends on the unspoken assumption that computers
cooperate efficiently for seamless information sharing Unfortunately this
assumption of interoperability has been supported by the realities of practical
computing Computing is still a world made up of many technical directions product
implementations and competing vendors This diversity while good for innovation
causes problem as the e-commerce applications try to impose a certain discipline
on the proliferating computers and networks It is ironic that real effect of computing
is all too often then prevention of data sharing due to incompatibilities-architectures
data formats and communication protocols
What does the Web Encompass
The web has become an umbrella for wide range of concepts and technologies that
differ markedly in purpose and scope These include the global hypertext publishing
concept the universal reader concept and the client-server concept
The global hypertext publishing concept promotes the idea of a seamless
information world in which all on-line information can be accessed and retrieved in
a consistent and simple way To access information in this seamless world we will
need the ability to address many types of data-text files images sound files and
animation sequences
The universal readership concept promotes the idea that unlike the segmented
applications of the past we can use one application-a universal (or common) user
interface-to read a variety of documents This concept implies that once information
is published it is accessible from any type of computer in any country and that any
(authorised) person merely needs to use one simple program to access it This is
accomplished in the web by using a core browser or application that is augmented
by supporting applications The core browser implements only minimal functionality
and attempts to offload more specialised work onto the supporting applications
The client server concept allows the web to grow easily without any centralised
control Anyone can publish information and anyone (as long as he or she is
authorized) can read and download it Publishing information requires a server
program and reading data requires a client browser All the clients and all the
servers are connected to one another by the Internet The various standard
protocols allows all clients to communicate with all servers In practice the web
hangs on a number of essential concepts including the following
The addressing scheme known as uniform resource locator (URL) makes the
hyper media world possible despite many different protocols
A network protocol known as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used by client
browsers and servers offers performance and features not otherwise available
A mark-up language (HTML) which every web client is required to understand
is used for the representation of hypertext documents containing text list boxes
and graphics information across the net
Chapter 4
Technology behind the Web
Information providers (or publishers) run programs (called servers) from which the
browsers (clients) can obtain information These programs can either be Web servers
that understand the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) ldquoGatewayrdquo programs that
convert an existing information format to hypertext or a non-HTTP server that Web
browser can access-anonymous FTP or Gopher servers
Web servers are composed of two major parts the hypertext transfer protocol for
transmitting documents between servers and clients and the hypertext mark-up
language (HTML) format for documents The link between HTML files and the HTTP
servers is provided by the uniform resource locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext that contains pointers to other
documents The browser let you deal with the pointers in a transparent way-select
the pointer and you are presented with the text to which it points This pointer is
implemented using a concept that is central to Web browsers Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs) One way to think about URLs is to use the libraries and location on
a shelf as a metaphor A URL for a digital library wold be a unique call number that
provides the exact location of every book in the world including the country city
street and library shelf location
In practice URLs are the string used as addresses of objects (documents images)
on the web Think of them as analogous to your e-mail address Just as your address
is unique and may be used by any other Internet user to send you mail without
knowing exactly where you are a URL marks the unique location on the Internet
where a file or service can be found
URLs follow a fairly consistent pattern The first part describes the type of resource
the second part gives the name of the server housing the resource and the third part
gives full filename of the resource URLs are universal in that they provide access to
a wide range of network services which required separate applications in the past
For a new network protocol one can easily form an address as the set of parameters
necessary to retrieve the object If these parameters are encoded into a concise
string with a prefix to identify the protocols and encoding one has a new URL
scheme Take a look at the URL format below
FTP ftpserveraddresscompletefilename
Gopher gopherserveraddressportdirectoryfilename
TELNET telnetserveraddressport
HTTP httpserveraddressporthomepagehtml
New newsmiscstocksinvest
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
These layers cooperate to provide a seamless transition between todayrsquos computing
resources and those of tomorrow by transparently integrating information access and
exchange within the context of the chosen application As seen in above figure
electronic commerce applications are based on several elegant technologies But
only when they are integrated do they provide uniquely powerful solutions
In the ensuing discussion of each of these layers we will not elaborate on the various
aspects of the network infrastructure that transports information
Electronic Commerce Application Services
The application services layer of e-commerce will be comprised of existing and
future applications built on innate architecture Three distinct classes of electronic
applications can be distinguished Customer-to-Business Business-to-Business
and Intra-organisation
Accounting
Finance and
Management
Manufacturing
and
Production
Engineering
and
Research
Procurement Distribution and Logistics
Advertising Sales Customer Service
Global Suppliers
Classic EDI
Customers
Customer Oriented
Electronic Commerce
Private
Commerce
Internal
Publishing
o Customer-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market place transaction In a market place transaction
customers learn about products differently through electronic publishing buy them
differently using electronic cash and secure payment systems and have them
delivered differently Also how customers allocate their loyalty may also be
different
In light of this organisation itself has to adapt to a world where the traditional
concepts of brand differentiation no longer hold-where ldquoQualityrdquo has a new meaning
where ldquoContentrdquo may not be equated to ldquoProductrdquo where ldquoDistributionrdquo may not
automatically mean ldquoPhysical Transportrdquo In this new environment brand equity can
rapidly evaporate forcing firms to develop new ways of doing business
o Business-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market-link transactions Here businesses government and
other organisations depend on computer-to-computer communication as a fast an
economical and a dependable way to conduct business transactions Small
companies are also beginning to see the benefits of adopting the same methods
Business-to-business transactions include the use of EDI and Electronic mail for
purchasing goods and services buying information and consulting services
submitting request for proposals and receive proposals
For example the current accounts payable process occurs through the exchange
of paper documents Each year the trading partners exchange millions of invoices
checks purchase orders financial reports and other transactions Most of the
documents are in electronic form at their point of origin but are printed and key-
entered at the point of receipt The current manual process of printing mailing and
rekeying is costly time consuming and error-prone Given this situation and faced
with the need to reduce costs small businesses are looking towards electronic
commerce as possible saviour
o Intra-organisational transaction
We call this category market-driven transactions A company becomes market
driven by dispersing throughout the firm information about its customers and
competitors by spreading strategic and tactical decision making so that all units can
participate and by continuously monitoring their customer commitment by making
improve customer satisfaction an ongoing objective To maintain the relationships
that are critical to delivering superior customer value management must play close
attention to service both before and after sales
Information Brokerage and Management
The information brokerage and management layer provide service integration
through the notion of information brokerages the development of which is
necessitated by the increasing information resource fragmentation We use the
notion of information brokerage to represent an intermediary who provides service
integration between customers and information providers given some constraint
such as a low price fast service or profit maximisation for a client
Information brokers for example are rapidly becoming necessary in dealing with the
voluminous amounts of information on the networks As online database migrate to
consumer information utilities consumers and information professionals will have
to keep up the knowledge and ownership of all these systems Whorsquos got what
How do you use it What do they charge Most professionals have enough trouble
keeping track of files of interest on one or two database services With all the
complexity associated with large number of online database and service bureaus
itrsquos impossible to expect humans to do the searching It will have to be software
programs-information brokers or software agents to use the most popular term-Act
on searcherrsquos behalf Information brokerage does more than just searching
Interface and Support Services
The third layer interface and support services will provide interfaces for electronic
commerce applications such as interactive catalogues and will support directory
services-functions necessary for information search and access These two
concepts are very different Interactive catalogues are the customized interface to
consumer applications such as home shopping An interactive catalogue is an
extension of the paper-based catalogue and incorporates additional features such
as sophisticated graphics and video to make the advertising more attractive
Directories on the other hand operate behind the scenes and attempt to organise
the enormous amount of information and transactions generated to facilitate
electronic commerce Directory services database make data from any server
appear as a local file A classic example of a directory is the telephone White Pages
which allows us to locate people and telephone numbers In the case of electronic
commerce directories would play an important role in information management
functions For instance take the case of buying an airline ticket with several
stopovers with a caveat that the time between layovers be minimized This search
would require several queries to various online directories to find empty seats on
various airlines and then the availability of seats would be coordinated with the
amount of time spent in the airport terminals
Secure Messaging and Structured Document Interchange
Services
The importance of the fourth layer secure messaging is clear Everyone in
business knows that electronic messaging is a critical business issue Consider a
familiar business scenario you hand over an urgent fax on Monday and find out on
Tuesday that itrsquos still sitting on your fax operatorrsquos desk What happened The line
was busy and he thought he would try again later Or the number was wrong but
he forgot to let you know Or you are in London and you need to send a spreadsheet
that details a marketing plan for a product introduction strategy to co-worker in New
York This must be done today not tomorrow when the courier service would
deliver There is a solution to these common and frustrating problems Itrsquos called
integrated messaging a group of computer services that through the use of a
network send receive and combine messages faxes and large data file Some
better known examples are electronic mail enhance fax and electronic data
interchange
Broadly defined messaging is the software that sits between the network
infrastructure and the clients or electronic commerce applications masking the
peculiarities of the environment Others define messaging as a framework for the
total implementation of portable applications divorcing you from the architectural
primitives of your system In general messaging products are not applications that
solve problems they are more enablers of the application that solve problems
Messaging services offer solution for communicating non-formatted (unstructured)
data such as purchase orders shipping notices and invoices Unstructured
messaging consist of fax e-mail and form based system like Lotus Notes
Structured documents messaging consist of the automated interchange of
standardized and approved messages between computer applications via
telecommunication lines Examples of structured document messaging include EDI
Messaging is gaining momentum in electronic commerce and seems to have many
advantages It supports both synchronous (immediate) and asynchronous (delayed)
message delivery and processing With asynchronous when a message is sent
work continues (software doesnrsquot wait for a response) This allows the transfer of
messages through store-and-forward methods
The main disadvantages of messaging are the new types of applications it enables-
which appear to be more complex especially to traditional programmers-and the
jungle of standards it involves Because of the lack of standards there is often no
interoperability between messaging vendors leading to islands of messaging Also
security privacy and confidentiality through data encryption and authentication
techniques are important issues that need to be resolved for ensuring the legality of
the message-based transactions themselves
Middleware Services
Middleware is a relatively new concept that emerged only recently like so many
other innovations it came into being out of necessity Users in the 1970s when
vendors delivered homogenous systems that worked didnrsquot have a need for
middleware When conditions changed-along with the hardware and the software
the organisations couldnrsquot cope The tools were inadequate the backlog was
enormous and the pressure was overwhelming And the users were dissatisfied
Something was needed to solve all the interface translation transformation and
interpretation problems that were driving application developers crazy
With the growth of networks client-server technology and all other forms of
communicating betweenamong unlike platforms the problems of getting all the
pieces to work together grew from formidable to horrendous As the cry for
distributed computing spread users demanded interaction between dissimilar
systems networks that permitted shared resources and applications that could be
accessed by multiple software programs In simple terms middleware is the ultimate
mediator between diverse software programs that enables them talk to one another
Transparency
Transparency implies that users should be unaware that they are accessing multiple
systems Transparency is essential for dealing with higher-level issues than
physical media and interconnection that the underlying network infrastructure is in
charge of The ideal picture is one of a ldquoVirtualrdquo network a collection of work-group
departmental enterprise and enterprise LANs that appears to the end user or client
application to be a seamless and easily accessed whole
Transparency is accomplished using middleware that facilitates a distributed
computing environment This gives users and applications transparent access to
data computation and other resources across collections of multivendor
heterogeneous systems The strategic architectures of every major system vendor
are now based on some form of middleware The key to realising the theoretical
benefit of such an architecture is transparency Users need not spend their time
trying to understand where something is Nor should application developers have to
code into their applications the exact locations of resources over the network The
goal is for the applications to send a request to the middleware layer which then
satisfies the request anyway it can using remote information
Transaction Security and Management
Support for transaction processing (TP) is fundamental to success in the electronic
commerce market Security and management are essential to all layers in the
electronic commerce model Transaction integrity must be given for businesses that
cannot afford any loss or inconsistency in data For electronic commerce
middleware provides the qualities expected in the standard TP System the so-
called ACID properties (Atomicity Consistency Isolation and Durability)
World Wide Web (WWW) As the Architecture
Electronic commerce depends on the unspoken assumption that computers
cooperate efficiently for seamless information sharing Unfortunately this
assumption of interoperability has been supported by the realities of practical
computing Computing is still a world made up of many technical directions product
implementations and competing vendors This diversity while good for innovation
causes problem as the e-commerce applications try to impose a certain discipline
on the proliferating computers and networks It is ironic that real effect of computing
is all too often then prevention of data sharing due to incompatibilities-architectures
data formats and communication protocols
What does the Web Encompass
The web has become an umbrella for wide range of concepts and technologies that
differ markedly in purpose and scope These include the global hypertext publishing
concept the universal reader concept and the client-server concept
The global hypertext publishing concept promotes the idea of a seamless
information world in which all on-line information can be accessed and retrieved in
a consistent and simple way To access information in this seamless world we will
need the ability to address many types of data-text files images sound files and
animation sequences
The universal readership concept promotes the idea that unlike the segmented
applications of the past we can use one application-a universal (or common) user
interface-to read a variety of documents This concept implies that once information
is published it is accessible from any type of computer in any country and that any
(authorised) person merely needs to use one simple program to access it This is
accomplished in the web by using a core browser or application that is augmented
by supporting applications The core browser implements only minimal functionality
and attempts to offload more specialised work onto the supporting applications
The client server concept allows the web to grow easily without any centralised
control Anyone can publish information and anyone (as long as he or she is
authorized) can read and download it Publishing information requires a server
program and reading data requires a client browser All the clients and all the
servers are connected to one another by the Internet The various standard
protocols allows all clients to communicate with all servers In practice the web
hangs on a number of essential concepts including the following
The addressing scheme known as uniform resource locator (URL) makes the
hyper media world possible despite many different protocols
A network protocol known as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used by client
browsers and servers offers performance and features not otherwise available
A mark-up language (HTML) which every web client is required to understand
is used for the representation of hypertext documents containing text list boxes
and graphics information across the net
Chapter 4
Technology behind the Web
Information providers (or publishers) run programs (called servers) from which the
browsers (clients) can obtain information These programs can either be Web servers
that understand the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) ldquoGatewayrdquo programs that
convert an existing information format to hypertext or a non-HTTP server that Web
browser can access-anonymous FTP or Gopher servers
Web servers are composed of two major parts the hypertext transfer protocol for
transmitting documents between servers and clients and the hypertext mark-up
language (HTML) format for documents The link between HTML files and the HTTP
servers is provided by the uniform resource locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext that contains pointers to other
documents The browser let you deal with the pointers in a transparent way-select
the pointer and you are presented with the text to which it points This pointer is
implemented using a concept that is central to Web browsers Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs) One way to think about URLs is to use the libraries and location on
a shelf as a metaphor A URL for a digital library wold be a unique call number that
provides the exact location of every book in the world including the country city
street and library shelf location
In practice URLs are the string used as addresses of objects (documents images)
on the web Think of them as analogous to your e-mail address Just as your address
is unique and may be used by any other Internet user to send you mail without
knowing exactly where you are a URL marks the unique location on the Internet
where a file or service can be found
URLs follow a fairly consistent pattern The first part describes the type of resource
the second part gives the name of the server housing the resource and the third part
gives full filename of the resource URLs are universal in that they provide access to
a wide range of network services which required separate applications in the past
For a new network protocol one can easily form an address as the set of parameters
necessary to retrieve the object If these parameters are encoded into a concise
string with a prefix to identify the protocols and encoding one has a new URL
scheme Take a look at the URL format below
FTP ftpserveraddresscompletefilename
Gopher gopherserveraddressportdirectoryfilename
TELNET telnetserveraddressport
HTTP httpserveraddressporthomepagehtml
New newsmiscstocksinvest
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
o Customer-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market place transaction In a market place transaction
customers learn about products differently through electronic publishing buy them
differently using electronic cash and secure payment systems and have them
delivered differently Also how customers allocate their loyalty may also be
different
In light of this organisation itself has to adapt to a world where the traditional
concepts of brand differentiation no longer hold-where ldquoQualityrdquo has a new meaning
where ldquoContentrdquo may not be equated to ldquoProductrdquo where ldquoDistributionrdquo may not
automatically mean ldquoPhysical Transportrdquo In this new environment brand equity can
rapidly evaporate forcing firms to develop new ways of doing business
o Business-to-Business Transaction
We call this category market-link transactions Here businesses government and
other organisations depend on computer-to-computer communication as a fast an
economical and a dependable way to conduct business transactions Small
companies are also beginning to see the benefits of adopting the same methods
Business-to-business transactions include the use of EDI and Electronic mail for
purchasing goods and services buying information and consulting services
submitting request for proposals and receive proposals
For example the current accounts payable process occurs through the exchange
of paper documents Each year the trading partners exchange millions of invoices
checks purchase orders financial reports and other transactions Most of the
documents are in electronic form at their point of origin but are printed and key-
entered at the point of receipt The current manual process of printing mailing and
rekeying is costly time consuming and error-prone Given this situation and faced
with the need to reduce costs small businesses are looking towards electronic
commerce as possible saviour
o Intra-organisational transaction
We call this category market-driven transactions A company becomes market
driven by dispersing throughout the firm information about its customers and
competitors by spreading strategic and tactical decision making so that all units can
participate and by continuously monitoring their customer commitment by making
improve customer satisfaction an ongoing objective To maintain the relationships
that are critical to delivering superior customer value management must play close
attention to service both before and after sales
Information Brokerage and Management
The information brokerage and management layer provide service integration
through the notion of information brokerages the development of which is
necessitated by the increasing information resource fragmentation We use the
notion of information brokerage to represent an intermediary who provides service
integration between customers and information providers given some constraint
such as a low price fast service or profit maximisation for a client
Information brokers for example are rapidly becoming necessary in dealing with the
voluminous amounts of information on the networks As online database migrate to
consumer information utilities consumers and information professionals will have
to keep up the knowledge and ownership of all these systems Whorsquos got what
How do you use it What do they charge Most professionals have enough trouble
keeping track of files of interest on one or two database services With all the
complexity associated with large number of online database and service bureaus
itrsquos impossible to expect humans to do the searching It will have to be software
programs-information brokers or software agents to use the most popular term-Act
on searcherrsquos behalf Information brokerage does more than just searching
Interface and Support Services
The third layer interface and support services will provide interfaces for electronic
commerce applications such as interactive catalogues and will support directory
services-functions necessary for information search and access These two
concepts are very different Interactive catalogues are the customized interface to
consumer applications such as home shopping An interactive catalogue is an
extension of the paper-based catalogue and incorporates additional features such
as sophisticated graphics and video to make the advertising more attractive
Directories on the other hand operate behind the scenes and attempt to organise
the enormous amount of information and transactions generated to facilitate
electronic commerce Directory services database make data from any server
appear as a local file A classic example of a directory is the telephone White Pages
which allows us to locate people and telephone numbers In the case of electronic
commerce directories would play an important role in information management
functions For instance take the case of buying an airline ticket with several
stopovers with a caveat that the time between layovers be minimized This search
would require several queries to various online directories to find empty seats on
various airlines and then the availability of seats would be coordinated with the
amount of time spent in the airport terminals
Secure Messaging and Structured Document Interchange
Services
The importance of the fourth layer secure messaging is clear Everyone in
business knows that electronic messaging is a critical business issue Consider a
familiar business scenario you hand over an urgent fax on Monday and find out on
Tuesday that itrsquos still sitting on your fax operatorrsquos desk What happened The line
was busy and he thought he would try again later Or the number was wrong but
he forgot to let you know Or you are in London and you need to send a spreadsheet
that details a marketing plan for a product introduction strategy to co-worker in New
York This must be done today not tomorrow when the courier service would
deliver There is a solution to these common and frustrating problems Itrsquos called
integrated messaging a group of computer services that through the use of a
network send receive and combine messages faxes and large data file Some
better known examples are electronic mail enhance fax and electronic data
interchange
Broadly defined messaging is the software that sits between the network
infrastructure and the clients or electronic commerce applications masking the
peculiarities of the environment Others define messaging as a framework for the
total implementation of portable applications divorcing you from the architectural
primitives of your system In general messaging products are not applications that
solve problems they are more enablers of the application that solve problems
Messaging services offer solution for communicating non-formatted (unstructured)
data such as purchase orders shipping notices and invoices Unstructured
messaging consist of fax e-mail and form based system like Lotus Notes
Structured documents messaging consist of the automated interchange of
standardized and approved messages between computer applications via
telecommunication lines Examples of structured document messaging include EDI
Messaging is gaining momentum in electronic commerce and seems to have many
advantages It supports both synchronous (immediate) and asynchronous (delayed)
message delivery and processing With asynchronous when a message is sent
work continues (software doesnrsquot wait for a response) This allows the transfer of
messages through store-and-forward methods
The main disadvantages of messaging are the new types of applications it enables-
which appear to be more complex especially to traditional programmers-and the
jungle of standards it involves Because of the lack of standards there is often no
interoperability between messaging vendors leading to islands of messaging Also
security privacy and confidentiality through data encryption and authentication
techniques are important issues that need to be resolved for ensuring the legality of
the message-based transactions themselves
Middleware Services
Middleware is a relatively new concept that emerged only recently like so many
other innovations it came into being out of necessity Users in the 1970s when
vendors delivered homogenous systems that worked didnrsquot have a need for
middleware When conditions changed-along with the hardware and the software
the organisations couldnrsquot cope The tools were inadequate the backlog was
enormous and the pressure was overwhelming And the users were dissatisfied
Something was needed to solve all the interface translation transformation and
interpretation problems that were driving application developers crazy
With the growth of networks client-server technology and all other forms of
communicating betweenamong unlike platforms the problems of getting all the
pieces to work together grew from formidable to horrendous As the cry for
distributed computing spread users demanded interaction between dissimilar
systems networks that permitted shared resources and applications that could be
accessed by multiple software programs In simple terms middleware is the ultimate
mediator between diverse software programs that enables them talk to one another
Transparency
Transparency implies that users should be unaware that they are accessing multiple
systems Transparency is essential for dealing with higher-level issues than
physical media and interconnection that the underlying network infrastructure is in
charge of The ideal picture is one of a ldquoVirtualrdquo network a collection of work-group
departmental enterprise and enterprise LANs that appears to the end user or client
application to be a seamless and easily accessed whole
Transparency is accomplished using middleware that facilitates a distributed
computing environment This gives users and applications transparent access to
data computation and other resources across collections of multivendor
heterogeneous systems The strategic architectures of every major system vendor
are now based on some form of middleware The key to realising the theoretical
benefit of such an architecture is transparency Users need not spend their time
trying to understand where something is Nor should application developers have to
code into their applications the exact locations of resources over the network The
goal is for the applications to send a request to the middleware layer which then
satisfies the request anyway it can using remote information
Transaction Security and Management
Support for transaction processing (TP) is fundamental to success in the electronic
commerce market Security and management are essential to all layers in the
electronic commerce model Transaction integrity must be given for businesses that
cannot afford any loss or inconsistency in data For electronic commerce
middleware provides the qualities expected in the standard TP System the so-
called ACID properties (Atomicity Consistency Isolation and Durability)
World Wide Web (WWW) As the Architecture
Electronic commerce depends on the unspoken assumption that computers
cooperate efficiently for seamless information sharing Unfortunately this
assumption of interoperability has been supported by the realities of practical
computing Computing is still a world made up of many technical directions product
implementations and competing vendors This diversity while good for innovation
causes problem as the e-commerce applications try to impose a certain discipline
on the proliferating computers and networks It is ironic that real effect of computing
is all too often then prevention of data sharing due to incompatibilities-architectures
data formats and communication protocols
What does the Web Encompass
The web has become an umbrella for wide range of concepts and technologies that
differ markedly in purpose and scope These include the global hypertext publishing
concept the universal reader concept and the client-server concept
The global hypertext publishing concept promotes the idea of a seamless
information world in which all on-line information can be accessed and retrieved in
a consistent and simple way To access information in this seamless world we will
need the ability to address many types of data-text files images sound files and
animation sequences
The universal readership concept promotes the idea that unlike the segmented
applications of the past we can use one application-a universal (or common) user
interface-to read a variety of documents This concept implies that once information
is published it is accessible from any type of computer in any country and that any
(authorised) person merely needs to use one simple program to access it This is
accomplished in the web by using a core browser or application that is augmented
by supporting applications The core browser implements only minimal functionality
and attempts to offload more specialised work onto the supporting applications
The client server concept allows the web to grow easily without any centralised
control Anyone can publish information and anyone (as long as he or she is
authorized) can read and download it Publishing information requires a server
program and reading data requires a client browser All the clients and all the
servers are connected to one another by the Internet The various standard
protocols allows all clients to communicate with all servers In practice the web
hangs on a number of essential concepts including the following
The addressing scheme known as uniform resource locator (URL) makes the
hyper media world possible despite many different protocols
A network protocol known as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used by client
browsers and servers offers performance and features not otherwise available
A mark-up language (HTML) which every web client is required to understand
is used for the representation of hypertext documents containing text list boxes
and graphics information across the net
Chapter 4
Technology behind the Web
Information providers (or publishers) run programs (called servers) from which the
browsers (clients) can obtain information These programs can either be Web servers
that understand the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) ldquoGatewayrdquo programs that
convert an existing information format to hypertext or a non-HTTP server that Web
browser can access-anonymous FTP or Gopher servers
Web servers are composed of two major parts the hypertext transfer protocol for
transmitting documents between servers and clients and the hypertext mark-up
language (HTML) format for documents The link between HTML files and the HTTP
servers is provided by the uniform resource locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext that contains pointers to other
documents The browser let you deal with the pointers in a transparent way-select
the pointer and you are presented with the text to which it points This pointer is
implemented using a concept that is central to Web browsers Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs) One way to think about URLs is to use the libraries and location on
a shelf as a metaphor A URL for a digital library wold be a unique call number that
provides the exact location of every book in the world including the country city
street and library shelf location
In practice URLs are the string used as addresses of objects (documents images)
on the web Think of them as analogous to your e-mail address Just as your address
is unique and may be used by any other Internet user to send you mail without
knowing exactly where you are a URL marks the unique location on the Internet
where a file or service can be found
URLs follow a fairly consistent pattern The first part describes the type of resource
the second part gives the name of the server housing the resource and the third part
gives full filename of the resource URLs are universal in that they provide access to
a wide range of network services which required separate applications in the past
For a new network protocol one can easily form an address as the set of parameters
necessary to retrieve the object If these parameters are encoded into a concise
string with a prefix to identify the protocols and encoding one has a new URL
scheme Take a look at the URL format below
FTP ftpserveraddresscompletefilename
Gopher gopherserveraddressportdirectoryfilename
TELNET telnetserveraddressport
HTTP httpserveraddressporthomepagehtml
New newsmiscstocksinvest
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Information Brokerage and Management
The information brokerage and management layer provide service integration
through the notion of information brokerages the development of which is
necessitated by the increasing information resource fragmentation We use the
notion of information brokerage to represent an intermediary who provides service
integration between customers and information providers given some constraint
such as a low price fast service or profit maximisation for a client
Information brokers for example are rapidly becoming necessary in dealing with the
voluminous amounts of information on the networks As online database migrate to
consumer information utilities consumers and information professionals will have
to keep up the knowledge and ownership of all these systems Whorsquos got what
How do you use it What do they charge Most professionals have enough trouble
keeping track of files of interest on one or two database services With all the
complexity associated with large number of online database and service bureaus
itrsquos impossible to expect humans to do the searching It will have to be software
programs-information brokers or software agents to use the most popular term-Act
on searcherrsquos behalf Information brokerage does more than just searching
Interface and Support Services
The third layer interface and support services will provide interfaces for electronic
commerce applications such as interactive catalogues and will support directory
services-functions necessary for information search and access These two
concepts are very different Interactive catalogues are the customized interface to
consumer applications such as home shopping An interactive catalogue is an
extension of the paper-based catalogue and incorporates additional features such
as sophisticated graphics and video to make the advertising more attractive
Directories on the other hand operate behind the scenes and attempt to organise
the enormous amount of information and transactions generated to facilitate
electronic commerce Directory services database make data from any server
appear as a local file A classic example of a directory is the telephone White Pages
which allows us to locate people and telephone numbers In the case of electronic
commerce directories would play an important role in information management
functions For instance take the case of buying an airline ticket with several
stopovers with a caveat that the time between layovers be minimized This search
would require several queries to various online directories to find empty seats on
various airlines and then the availability of seats would be coordinated with the
amount of time spent in the airport terminals
Secure Messaging and Structured Document Interchange
Services
The importance of the fourth layer secure messaging is clear Everyone in
business knows that electronic messaging is a critical business issue Consider a
familiar business scenario you hand over an urgent fax on Monday and find out on
Tuesday that itrsquos still sitting on your fax operatorrsquos desk What happened The line
was busy and he thought he would try again later Or the number was wrong but
he forgot to let you know Or you are in London and you need to send a spreadsheet
that details a marketing plan for a product introduction strategy to co-worker in New
York This must be done today not tomorrow when the courier service would
deliver There is a solution to these common and frustrating problems Itrsquos called
integrated messaging a group of computer services that through the use of a
network send receive and combine messages faxes and large data file Some
better known examples are electronic mail enhance fax and electronic data
interchange
Broadly defined messaging is the software that sits between the network
infrastructure and the clients or electronic commerce applications masking the
peculiarities of the environment Others define messaging as a framework for the
total implementation of portable applications divorcing you from the architectural
primitives of your system In general messaging products are not applications that
solve problems they are more enablers of the application that solve problems
Messaging services offer solution for communicating non-formatted (unstructured)
data such as purchase orders shipping notices and invoices Unstructured
messaging consist of fax e-mail and form based system like Lotus Notes
Structured documents messaging consist of the automated interchange of
standardized and approved messages between computer applications via
telecommunication lines Examples of structured document messaging include EDI
Messaging is gaining momentum in electronic commerce and seems to have many
advantages It supports both synchronous (immediate) and asynchronous (delayed)
message delivery and processing With asynchronous when a message is sent
work continues (software doesnrsquot wait for a response) This allows the transfer of
messages through store-and-forward methods
The main disadvantages of messaging are the new types of applications it enables-
which appear to be more complex especially to traditional programmers-and the
jungle of standards it involves Because of the lack of standards there is often no
interoperability between messaging vendors leading to islands of messaging Also
security privacy and confidentiality through data encryption and authentication
techniques are important issues that need to be resolved for ensuring the legality of
the message-based transactions themselves
Middleware Services
Middleware is a relatively new concept that emerged only recently like so many
other innovations it came into being out of necessity Users in the 1970s when
vendors delivered homogenous systems that worked didnrsquot have a need for
middleware When conditions changed-along with the hardware and the software
the organisations couldnrsquot cope The tools were inadequate the backlog was
enormous and the pressure was overwhelming And the users were dissatisfied
Something was needed to solve all the interface translation transformation and
interpretation problems that were driving application developers crazy
With the growth of networks client-server technology and all other forms of
communicating betweenamong unlike platforms the problems of getting all the
pieces to work together grew from formidable to horrendous As the cry for
distributed computing spread users demanded interaction between dissimilar
systems networks that permitted shared resources and applications that could be
accessed by multiple software programs In simple terms middleware is the ultimate
mediator between diverse software programs that enables them talk to one another
Transparency
Transparency implies that users should be unaware that they are accessing multiple
systems Transparency is essential for dealing with higher-level issues than
physical media and interconnection that the underlying network infrastructure is in
charge of The ideal picture is one of a ldquoVirtualrdquo network a collection of work-group
departmental enterprise and enterprise LANs that appears to the end user or client
application to be a seamless and easily accessed whole
Transparency is accomplished using middleware that facilitates a distributed
computing environment This gives users and applications transparent access to
data computation and other resources across collections of multivendor
heterogeneous systems The strategic architectures of every major system vendor
are now based on some form of middleware The key to realising the theoretical
benefit of such an architecture is transparency Users need not spend their time
trying to understand where something is Nor should application developers have to
code into their applications the exact locations of resources over the network The
goal is for the applications to send a request to the middleware layer which then
satisfies the request anyway it can using remote information
Transaction Security and Management
Support for transaction processing (TP) is fundamental to success in the electronic
commerce market Security and management are essential to all layers in the
electronic commerce model Transaction integrity must be given for businesses that
cannot afford any loss or inconsistency in data For electronic commerce
middleware provides the qualities expected in the standard TP System the so-
called ACID properties (Atomicity Consistency Isolation and Durability)
World Wide Web (WWW) As the Architecture
Electronic commerce depends on the unspoken assumption that computers
cooperate efficiently for seamless information sharing Unfortunately this
assumption of interoperability has been supported by the realities of practical
computing Computing is still a world made up of many technical directions product
implementations and competing vendors This diversity while good for innovation
causes problem as the e-commerce applications try to impose a certain discipline
on the proliferating computers and networks It is ironic that real effect of computing
is all too often then prevention of data sharing due to incompatibilities-architectures
data formats and communication protocols
What does the Web Encompass
The web has become an umbrella for wide range of concepts and technologies that
differ markedly in purpose and scope These include the global hypertext publishing
concept the universal reader concept and the client-server concept
The global hypertext publishing concept promotes the idea of a seamless
information world in which all on-line information can be accessed and retrieved in
a consistent and simple way To access information in this seamless world we will
need the ability to address many types of data-text files images sound files and
animation sequences
The universal readership concept promotes the idea that unlike the segmented
applications of the past we can use one application-a universal (or common) user
interface-to read a variety of documents This concept implies that once information
is published it is accessible from any type of computer in any country and that any
(authorised) person merely needs to use one simple program to access it This is
accomplished in the web by using a core browser or application that is augmented
by supporting applications The core browser implements only minimal functionality
and attempts to offload more specialised work onto the supporting applications
The client server concept allows the web to grow easily without any centralised
control Anyone can publish information and anyone (as long as he or she is
authorized) can read and download it Publishing information requires a server
program and reading data requires a client browser All the clients and all the
servers are connected to one another by the Internet The various standard
protocols allows all clients to communicate with all servers In practice the web
hangs on a number of essential concepts including the following
The addressing scheme known as uniform resource locator (URL) makes the
hyper media world possible despite many different protocols
A network protocol known as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used by client
browsers and servers offers performance and features not otherwise available
A mark-up language (HTML) which every web client is required to understand
is used for the representation of hypertext documents containing text list boxes
and graphics information across the net
Chapter 4
Technology behind the Web
Information providers (or publishers) run programs (called servers) from which the
browsers (clients) can obtain information These programs can either be Web servers
that understand the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) ldquoGatewayrdquo programs that
convert an existing information format to hypertext or a non-HTTP server that Web
browser can access-anonymous FTP or Gopher servers
Web servers are composed of two major parts the hypertext transfer protocol for
transmitting documents between servers and clients and the hypertext mark-up
language (HTML) format for documents The link between HTML files and the HTTP
servers is provided by the uniform resource locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext that contains pointers to other
documents The browser let you deal with the pointers in a transparent way-select
the pointer and you are presented with the text to which it points This pointer is
implemented using a concept that is central to Web browsers Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs) One way to think about URLs is to use the libraries and location on
a shelf as a metaphor A URL for a digital library wold be a unique call number that
provides the exact location of every book in the world including the country city
street and library shelf location
In practice URLs are the string used as addresses of objects (documents images)
on the web Think of them as analogous to your e-mail address Just as your address
is unique and may be used by any other Internet user to send you mail without
knowing exactly where you are a URL marks the unique location on the Internet
where a file or service can be found
URLs follow a fairly consistent pattern The first part describes the type of resource
the second part gives the name of the server housing the resource and the third part
gives full filename of the resource URLs are universal in that they provide access to
a wide range of network services which required separate applications in the past
For a new network protocol one can easily form an address as the set of parameters
necessary to retrieve the object If these parameters are encoded into a concise
string with a prefix to identify the protocols and encoding one has a new URL
scheme Take a look at the URL format below
FTP ftpserveraddresscompletefilename
Gopher gopherserveraddressportdirectoryfilename
TELNET telnetserveraddressport
HTTP httpserveraddressporthomepagehtml
New newsmiscstocksinvest
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Secure Messaging and Structured Document Interchange
Services
The importance of the fourth layer secure messaging is clear Everyone in
business knows that electronic messaging is a critical business issue Consider a
familiar business scenario you hand over an urgent fax on Monday and find out on
Tuesday that itrsquos still sitting on your fax operatorrsquos desk What happened The line
was busy and he thought he would try again later Or the number was wrong but
he forgot to let you know Or you are in London and you need to send a spreadsheet
that details a marketing plan for a product introduction strategy to co-worker in New
York This must be done today not tomorrow when the courier service would
deliver There is a solution to these common and frustrating problems Itrsquos called
integrated messaging a group of computer services that through the use of a
network send receive and combine messages faxes and large data file Some
better known examples are electronic mail enhance fax and electronic data
interchange
Broadly defined messaging is the software that sits between the network
infrastructure and the clients or electronic commerce applications masking the
peculiarities of the environment Others define messaging as a framework for the
total implementation of portable applications divorcing you from the architectural
primitives of your system In general messaging products are not applications that
solve problems they are more enablers of the application that solve problems
Messaging services offer solution for communicating non-formatted (unstructured)
data such as purchase orders shipping notices and invoices Unstructured
messaging consist of fax e-mail and form based system like Lotus Notes
Structured documents messaging consist of the automated interchange of
standardized and approved messages between computer applications via
telecommunication lines Examples of structured document messaging include EDI
Messaging is gaining momentum in electronic commerce and seems to have many
advantages It supports both synchronous (immediate) and asynchronous (delayed)
message delivery and processing With asynchronous when a message is sent
work continues (software doesnrsquot wait for a response) This allows the transfer of
messages through store-and-forward methods
The main disadvantages of messaging are the new types of applications it enables-
which appear to be more complex especially to traditional programmers-and the
jungle of standards it involves Because of the lack of standards there is often no
interoperability between messaging vendors leading to islands of messaging Also
security privacy and confidentiality through data encryption and authentication
techniques are important issues that need to be resolved for ensuring the legality of
the message-based transactions themselves
Middleware Services
Middleware is a relatively new concept that emerged only recently like so many
other innovations it came into being out of necessity Users in the 1970s when
vendors delivered homogenous systems that worked didnrsquot have a need for
middleware When conditions changed-along with the hardware and the software
the organisations couldnrsquot cope The tools were inadequate the backlog was
enormous and the pressure was overwhelming And the users were dissatisfied
Something was needed to solve all the interface translation transformation and
interpretation problems that were driving application developers crazy
With the growth of networks client-server technology and all other forms of
communicating betweenamong unlike platforms the problems of getting all the
pieces to work together grew from formidable to horrendous As the cry for
distributed computing spread users demanded interaction between dissimilar
systems networks that permitted shared resources and applications that could be
accessed by multiple software programs In simple terms middleware is the ultimate
mediator between diverse software programs that enables them talk to one another
Transparency
Transparency implies that users should be unaware that they are accessing multiple
systems Transparency is essential for dealing with higher-level issues than
physical media and interconnection that the underlying network infrastructure is in
charge of The ideal picture is one of a ldquoVirtualrdquo network a collection of work-group
departmental enterprise and enterprise LANs that appears to the end user or client
application to be a seamless and easily accessed whole
Transparency is accomplished using middleware that facilitates a distributed
computing environment This gives users and applications transparent access to
data computation and other resources across collections of multivendor
heterogeneous systems The strategic architectures of every major system vendor
are now based on some form of middleware The key to realising the theoretical
benefit of such an architecture is transparency Users need not spend their time
trying to understand where something is Nor should application developers have to
code into their applications the exact locations of resources over the network The
goal is for the applications to send a request to the middleware layer which then
satisfies the request anyway it can using remote information
Transaction Security and Management
Support for transaction processing (TP) is fundamental to success in the electronic
commerce market Security and management are essential to all layers in the
electronic commerce model Transaction integrity must be given for businesses that
cannot afford any loss or inconsistency in data For electronic commerce
middleware provides the qualities expected in the standard TP System the so-
called ACID properties (Atomicity Consistency Isolation and Durability)
World Wide Web (WWW) As the Architecture
Electronic commerce depends on the unspoken assumption that computers
cooperate efficiently for seamless information sharing Unfortunately this
assumption of interoperability has been supported by the realities of practical
computing Computing is still a world made up of many technical directions product
implementations and competing vendors This diversity while good for innovation
causes problem as the e-commerce applications try to impose a certain discipline
on the proliferating computers and networks It is ironic that real effect of computing
is all too often then prevention of data sharing due to incompatibilities-architectures
data formats and communication protocols
What does the Web Encompass
The web has become an umbrella for wide range of concepts and technologies that
differ markedly in purpose and scope These include the global hypertext publishing
concept the universal reader concept and the client-server concept
The global hypertext publishing concept promotes the idea of a seamless
information world in which all on-line information can be accessed and retrieved in
a consistent and simple way To access information in this seamless world we will
need the ability to address many types of data-text files images sound files and
animation sequences
The universal readership concept promotes the idea that unlike the segmented
applications of the past we can use one application-a universal (or common) user
interface-to read a variety of documents This concept implies that once information
is published it is accessible from any type of computer in any country and that any
(authorised) person merely needs to use one simple program to access it This is
accomplished in the web by using a core browser or application that is augmented
by supporting applications The core browser implements only minimal functionality
and attempts to offload more specialised work onto the supporting applications
The client server concept allows the web to grow easily without any centralised
control Anyone can publish information and anyone (as long as he or she is
authorized) can read and download it Publishing information requires a server
program and reading data requires a client browser All the clients and all the
servers are connected to one another by the Internet The various standard
protocols allows all clients to communicate with all servers In practice the web
hangs on a number of essential concepts including the following
The addressing scheme known as uniform resource locator (URL) makes the
hyper media world possible despite many different protocols
A network protocol known as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used by client
browsers and servers offers performance and features not otherwise available
A mark-up language (HTML) which every web client is required to understand
is used for the representation of hypertext documents containing text list boxes
and graphics information across the net
Chapter 4
Technology behind the Web
Information providers (or publishers) run programs (called servers) from which the
browsers (clients) can obtain information These programs can either be Web servers
that understand the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) ldquoGatewayrdquo programs that
convert an existing information format to hypertext or a non-HTTP server that Web
browser can access-anonymous FTP or Gopher servers
Web servers are composed of two major parts the hypertext transfer protocol for
transmitting documents between servers and clients and the hypertext mark-up
language (HTML) format for documents The link between HTML files and the HTTP
servers is provided by the uniform resource locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext that contains pointers to other
documents The browser let you deal with the pointers in a transparent way-select
the pointer and you are presented with the text to which it points This pointer is
implemented using a concept that is central to Web browsers Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs) One way to think about URLs is to use the libraries and location on
a shelf as a metaphor A URL for a digital library wold be a unique call number that
provides the exact location of every book in the world including the country city
street and library shelf location
In practice URLs are the string used as addresses of objects (documents images)
on the web Think of them as analogous to your e-mail address Just as your address
is unique and may be used by any other Internet user to send you mail without
knowing exactly where you are a URL marks the unique location on the Internet
where a file or service can be found
URLs follow a fairly consistent pattern The first part describes the type of resource
the second part gives the name of the server housing the resource and the third part
gives full filename of the resource URLs are universal in that they provide access to
a wide range of network services which required separate applications in the past
For a new network protocol one can easily form an address as the set of parameters
necessary to retrieve the object If these parameters are encoded into a concise
string with a prefix to identify the protocols and encoding one has a new URL
scheme Take a look at the URL format below
FTP ftpserveraddresscompletefilename
Gopher gopherserveraddressportdirectoryfilename
TELNET telnetserveraddressport
HTTP httpserveraddressporthomepagehtml
New newsmiscstocksinvest
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
techniques are important issues that need to be resolved for ensuring the legality of
the message-based transactions themselves
Middleware Services
Middleware is a relatively new concept that emerged only recently like so many
other innovations it came into being out of necessity Users in the 1970s when
vendors delivered homogenous systems that worked didnrsquot have a need for
middleware When conditions changed-along with the hardware and the software
the organisations couldnrsquot cope The tools were inadequate the backlog was
enormous and the pressure was overwhelming And the users were dissatisfied
Something was needed to solve all the interface translation transformation and
interpretation problems that were driving application developers crazy
With the growth of networks client-server technology and all other forms of
communicating betweenamong unlike platforms the problems of getting all the
pieces to work together grew from formidable to horrendous As the cry for
distributed computing spread users demanded interaction between dissimilar
systems networks that permitted shared resources and applications that could be
accessed by multiple software programs In simple terms middleware is the ultimate
mediator between diverse software programs that enables them talk to one another
Transparency
Transparency implies that users should be unaware that they are accessing multiple
systems Transparency is essential for dealing with higher-level issues than
physical media and interconnection that the underlying network infrastructure is in
charge of The ideal picture is one of a ldquoVirtualrdquo network a collection of work-group
departmental enterprise and enterprise LANs that appears to the end user or client
application to be a seamless and easily accessed whole
Transparency is accomplished using middleware that facilitates a distributed
computing environment This gives users and applications transparent access to
data computation and other resources across collections of multivendor
heterogeneous systems The strategic architectures of every major system vendor
are now based on some form of middleware The key to realising the theoretical
benefit of such an architecture is transparency Users need not spend their time
trying to understand where something is Nor should application developers have to
code into their applications the exact locations of resources over the network The
goal is for the applications to send a request to the middleware layer which then
satisfies the request anyway it can using remote information
Transaction Security and Management
Support for transaction processing (TP) is fundamental to success in the electronic
commerce market Security and management are essential to all layers in the
electronic commerce model Transaction integrity must be given for businesses that
cannot afford any loss or inconsistency in data For electronic commerce
middleware provides the qualities expected in the standard TP System the so-
called ACID properties (Atomicity Consistency Isolation and Durability)
World Wide Web (WWW) As the Architecture
Electronic commerce depends on the unspoken assumption that computers
cooperate efficiently for seamless information sharing Unfortunately this
assumption of interoperability has been supported by the realities of practical
computing Computing is still a world made up of many technical directions product
implementations and competing vendors This diversity while good for innovation
causes problem as the e-commerce applications try to impose a certain discipline
on the proliferating computers and networks It is ironic that real effect of computing
is all too often then prevention of data sharing due to incompatibilities-architectures
data formats and communication protocols
What does the Web Encompass
The web has become an umbrella for wide range of concepts and technologies that
differ markedly in purpose and scope These include the global hypertext publishing
concept the universal reader concept and the client-server concept
The global hypertext publishing concept promotes the idea of a seamless
information world in which all on-line information can be accessed and retrieved in
a consistent and simple way To access information in this seamless world we will
need the ability to address many types of data-text files images sound files and
animation sequences
The universal readership concept promotes the idea that unlike the segmented
applications of the past we can use one application-a universal (or common) user
interface-to read a variety of documents This concept implies that once information
is published it is accessible from any type of computer in any country and that any
(authorised) person merely needs to use one simple program to access it This is
accomplished in the web by using a core browser or application that is augmented
by supporting applications The core browser implements only minimal functionality
and attempts to offload more specialised work onto the supporting applications
The client server concept allows the web to grow easily without any centralised
control Anyone can publish information and anyone (as long as he or she is
authorized) can read and download it Publishing information requires a server
program and reading data requires a client browser All the clients and all the
servers are connected to one another by the Internet The various standard
protocols allows all clients to communicate with all servers In practice the web
hangs on a number of essential concepts including the following
The addressing scheme known as uniform resource locator (URL) makes the
hyper media world possible despite many different protocols
A network protocol known as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used by client
browsers and servers offers performance and features not otherwise available
A mark-up language (HTML) which every web client is required to understand
is used for the representation of hypertext documents containing text list boxes
and graphics information across the net
Chapter 4
Technology behind the Web
Information providers (or publishers) run programs (called servers) from which the
browsers (clients) can obtain information These programs can either be Web servers
that understand the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) ldquoGatewayrdquo programs that
convert an existing information format to hypertext or a non-HTTP server that Web
browser can access-anonymous FTP or Gopher servers
Web servers are composed of two major parts the hypertext transfer protocol for
transmitting documents between servers and clients and the hypertext mark-up
language (HTML) format for documents The link between HTML files and the HTTP
servers is provided by the uniform resource locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext that contains pointers to other
documents The browser let you deal with the pointers in a transparent way-select
the pointer and you are presented with the text to which it points This pointer is
implemented using a concept that is central to Web browsers Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs) One way to think about URLs is to use the libraries and location on
a shelf as a metaphor A URL for a digital library wold be a unique call number that
provides the exact location of every book in the world including the country city
street and library shelf location
In practice URLs are the string used as addresses of objects (documents images)
on the web Think of them as analogous to your e-mail address Just as your address
is unique and may be used by any other Internet user to send you mail without
knowing exactly where you are a URL marks the unique location on the Internet
where a file or service can be found
URLs follow a fairly consistent pattern The first part describes the type of resource
the second part gives the name of the server housing the resource and the third part
gives full filename of the resource URLs are universal in that they provide access to
a wide range of network services which required separate applications in the past
For a new network protocol one can easily form an address as the set of parameters
necessary to retrieve the object If these parameters are encoded into a concise
string with a prefix to identify the protocols and encoding one has a new URL
scheme Take a look at the URL format below
FTP ftpserveraddresscompletefilename
Gopher gopherserveraddressportdirectoryfilename
TELNET telnetserveraddressport
HTTP httpserveraddressporthomepagehtml
New newsmiscstocksinvest
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Transaction Security and Management
Support for transaction processing (TP) is fundamental to success in the electronic
commerce market Security and management are essential to all layers in the
electronic commerce model Transaction integrity must be given for businesses that
cannot afford any loss or inconsistency in data For electronic commerce
middleware provides the qualities expected in the standard TP System the so-
called ACID properties (Atomicity Consistency Isolation and Durability)
World Wide Web (WWW) As the Architecture
Electronic commerce depends on the unspoken assumption that computers
cooperate efficiently for seamless information sharing Unfortunately this
assumption of interoperability has been supported by the realities of practical
computing Computing is still a world made up of many technical directions product
implementations and competing vendors This diversity while good for innovation
causes problem as the e-commerce applications try to impose a certain discipline
on the proliferating computers and networks It is ironic that real effect of computing
is all too often then prevention of data sharing due to incompatibilities-architectures
data formats and communication protocols
What does the Web Encompass
The web has become an umbrella for wide range of concepts and technologies that
differ markedly in purpose and scope These include the global hypertext publishing
concept the universal reader concept and the client-server concept
The global hypertext publishing concept promotes the idea of a seamless
information world in which all on-line information can be accessed and retrieved in
a consistent and simple way To access information in this seamless world we will
need the ability to address many types of data-text files images sound files and
animation sequences
The universal readership concept promotes the idea that unlike the segmented
applications of the past we can use one application-a universal (or common) user
interface-to read a variety of documents This concept implies that once information
is published it is accessible from any type of computer in any country and that any
(authorised) person merely needs to use one simple program to access it This is
accomplished in the web by using a core browser or application that is augmented
by supporting applications The core browser implements only minimal functionality
and attempts to offload more specialised work onto the supporting applications
The client server concept allows the web to grow easily without any centralised
control Anyone can publish information and anyone (as long as he or she is
authorized) can read and download it Publishing information requires a server
program and reading data requires a client browser All the clients and all the
servers are connected to one another by the Internet The various standard
protocols allows all clients to communicate with all servers In practice the web
hangs on a number of essential concepts including the following
The addressing scheme known as uniform resource locator (URL) makes the
hyper media world possible despite many different protocols
A network protocol known as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used by client
browsers and servers offers performance and features not otherwise available
A mark-up language (HTML) which every web client is required to understand
is used for the representation of hypertext documents containing text list boxes
and graphics information across the net
Chapter 4
Technology behind the Web
Information providers (or publishers) run programs (called servers) from which the
browsers (clients) can obtain information These programs can either be Web servers
that understand the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) ldquoGatewayrdquo programs that
convert an existing information format to hypertext or a non-HTTP server that Web
browser can access-anonymous FTP or Gopher servers
Web servers are composed of two major parts the hypertext transfer protocol for
transmitting documents between servers and clients and the hypertext mark-up
language (HTML) format for documents The link between HTML files and the HTTP
servers is provided by the uniform resource locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext that contains pointers to other
documents The browser let you deal with the pointers in a transparent way-select
the pointer and you are presented with the text to which it points This pointer is
implemented using a concept that is central to Web browsers Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs) One way to think about URLs is to use the libraries and location on
a shelf as a metaphor A URL for a digital library wold be a unique call number that
provides the exact location of every book in the world including the country city
street and library shelf location
In practice URLs are the string used as addresses of objects (documents images)
on the web Think of them as analogous to your e-mail address Just as your address
is unique and may be used by any other Internet user to send you mail without
knowing exactly where you are a URL marks the unique location on the Internet
where a file or service can be found
URLs follow a fairly consistent pattern The first part describes the type of resource
the second part gives the name of the server housing the resource and the third part
gives full filename of the resource URLs are universal in that they provide access to
a wide range of network services which required separate applications in the past
For a new network protocol one can easily form an address as the set of parameters
necessary to retrieve the object If these parameters are encoded into a concise
string with a prefix to identify the protocols and encoding one has a new URL
scheme Take a look at the URL format below
FTP ftpserveraddresscompletefilename
Gopher gopherserveraddressportdirectoryfilename
TELNET telnetserveraddressport
HTTP httpserveraddressporthomepagehtml
New newsmiscstocksinvest
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
authorized) can read and download it Publishing information requires a server
program and reading data requires a client browser All the clients and all the
servers are connected to one another by the Internet The various standard
protocols allows all clients to communicate with all servers In practice the web
hangs on a number of essential concepts including the following
The addressing scheme known as uniform resource locator (URL) makes the
hyper media world possible despite many different protocols
A network protocol known as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used by client
browsers and servers offers performance and features not otherwise available
A mark-up language (HTML) which every web client is required to understand
is used for the representation of hypertext documents containing text list boxes
and graphics information across the net
Chapter 4
Technology behind the Web
Information providers (or publishers) run programs (called servers) from which the
browsers (clients) can obtain information These programs can either be Web servers
that understand the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) ldquoGatewayrdquo programs that
convert an existing information format to hypertext or a non-HTTP server that Web
browser can access-anonymous FTP or Gopher servers
Web servers are composed of two major parts the hypertext transfer protocol for
transmitting documents between servers and clients and the hypertext mark-up
language (HTML) format for documents The link between HTML files and the HTTP
servers is provided by the uniform resource locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext that contains pointers to other
documents The browser let you deal with the pointers in a transparent way-select
the pointer and you are presented with the text to which it points This pointer is
implemented using a concept that is central to Web browsers Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs) One way to think about URLs is to use the libraries and location on
a shelf as a metaphor A URL for a digital library wold be a unique call number that
provides the exact location of every book in the world including the country city
street and library shelf location
In practice URLs are the string used as addresses of objects (documents images)
on the web Think of them as analogous to your e-mail address Just as your address
is unique and may be used by any other Internet user to send you mail without
knowing exactly where you are a URL marks the unique location on the Internet
where a file or service can be found
URLs follow a fairly consistent pattern The first part describes the type of resource
the second part gives the name of the server housing the resource and the third part
gives full filename of the resource URLs are universal in that they provide access to
a wide range of network services which required separate applications in the past
For a new network protocol one can easily form an address as the set of parameters
necessary to retrieve the object If these parameters are encoded into a concise
string with a prefix to identify the protocols and encoding one has a new URL
scheme Take a look at the URL format below
FTP ftpserveraddresscompletefilename
Gopher gopherserveraddressportdirectoryfilename
TELNET telnetserveraddressport
HTTP httpserveraddressporthomepagehtml
New newsmiscstocksinvest
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Chapter 4
Technology behind the Web
Information providers (or publishers) run programs (called servers) from which the
browsers (clients) can obtain information These programs can either be Web servers
that understand the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) ldquoGatewayrdquo programs that
convert an existing information format to hypertext or a non-HTTP server that Web
browser can access-anonymous FTP or Gopher servers
Web servers are composed of two major parts the hypertext transfer protocol for
transmitting documents between servers and clients and the hypertext mark-up
language (HTML) format for documents The link between HTML files and the HTTP
servers is provided by the uniform resource locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext that contains pointers to other
documents The browser let you deal with the pointers in a transparent way-select
the pointer and you are presented with the text to which it points This pointer is
implemented using a concept that is central to Web browsers Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs) One way to think about URLs is to use the libraries and location on
a shelf as a metaphor A URL for a digital library wold be a unique call number that
provides the exact location of every book in the world including the country city
street and library shelf location
In practice URLs are the string used as addresses of objects (documents images)
on the web Think of them as analogous to your e-mail address Just as your address
is unique and may be used by any other Internet user to send you mail without
knowing exactly where you are a URL marks the unique location on the Internet
where a file or service can be found
URLs follow a fairly consistent pattern The first part describes the type of resource
the second part gives the name of the server housing the resource and the third part
gives full filename of the resource URLs are universal in that they provide access to
a wide range of network services which required separate applications in the past
For a new network protocol one can easily form an address as the set of parameters
necessary to retrieve the object If these parameters are encoded into a concise
string with a prefix to identify the protocols and encoding one has a new URL
scheme Take a look at the URL format below
FTP ftpserveraddresscompletefilename
Gopher gopherserveraddressportdirectoryfilename
TELNET telnetserveraddressport
HTTP httpserveraddressporthomepagehtml
New newsmiscstocksinvest
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
These are URLs for internet news articles and news groups (the NNTP protocol) and
for HTTP archives for TELNET destinations e-mail addresses and so on The same
can be done for names of objects in a given name space
For example the URL of the main page for the web project happens to be
httpwebw3orghypertextwebTheProjecthtml
The prefix ldquohttprdquo in the preceding example indicates the address space and defines
the interpretation of the rest of the string The HTTP protocol is to be used so the
string contains the address of the server to be contacted and a substring to be passed
to the server As noted earlier different protocols use different syntaxes but they do
have a small amount in common For example the common URL syntax reserves
the solidus () as a way of representing a hierarchical space the pound label () as
a way of pointing inside the document and question mark () as a separator between
the address of an object and a query operation applied to it Hierarchical spaces are
useful for hypertext where one ldquoworkrdquo may be split up into many interlinked
documents The allows relative names to exploit the hierarchical structure and
allows links to be made within the work independent of the higher parts of the URL
such as the server name
URLs are central to the web architecture The fact that it is easy to address an object
anywhere on the internet is essential for the system to scale and for the information
space to be independent of the network and server topology
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Chapter 5
Network Security and Firewalls
The ability to conduct business on a public network has strong attraction-and the
potential for big savings Security and confidentiality are essential however before
businesses can conduct financial transactions over the internet and a lack of
widespread security measures remains at this time At present credit card numbers
financial records and other important information are not encrypted and can be
intercepted by any savvy Internet hacker
The discussion of security concern in electronic commerce can be divided into two
broad types
1 Client-Server Security uses various authorization methods to make sure that only
valid users and programs have access to information resources such as
databases Access control mechanisms must be set up to ensure that properly
authenticated users are allowed access only to those resources that they are
entitled to use Such mechanisms include password protection encrypted smart
cards biometrics and firewalls
2 Data and transaction security ensures the privacy and confidentiality in electronic
messages and data packets including the authentication of remote users in
network transactions for activities such as on-line payment The goal is to defeat
any attempt to assume another identity while involved with electronic mail or other
forms of data communication Preventive measures include data encryption using
various cryptographic methods
Data and Message Security
The lack of data and message security on the Internet has become a profile problem
due to increasing number of merchants trying to spur commerce on the global
network For instance credit card numbers in their plain text form create a risk when
transmitted across the Internet where the possibility of the number falling into the
wrong hands is relatively high Would you be willing to type in your credit card number
knowing the risk Even worse would you expose your customers to that risk Just
the thought of ldquosnifferrdquo programs that collect credit card numbers en masse is enough
to keep merchants away from on-line shopping given the possible lawsuits and other
liability issues In short the lack of business transaction security is widely
acknowledged as a major impediment to widespread e-commerce
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Encrypted Documents and Electronic Mail
E-mail users who desire confidentiality and sender authentication are using
encryption Encryption is simply intended to keep personal thoughts personal Some
users are already using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) others are starting to use Privacy
Enhanced Mail (PEM)
E-mail is typically encrypted for the reason that all network correspondence is open
for eavesdropping Internet e-mail is obviously far less secure then the postal system
where envelopes protect correspondence from casual snooping A glance at the
header area of any e-mail message by contrast will show that it has passed through
a number of nodes on its way to you Every one of these nodes present the
opportunity for snooping
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Chapter 6
Electronic Commerce Companies
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Chapter 7
Pictorial Representation E-Buying Methodology
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Flipkart
Step 1 -
Go to the link of the website wwwflipkartcom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Step 2 -
Select the desired product category you want to buy
Step 3 -
Choose the product you want to buy
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Step 4 -
On the productrsquos page click on Add to WISHLIST to add more products to your
recent shopping
Step 5 ndash Either Log-In or Sign-Up to add more products to you Wish List
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Step 6 -
To buy click on BUY NOW button on the productrsquos page Then click on PLACE
ORDER button to place your order
Step 7 -Now it will ask whether you are existing customer or a new
customer Choose desired option and then click on CONTINUE
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Step 8 -
You are required to fill up all the details asked in the form then click on SAVE
AND CONITNUE
Step 9 -
Click on CONTINUE button by confirming your purchase
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Step 10 -
Select the desired PAYMENT METHOD according to your facility
Step 11 -
Fill up the details and click on PAY
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Buying Procedure on on-line shopping website Yepme
Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Step 3 -
Step 4 -
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Step 5 -
Step 6 -
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Step 7 -
Step 8 -
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Step 9 -
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
Chapter 8
Conclusion
E-Commerce is growing tremendously A lot of companies have joined between the period July and August Online retail is still a tiny spot in Indiarsquos retail market of about $500 billion a year but it is growing at a quick pace A study by retail consultancy Technopark predicts Indiarsquos e-tailing market will reach $32 billion by 2020 from $23 billion in 2014
Ethnic Indian clothes and casual work are favourite products but unusual products like pets-
too are being offered online With the huge growth that e-commerce has witnessed in recent
times analysed like Devyanshu Dutta says there is scope for more players to come in but
some also warn about the risks the space is fraught with as only a few chances of making
it big They also see consolidation in the sector going forward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B Whinston
Big E-Commerce deals stir up sector-Economic Times
wwwFlipkartcom
wwwYepmecom