Technology has brought significant revolutionary changes to the business industry. Modern firms are conducting most of their business operations over the internet. For instance, marketing firms are utilizing the internet to advertise and sell their products online (Chaffey, 2009). This strategic approach has, as a result, created product awareness to the customer. Most importantly, the majority of the businesses are adopting the E-commerce methodology, which resolves the marketing needs of the firm, merchants and potential clients (Reynolds, 2004).
With the integration of e-commerce to the company’s website, the firm conducts an electronic exchange of business information. With the help of this, the integration of e-commerce to the business’ site is beneficial as it markedly enhances the customer service delivery (Daniel, 2011).
An Outline of Software, Hardware, Network and Database Components, Which E-Commerce Site Requires
The website will be a significant software component, required for this hypothetical e-commerce site (Daniel, 2011). The site will allow the customer to send Hypertext Transfer Protocol request when they login the e-commerce site. The site will have a sign-up page for creating new user profiles and customer files. The customer will then fill in their personal information, and upon successful submission of the details, the site will direct the client to the catalogue page.
Catalogue display is another key software component, which will be dynamic and will integrate multimedia elements. It will extract the product information from the catalogue database showing the product image, its name, description, category and the current price (Ullman, 2011). Through this, the client will have an opportunity to seek the products using the search engine. Upon the selection of these, the customer will make the order by adding the product to cart.
Shopping cart is a primary software component, essential for the design of an e-commerce website. It will allow the customer to save their purchases (Y?lmaz, 2013). This approach will provide the client with the convenience to come back later to complete their shopping. For instance, the client can go back to his shopping cart and add or remove the number of product items, which they intend to purchase. Moreover, the shopping cart will be facilitated with the function of removing the product items the customers choose from their shopping cart without deleting the selected order completely.
The email server is a crucial hardware component necessary for the design of the e-commerce website (Chaffey, 2009). The server will convey emails to the customers who utilize the enterprise power to operate within their needs. It will give the clients the updates on the latest products in the market, product offers and any relevant information, which the client should know. Besides, the email server will deliver newsletter and notifications to the registered customers to keep them informed about the product items.
Database components will be essential to the design of the hypothetical e-commerce site as well. The latter will require such databases as customer database, catalog database, orders database and warehouse database. These will encompass PHP MySQL database since it is a website application system (Ullman, 2011). Customer database will store customer information, such as their personal details and accounts management. The database will contain shopping cart information. Catalogue database will store the product information, which gives the customer a chance to view its description. Orders database will store the data about the order made by the client.
A payment gateway is a crucial software component for the e-commerce site. It will authenticate credit card payments for online shopping. For instance, upon the successful submission of the payment information by the customer, the site will forward these details to the payment gateway for authorization (Ullman, 2011). It will verify the credit card pin number and if at all, the payment details are authentic; the system will subsequently approve the shopping order. With the fulfillment of this, the company will ship and deliver the order to the customer, which is inclusive of tax calculations.
The hypothetical e-commerce site requires network components to facilitate the security of customer data. The principal network components are a firewall, intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and company’s routers, which will address the data, associated with the security issues. The firewall will prevent unauthorized access to the site via restricting malicious IP packets from penetrating in the firm’s private network. The IPS will monitor the company’s network, which runs the e-commerce site, for any possible intrusion and prevents harmful threats (Laudon & Traver, 2005).
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Customer registration page will oblige the clients to submit strong passwords to enhance data protection. The customers will also have to input a minimum number of characters, symbols and numbers to make it difficult for hackers to invade the system (Y?lmaz, 2013). Additionally, the orders will need strong encryption via the utilization of the public key encryption. It will rely on two keys, including public and private key, for the enhancement of data integrity.
An Explanation of the Functions, Which I Would Primarily Develop In House and Why
I would use my own knowledge to develop most of the functionalities of the e-commerce hypothetical site. For instance, the in-house features will include website design, the development of user profiles and customer files, a dynamic catalogue and e-mail notifications (Daniel, 2011). Additionally, I would rely on my knowledge in developing customer accounts management, customer support, password protection, merging with back office software, server and power. It is to be realized through the knowledge of programming and web design I possess. With this implementation, I would develop the site that functions as desired and with minimal cost.
An Explanation of the Functions, Which I Would Outsource and Why
I would outsource a few functionalities of the e-commerce site. For instance, hosting, credit card processing, shipping and taxation components, usage statistics, sales and inventory reports. Besides, I would additionally outsource the component of the encryption of order processingas I am not conversant with this area and consequently the design effort may perhaps fail. With the assistance of skilled programmers and hosting companies, the site will meet the user requirements (Hunt, 2011).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the e-commerce site is a significant tool for the modern marketing businesses. Shopping firms are benefitting from the necessary hardware, software networks and databases bringing significant improvements to the commerce industry. The webpages, catalogue display, shopping cart, email server, database components, payment gateway and network devices are primary to the development of an e-commerce site. Hopefully, the organization will integrate these features into their sites to promote customer service and improve revenues.