Designing A Special Purpose E-Commerce Website Hazim İŞCAN
Oğuz FINDIK
Halife KODAZ
Ali ERDİ
Selcuk University, Department of Computer Eng., 42075, Konya, TURKEY
Selcuk University, Department of Computer Eng., 42075, Konya, TURKEY
Selcuk University, Department of Computer Eng., 42075, Konya, TURKEY
Selcuk University, Department of Geomatics Eng., 42075, Konya, TURKEY
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ABSTRACT
1. INTRODUCTION
Electronic commerce can be defined as the process of conducting the production, advertisement, sale, insurance and payment of products and services over computer networks. Electronic commerce, which is realized through carrying out one or more of the business transactions in the electronic environment, is composed of three stages as advertisement and market research, order and payment, and delivery. The fast spread of the internet has made electronic commerce a new and highly effective tool for performing business transactions. Electronic commerce has emerged as a product of the technological developments experienced in the last decade which facilitate the communication of information, together with the trend towards the liberalization of trade all around the world. Electronic commerce models, principles of electronic commerce, steps of electronic shopping and security in electronic commerce were examined within the scope of the present study. The general structure, running and implementation of electronic commerce was realized by way of a practical application. ASP software and Microsoft Access database were used in this study.
In our age, owing to the developments in information and communication technologies, companies are required to do business in a market environment in which (i) the geographical borders are no longer existent and customers are defined as the entire world, (ii) production and consumption are planned across the world, (iii) the market system is supervised by supranational organizations. Global competition requires that the customers should be provided services for 24 hours 7 days; and this is possible through electronic commerce and the Internet. In this configuration, where “the customer is the entire world”, it is necessary for small and middle sized businesses to reach international markets and introduce themselves and turn towards e-commerce. Internet creates a universal channel of communication between all sizes of companies, organizations and individuals and in this way, great opportunities for marketing activities emerge. The Internet facilitates better communication with customers and provides potential for reaching more customers and introducing new products and services in a fast manner.
Keywords
In his study, Huang [1] reviewed the research conducted on internet use and adapting to online shopping on 17349 college students and interpreted the results of the study. Uğuz investigated the development of e-commerce and compared certain programs used in e-commerce [2]. Wang [3] and Jutla et.al. [4] performed the design of a virtual store through ASP technology with and without using SSL. The transaction processes of the virtual stores were compared in the applications executed in the study. In his study, Uğuz investigated the differences of electronic commerce from traditional commerce, the advantages of e-commerce, applications of e-commerce and the technical and legal problems of e-commerce in Turkey and in the world [2]. Chen [5] examined the factors that motivate the internet users in customer-virtual store applications and in addition to this, realized an application by using the Java Servlet. Saka [6], Kodaz [7], and Sait [8] emphasized the topics of encryption algorithms and secure transfer of information through the internet. In his article, Feindt presented the results of the electronic commerce applications used in 7 small and middle scale enterprises [9]. In his study, İşcan mentioned the advantages provided by electronic commerce applications together with web-based applications and emphasized that electronic commerce particularly accelerates complex commercial distributions, lowers prices and creates global markets [10].
E- Commerce, Secure Socket Layer (SSL), Virtual POS
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Electronic commerce models, principles of electronic commerce, steps of electronic shopping, security in electronic commerce and virtual store design methods were examined within the scope of the present study. The general structure, operation and implementation of Virtual store systems were realized through a model application. In the study, first of all, the steps of electronic shopping, the processes of transition to electronic commerce and virtual store design strategies were investigated. Within the scope of these investigations, it was aimed to maintain the general structure, operation and implementation of Virtual Store systems, which is an area of electronic commerce.
affect the prices of your products. In this way, your power of competing with other firms and companies in the world increases. As the result of the developments experienced in electronic commerce, a large number of countries, international organizations and institutions have put electronic commerce and the related topics on their agenda and started to investigate the fact of electronic commerce in detail. The scope of electronic commerce is quite large. E-commerce comprises the design, production and trade of products, ordering, forming a contract, the sale of services such as information, guidance, law, health, education, training and transportation, banking transactions and transfer of funds, sending consignments, public transactions, share trade and the stock market, sale by auction and notary public transactions [10].
Windows XP Professional platform and Microsoft Access database were used for the development of the Virtual Store application. Security is one of the biggest problems in electroniccommerce. It is particularly necessary to securely control the credit card information. An SSL application was used as the security mechanism on the website. Besides, the Virtual Store system was designed using HTML. The Dreamweaver software was used for designing the virtual store system.
Electronic Production on the other hand, is the production, supply and pricing of products and services through electronic means [10]. Ticket selling operations of airline companies are named as electronic production. The six main means of e-commerce can be listed as Telephone, Fax, Television, Electronic payment and money transfer systems, Electronic Data Interchange-EDI and the Internet. However, in most cases, electronic commerce is perceived as the business which is carried out through the internet and other networks and the discussions focus on these means. Although electronic commerce is not a relatively new concept, the opportunities offered by the internet environment, such as the transmission of sound, image and written texts by one or more individuals in business transactions, that there exists no limitation of time and place, and the relatively low cost of operation, have made the concept of electronic commerce a current issue. These facilities help the internet become more flexible when compared to other means of electronic commerce. The internet environment lessens the obstacles to communication and commerce.
2. ELECTRONIC COMMERCE Electronic commerce is the process of conducting the production, advertisement, sale, insurance and payment transactions of products and services over computer networks Electronic commerce is the process of buying information, products and services from the websites of companies on the Internet. Companies doing electronic commerce (e-commerce) display the information introducing their products and services, receive orders, accept payments in their websites on the Internet and send the products to the buyer. The increase in customer expectations and the increase in the supply of products and services make competition in the business world more difficult at the global scale. Businessmen modify their organizations and working styles in order to adapt to this change and remove the barriers between the company-customer-supplier through the Internet and e-commerce.
The parties in e-commerce are examined under four different headings; Business-Business, Business-Customer, BusinessPublic and Individual-Public. Although e-commerce in essence is perceived as an economic event, it also creates certain effects in social and cultural areas. It has been observed that e- commerce creates different effects on individuals, companies and the society. Companies that adopt e-commerce adapt faster to the conditions where customer expectations redefine the market and create new markets and these companies gain advantage in competition. Individuals are provided with new ways that overcome the restrictions of time and physical distance in shopping, access to information and services and interaction with the public.
Institutions in different countries define e-commerce in different ways. However, the most common and the most widely accepted definition of e-commerce is the one provided by the OECD in 1997. Within this scope, e-commerce is defined as a process comprising the following activities; companies gathering information and conducting research in the electronic environment before doing business, meeting of companies in the electronic environment, completion of the payment process, executing the contract, delivering the products or services to the customer, providing after-sale maintenance, support etc. services.
A research study conducted in the USA compared the costs that arise when the business between two companies is conducted through the electronic environment and through traditional methods. According to the results of the study, as it can be seen in Table 2, it was found that considering the sectors, an average saving between 15 and 20% was obtained through e-commerce.
Companies which achieve a more flexible structure, which work more closely with their suppliers and meet the expectations and needs of their customers faster through e-commerce, also experience a change at the global scale. E-commerce provides an opportunity to companies for choosing the best supplier and for selling their products all around the world.
Table 1. Estimated Savings Obtained through E-Commerce (Source: Business Week, January 17, 2000)
Through e-commerce, you can open a store which is continuously open for 24 hours, which does not have costs of electricity, water and telephone, which does not require a staff and which has branch offices in every part of the world. Opening a virtual store requires less cost and expenditure when compared to opening a normal store. The low cost and expenditures of your business also
INDUSTRY Space, Machinery Industry
509
Rate of Saving (%) 11
INDUSTRY Media and Advertisement
Rate of Saving (%) 10-15
Chemical Products
10
Coal Industry
2
Communication
5-15
Information Technologies
11-20
Electronic Parts
29-39
Food Additives
3-5
Paper Industry Airline Transportation
10
Life Sciences Metal/Machinery Industry Health Management / Maintenance / Repair Fuel and Gas Forestry Products Steel Industry
the Web server, Web browser and the network traffic between the browser and the server. Server and browser problems can be considered within the category of computer system security, and the traffic security problems within the category of network security.
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There are a number of approaches that maintain the security of the network. These approaches are similar in terms of the service they provide and the mechanisms they use. However, they differ from each other in terms of their usability and their positions within the TCP/IP protocols.
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The security abilities in the TCP/IP protocol are shown in Figure 1.
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The biggest technical obstacle in front of the users’ trust towards e-commerce is the maintenance of the security of information on the Internet and the execution of secure payments. The purpose of information security is; authentication (digital signature, electronic identity certificate (digital Certificate), privacy of information, to eliminate the problems that might occur because of programming and network infrastructure, secure socket layer (SSL) security and transport layer security (TLS).
Business model and architectural model are generally mentioned as the two fundamental models of electronic commerce. The business model of electronic commerce defines the activities and functional structures of companies. It focuses on fine details such as the goals and strategies of companies. The architectural model represents the basic components and limitations of the system and the relations between those components. We can examine the business models of electronic commerce in two groups: (i) Business to consumer and (ii) Business to Business. According to these approaches, while some companies are included in only one group, some others may be included in both groups. Based on these criteria, Saleh defines six business models of e- commerce while Sulta defines three business models [11]. New technological developments and suggestions have been effective in the creation of new business models.
Figure 1. Positions of security abilities within the TCP/IP protocol. Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) is an open encryption and security specification designed to protect credit card transactions on the Internet [14]. The current version of SET emerged from a call for security standards by MasterCard and Visa in February 1996. A wide range of companies were involved in developing the initial specification, including IBM, Microsoft, Netscape, RSA, Terisa, and Verisign. There have been numerous tests of the concept and the first wave of SET-compliant products was available on the market in 1998.
When comparing the architectural models, it would be appropriate to group them into 4 main e-commerce systems, as: (1) Client, (2) Business Server, (3) Transaction Server and (4) Payment Gateway. The architectural models mentioned below are generally used in real-life applications [12, 13]: Order Form Architecture and Web Server, Open Market Commerce Architecture and the Open Buying on the Internet (OBI) architecture.
3. INTERNET AND WEB SECURITY
SET is not itself a payment system. Rather, it is a set of security protocols and formats enabling users to employ the existing credit card payment infrastructure on an open network, such as the Internet, in a secure fashion. In essence, SET provides three services: (i) it provides a secure communications channel among all parties involved in a transaction. (ii) provides trust by the use of X.509 digital certificates. (iii) ensures privacy, because the information is only available to parties in a transaction when and where necessary.
Although shopping in the cyber world seems to be convenient and easy, one of the most important problems to be solved is the issue of trust. According to experts, companies which develop a feeling of trust also gain the key to great opportunities and creative competition. We desire to be sure that our credit card information is secure and the products we pay for will be delivered on time as promised even when we transfer a small amount of money. A study conducted by the MIT technology institute of the USA discovered that only half of the online shoppers preferred the store that offered the lowest price, the other half bought from the site which gave trust to them or which was advised as a reliable company.
4. VIRTUAL POS Virtual POS is a POS software application that enables the businesses that support online shopping over the internet to make credit card collections. After a customer who is doing shopping on a website enters his credit card information in the form within the website, this information securely reaches the bank over the Internet and authorization is received. This software allows authorizations to be taken securely, in other words, it operates compatible with the SSL encryption technique which prevents third parties from catching the information being transferred over the internet. The bank enables the shopping amounts of previously authorized transactions to be deduced from the credit limits of the
It is possible to classify the factors that threaten web security into two groups as active and passive attacks. Passive attacks can be listed as listening to the network traffic between the browser and the server and accessing to unauthorized information on the website. Active attacks can be in the form of acting as another user in the network or changing the message content when a message is transferred between the customer and the server. Another method for classifying web threats is by taking the location of the threat into consideration. These can be grouped as
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credit cards transferring the amount to the bank account of the member business[6, 7].
which is used by customers and which allows them to buy the products sold on the website. In this part of the website, customers select the products they want to buy, add them to their carts, buy the products added to the cart and enter membership information on the site.
Integration of Windows based systems: can be maintained by using COM, CGI, Java API, Microsoft SiteServer and Microsoft CommerceServer Objects and Secure Common Payment Page.
When designing a good website, it is important that the HTML code is quite simple and the graphics are small. Customers should not be offered an excessive number of choices which might distract them. Research studies show that customers get bored when they are offered seven or more choices. The shopping site should be designed in a way that allows the customer to reach the payment point three clicks after entering the site. The search capacity of the website should be enhanced to allow the customer to execute a search in any category. The created website should be accessible to a good deal of users around the world. The customers should be offered a wide choice of order and payment options that will be accepted by the site. If the business is not based on a powerful brand, customers should be assured that they will get their money's worth in the best way. Customers like receiving special attention. Some basic information can be collected from the visitors and customer profiles can be created. Based on these profiles, up to date information regarding the products customers are interested in can be sent to their e-mails in the form of online bulletins. Customers may need some prior information while deciding to buy a product on the site, for this reason; there should be adequate information about each product on the website. Besides, customers should be able to receive more detailed information about the products via e-mail. Customers know that the cost of doing business on the Internet is lower when compared to doing business in real stores; therefore, they expect this difference in cost to affect the prices of the products. Customers should be allowed to place their orders with the widest variety of choices possible. After successfully creating the web store, it is necessary to advertise the website as required. It would be advisable to start with the most visited search engines, such as Altavista, Yahoo, Infoseek, Lycos, Hotbot, Excite and Webcrawler. Other websites that might attract the attention of the target group should be searched and mutual links can be set up with these websites. Mutual links with the websites that market supplementary products to the ones sold on the website may attract the best customer group. Furthermore, links can be obtained from different sites. If the budget allows, banner advertisements should be placed on the pages of the sites selling similar products. Your URL should be published on the advertisements, envelopes, labels, notices, brochures or catalogues of your business. Other websites should be allowed to sell your products.
In the DLL method, payment transactions are conducted by registering the EstPayCom Component to the server and calling the functions of the component from the program. In the CGI method, payment transactions are executed by sending the required information to the Virtual POS CGI. In the same manner, payment transactions can be executed by using the Jlink API. There are small integration programs which are specially developed for Microsoft Site Server or Microsoft Commerce Server e-commerce products, which are used for designing ecommerce systems. Installing these programs would be adequate for the integration of the stores designed in these platforms. Secure Common Payment Page can be used as the fifth method of integration. These pages are created by banks. Integration on UNIX-based systems can be accomplished by using CGI, Java API and Secure Common Payment Page. In the CGI method, payment transactions are executed by sending the required information to the Virtual POS CGI. There are CGI versions compiled for Linux, Sun Solaris and HPUX and it is possible to compile the application for other platforms. JAVA API can also be used for payment transactions. Another method is to use the Secure Common Payment Page. The Secure Common Payment Page is a page for payment transactions designed for common use and is hosted on the secure server of the bank. The maintenance and security of the page is managed by the bank. Through this system, it is possible to use the Virtual POS system of the bank without requiring a specific adjustment on the server where the Virtual Store is hosted. Owing to the Secure Common Payment Page, there is no necessity to get an SSL certificate for the website. Secure Common Payment Page can be used in Turkish and in English. The Secure Common Payment Page offers us the following advantages: the store software will not be required to perform complex adjustments for payment transactions; as there will be no necessity to perform special adjustments and install special programs for the integration of the payment system, there will also be no necessity to get a special hosting package and an SSL certificate for the website. The Secure Common Payment Page uses the 128 bit SSL certificates of the bank, the maintenance and security of the payment page is provided by the bank and lastly, the customers will do the payment transaction on the standard page of the bank more securely and more easily.
In the application developed for this study, Windows XP Professional was used as the operating system, Windows based IIS (Internet Information Server) was used as the Web server and Microsoft Access was used as the database. Macromedia Dreamweaver program was used for preparing the pages of the application. That the program is object-based and supports ASP technology provided convenience in preparing the pages. The hardware used in this application was a computer system with an Intel Pentium IV 1.8 processor, 256 MB DDRAM memory and a 30 GB HDD. The general flow chart of the transactions that the customer can perform on the website is given in Figure 2.
5. APPLICATION In the present study, a website aimed at selling second hand computer parts was created in order to provide an example of electronic commerce. This application is composed of two main parts. The first one is the part into which the products are entered and which includes the management of these products. In this part, there are procedures such as preparing the product information, entering the product information into the database, changing and deleting information, order lists and exchange rate information. This part is used only by the site administrator. This part can be accessed through a separate page named administrator.asp. The second part of the application is the one
In the following part of the article, the modules of the website created for the study are described.
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Main page: This is the start page of the website and access to other pages is provided through this page. A menu is placed in the upper and left panels of the main page in the categories section to reach the product groups. At the same time, it is possible to proceed to the next page by clicking on the pictures of the products belonging to different categories given in the middle of the page. Furthermore, there is a section for member access. There is also a section to perform a product search on the site. The screenshot of the main page is given in Figure 3. Member login: The customer has to login as a member in order to buy products on the website. This can be done from the member login area on the main page. Member page: When customers log in as a member, they reach the member page. This page can be identified by the member’s name written on the upper left side of the page. After this point, the member can select the products he wants to buy, add them to his cart, buy the products added to the cart and review, edit, change, or update his membership information on the site and he can add the products he likes to favorites.
Figure 3. Main page of the e-commerce website designed for the study. Choose product: When the customer clicks on the category of the product he wants, the computer parts belonging to the selected category are displayed on the screen. The customer can add the product he wants to the cart or can directly proceed to the buying process by clicking on the ‘buy it now’ button. Cart: When the customer clicks on the ‘add to cart’ button, the product he chooses is added to his cart. He can choose another product from the categories and add it to his cart or proceed to the buying process by clicking on ‘buy it now’ button. He can remove the products he decides not to buy from his cart by ticking the ‘delete’ box on the left of the product in the cart and pressing the ‘recalculate’ button. Buy: By clicking on the ‘buy’ button, the customer can proceed to the page on which the products in the cart, receipt and delivery information and payment options are shown on the screen. He enters the required information on this page and clicks the ‘confirm order’ button to proceed to the page for banking details required for transactions. Bank Transactions: After clicking the ‘confirm order’ button, the link takes the customer to the page of the bank providing ecommerce services and the customer enters his credit card information. By clicking the ‘send’ button, credit card processing is done. Process is complete: When the payment process is completed without any problems, the page which shows that the buying process is complete is displayed on the screen. The products bought and the total cost is displayed on this page.
Figure 2. Flow chart of the transactions that can be performed on the site.
New member: If a customer wants to be a member of the website, he has to click the ‘sign up’ button in the members area on the main page. In this way, the page on which the membership information will be entered is displayed. When the customer enters the required information and presses the ‘save’ button, he becomes a member of the site and thence, can log in to the site by using his member login name and password. Administrator login: Administrators are required to enter the site from a separate page named as administrator.asp in order to perform the operations they are required to do on the site. When an administrator enters this page, his administrator name and
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[2] Uğuz, H. 2002. Java Teknolojileri Kullanılarak Bir Elektronik Ticaret Uygulaması Geliştirilmesi. Master Thesis. Selcuk University. Konya.
password are asked. Entering the required information, the administrator can access to the administration panel. There are a number of procedures and functions on the administrator panel such as adding and deleting products, currency rate information, order lists and changing the administrator password. All this information can be changed and edited by connecting to the database created for the site.
[3] Wang, Y. 1998. An Electonic Commerce Web Benchmark. Master Thesis. Dalhousie University. [4] Jutla, D. Bodorik, P., and Wang, Y. 1999. Developing internet e-commerce benchmarks. Information Systems. Vol.24(6). 475-493.
6. CONCLUSION As the result of the fast spread of the internet use, businesses have rapidly turned towards electronic commerce in order to provide their products and services on the Internet. The commerce conducted on the internet has shown an increasing trend, and it is expected that in the near future, a significant part of the world trade will be conducted through e-commerce. Today, the biggest obstacle to e-commerce is the concerns that arise because of the problems that might appear regarding security. In recent years, concerns regarding security have largely been eliminated due to the use of certain applications such as virtual POS, SET and SSL and this has increased the interest towards electronic commerce.
[5] Chen, K. 1999. Factors that Motivate Internet Users to Use Business-to-Consumer Electronic Commerce. Doctoral Dissertation. Cleveland State University. [6] Saka, Y. 2000. Bilgisayar Ağ Güvenliği ve Şifreleme. Master Thesis. Mugla University. Muğla. [7] Kodaz, H. 2002. Veri İletiminde Güvenlik İçin Şifreleme. Master Thesis. Selcuk University. Konya. [8] Sait, A. 2005. Measuring the strength of partial encryption schemes. 2005 International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), Vols 1-5 Book Series: IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP). Genoa. ITALY. 2401-2404.
In recent years, a large number of big, middle and small scale businesses around the world have felt the necessity to use ecommerce applications. In the near future, e-commerce will become an indispensable tool for companies of all sizes to sell their products. For this reason, generalizing the use of ecommerce applications is highly important in our country.
[9] Feindt, S., Jeffcoate, J., and Chappell, C. 2002. Identifying Success Factors for Rapid Growth in SME E-commerce. Small Business Economics. 51-62. [10] İşcan, H. 2004. Bilgisayar Malzeme satışı amaçlı e-ticaret sitesi oluşturulması. Master Thesis. Selcuk University. Konya.
Electronic commerce business models, principles of electronic commerce, steps of electronic shopping and electronic commerce security mechanisms were examined within the scope of the present study. Second hand computer parts were sold on the electronic commerce website which was created based on the findings of the examinations.
[11] Bartelt, A. And Lamersdorf, W. 2001. A Multi-Criteria Taxonomy of Business Models in Electronic Commerce. Proceedings of the IFIP/ACM International Conference on Distributed Systems Platforms (Middleware 2001), WS on Electronic Commerce. 193-205.
The process of buying the products was conducted in the form of simulation in the developed application. Credit card numbers were preserved in the database.
[12] Landry, S.P. and Jalbert, T. 2001. E-Commerce Strategies Your Shareholders Will Love. The Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance. Vol. 12(2), 45-53.
Obstacles are being resolved owing to today’s technological opportunities. In the course of this study, it was noticed that the means of security, data storage and web design have substantially improved. Problems regarding security have been solved with the help of the certificates created by VeriSign, Global Sign and other companies. Databases provide convenience to users in saving, editing and searching information. Web design has been quite simplified with the use of object-based programs, such as FrontPage and Dreamweaver.
[13] Paik, I., Han, T., Oh, D., Ha, S., and Park, D. 2003. An affiliated search system for an electronic commerce and software component architecture. Information and Software Technology. Vol. 45(8). 479-497. [14] Lu, S. and Smolka, S.A. 1999. Model Checking the Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) Protocol. In Proceedings of 7 th International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems. 358-365.
In conclusion, a good electronic commerce application will be highly beneficial in the growth and development of companies. Businesses in our country have also recently accelerated their studies in this direction.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This study has been supported by the Scientific Research Projects of Selcuk University.
7. REFERENCES [1] Huang, H.S. 1998. Diffusion of Online Shopping. Doctoral Dissertation. California State University. Fresno.
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