Page 164 - DCAP306_DCAP511_E-COMMERCE_AND_E-BUSINESS

Unit 13: Designing and Building E-Commerce Web Site - Basics

users. A clear understanding of the business objectives provides an easy flow of developing the Web
site.

ESPN (www.espn.com) created its Web site after clearly identifying the type of
audience it would cater to. Most of the audience logging into the Web site are
sports fans and are primarily interested in reading sports related articles, updates
on new sports wear and accessories, game summaries, and so on. Hence, the
homepage is designed in such a way that users are provided with options to
access the detailed content or navigate to other page which can be of interest to the
user.
There are various additional components for the site development process which includes:
1. Functional Specification: It provides a detailed description of necessary information that needs to
be included in each page of the Web site. The functional specification document is similar to the
blueprint required for developing the Web site. It also provides the rules to be applied for
designing the Web page and its functionalities. The functional specification additionally defines
every action that is carried out in the Web page, which includes page navigation, selecting an item,
providing information about the product, ensuring secured payment, adding to shopping cart,
calculating shipping charges of the product, and providing the end user with detailed information
about the product and the process of purchase and payment.
2. Change Management Process: It acts as a framework for identifying the problems within the
project. It involves identifying software bugs or changing the site according to the new
requirements. The problems are identified and prioritized according to their severity and are
assigned to a team for resolving and maintaining an error free site. To make any changes or
further developments to the Web site after its release in the market, it is important to obtain an
approval from the Change Management Board.
3. Project Plan: It deals with designing checkpoints and resources while analyzing the requirements
to build a Web site. The project manager proactively uses various planning methods to manage
the expectations of stakeholders and the development team, to identify the project bottlenecks, to
flag the resource constraints, and to spot project dependencies. Project planning helps to break
down the large task into small discrete components such that the progress of the project can be
measured easily.

Dell is a pioneer in direct marketing of computers online. It sells products worth
$30 million every day. The company gained huge profits due to its ability to
customize orders and set standards for online computer retailing. Dell’s customer
support section known as www.support.dell.com contains a feature called
AskDudley. It mainly handles technical queries from customers who have
purchased Dell’s products.

QVC is a leading e-commerce Web site that provides television based shopping of
various products. It markets a wide variety of products in various categories such
as electronics, jewelry, cosmetics, home furnishings, and so on. It has an additional
feature known as “Watch Live TV” that provides an option to watch TV live while
shopping online.

13.2 Managing Products

In an e-commerce Web site, every business transaction is done online which includes marketing,
shopping, payments, and shipping. Therefore, it is important for a Web site to contain all these
necessary features to deal with these requirements. The outlook of the online store must be professional
to encourage customers to shop through the Web site. The graphical user interface of the Web site must
be unique in order to ensure that the customers purchase more products. The products must be

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