Page 171 - DCAP306_DCAP511_E-COMMERCE_AND_E-BUSINESS

E-Commerce and E-Business

Normally all the shopping carts share the same structure. The structure includes:
1. A database that stores information such as product details, customer data, order information, and
so on.
2. A storefront that displays the stored information.
3. An administration area that allows the store administrator to manage the store by adding
products, setting up shipping and payment options, and processing orders.
As most of the information is stored in a database, the shopping cart creates pages dynamically as per
the requirement of the customer. Apart from the HTML pages that make up most of the Web site, the
shopping cart pages do not exist until a customer requests one. The Web server dynamically generates
the page by retrieving data from the database.

X-cart is shopping cart software that is template based with open source code. It
means that the look and feel and functionality of the shopping cart can be changed
according to the business requirements.

Shipping Calculation
In the last few years, the shipping calculations have become more sophisticated. All the up-to-date carts
include the following two types of shipping calculations:

1. Calculation from the look-up tables which is set up by the merchant.
2. Real-time calculations that take information from the major shippers and couriers.
Generally, shipping calculations from look-up tables which are set up by the merchant, work perfectly
well. Shipping costs may differ from those in the look-up tables. However, in the long run, these cost
differences even out. Shopping carts often include a wide variety of shipping calculations which can be
grouped by:

1. Total sales
2. Number of items in the order
3. Weight and zone
4. A fixed shipping price for all products
The merchant has to select the particular system of grouping shipping calculations that applies to all
their products. Some of the carts add a shipping surcharge to selected products that are especially bulky
or require special crates or shipping containers.
Many merchants go for the by weight system and find it most flexible especially, when they have a
number of products that are dissimilar in size and shape.

The merchants can also use the plug-ins supplied by some of the major shippers. The shipping
companies offer a service to online merchants that estimate shipping costs, depending upon the type of
service the customer selects, like shipment on the same day or the next day, and so on.

13.5 Summary
• Web site development is a challenging aspect for companies to sell their products online. Design
and building of Web site for e-commerce requires analysis of various factors such as business
requirements, budget, and so on.
• Developing an e-commerce Web site requires addition of various features that are user friendly to
the customers.

• The products must be managed in an effective way such that, it is organized according to the
categories.

164 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY