E-commerce Resources (Web Developer's Journal). How to build online shopping sites. Tutorials on internet security, credit card merchant accounts, shopping cart software, and other electronic commerce help for home or small business.
eCommerce, Ecommerce, Electrionic Commerce, Web Commerce, whatever you want to call it, for us it's selling things over the Internet. You want to take orders on your Web site, your customers will pay for things with credit cards. It might be retail and it might be business-to-business.
We've assembled some articles and opinion pieces
that should help you find your way though the electonic commerce maze to get the
piece of cheese we hear is at the end.
Building
a Simple Ecommerce Web Site
You don't need to spend $millions to build an ecommerce
Web site. There are viable do-it-yourself alternatives at hand. These are cost
effective and require little technical expertise.
Tune
Your Ecommerce Site for the Rush
Christmas Rush, Easter Rush, Summer Rush or a bit
of brisk business next Friday. It doesn't matter when, the principles are the
same. Your servers and bandwidth have to be big enough. Your systems have to be
solid.
Is
SSL dead?
Most security experts have been aware of problems
with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), but they haven't been exploited extensively.
Chances are they will be, though.
Adding
A Dealer Locator To Your Site
Many large corporate Web sites have a "dealer locator"
feature that lets a user enter a zip code and get a list of the closest locations
to them. It turns out to be both cheap and easy to do.
Hey
wait! You didn't pay for that!
There's a dirty little secret about shopping carts: <whisper> most shopping
carts are abandoned full of merchandise before they ever get to the checkout counter!</whisper>
Find out how to reduce your abandonment rate.
Ecommerce
Tutorial
A detailed, three-part tutorial about how to set
up a simple ecommerce Web site.
Ecommerce
on a Budget
A simple, dependable, and inexpensive ecommerce solution
for small businesses is proposed.
E-commerce
in the UK
Multimillion pound savings are emerging from use
of the Web in the UK. Investment bank Schroders are looking to cut over one million
pounds from their annual buying costs. However, it's not all a smooth ride, as
Freeserve will confirm.
Do
the banks hold back E-commerce in the UK?
In the UK, doing business on the Internet is in
some ways still a frontier-town activity. The worst of the outlaws in this game
of Cowboys and Indians are the UK banks and credit card companies.
Shopping
Cart Programs Compared
Need a shopping cart? Here's an overview of your
options, from homegrown JavaScript to easy-to-implement turnkey solutions for
merchants.
NetObjects
Authoring Server Suite 3.0
NetObjects is shooting to alleviate the bottleneck
created when Webmasters are forced to do all the work of developing and deploying
Web content to Internet and Intranet sites.
EDI
as the Backbone of Electronic Commerce
Large and medium-sized companies have been doing business with each other electronically
for years via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).
Toolkits
for a Distributed, Agent-Based Web Commerce System
This is an 8-part series. As information on the Internet
becomes more dynamic and heterogeneous, 'software agents' have been touted as
the new building blocks for a new Internet structure.
Ecommerce Environment
Why The Web Still Isn't Ready For Consumers
Despite early projections, consumers have not been overwhelming e-retailers with business. The questions we need to ask ourselves are why, and is there anything positive we can do to improve the situation?
Reducing
Online Credit Card Fraud
Credit card company figures show that 90 per cent
of consumers are reimbursed when their cards are used fraudulently, while 75 per
cent of online retailers have to eat the cost when they're the victims of credit
card fraud.
Gambling
Online And Offshore
Online betting and gaming revenues are predicted
to reach $10 billion by 2002. Interactive betting services are looking to attract
a new audience - the middle classes and women.
Dotcom
Bubble - "The Emperor Has No Clothes!"
Expect valuations in ecommerce companies and other
consumer business to go down even further. Somebody has noticed the Emperor is
nude and the stock market and venture capitalists are no longer prepared to pay
for his wardrobe.
You
Paid How Much For That Domain Name?
The domain name Business.com was recently sold for
a staggering $8 million. If you've got a domain name to sell, or you'd like to
buy one, where on the Internet should you start looking, and how much will it
be worth?
Archive
Electronic
CommerceBy Frank Griffel, Tuan Tu, Winfreid
Lamersdorf (editors)
Book review.
Web Commerce
Cookbookby Gordon McComb
Book review. Explains how to set up sites to sell
either tangible goods, or content. Includes a wealth of useful CGI scripts and
HTML templates.
Internet Commerceby Andrew Dahl and Leslie Lesnick
This is also a pretty comprehensive guide.
Frontiers
of Electronic Commerceby Ravi
Kalakota and Andrew B. Whinston
This textbook covers credit card systems, EDI, electronic
cash systems, security, and much more.
Electronic
Commerce - A Manager's Guide by
Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B. Whinston
Web Commerce! Web Commerce! Let's all jump on the bandwagon! Seriously, Internet-based commerce is poised for big growth, and Web developers need to stay up on the latest techniques for building cash-generating sites. We've just reviewed five new books that all purport to be about Internet commerce, although as you will see, their subject matter varies widely.
Actual Web-based selling is still considered rather new (although some of us old geezers were doing it oh...three year ago!), and there isn't a lot of good solid information out there. In some cases, it wasn't enough information to fill a whole book, and the authors padded things out a little with various loosely-related subjects. All the books we list here are good books, but some stick more closely to the topic of Internet commerce than others. Below is a brief summary of our findings. Click on the title of each book to read a full-length review.
Electronic Commerce By Frank Griffel, Tuan Tu, Winfreid Lamersdorf (editors)
This new book contains 16 papers covering strategy, execution and support issues important for anyone involved in building merchant systems for the Internet. This is relevant information about the enabling technologies behind electronic commerce.
Web Commerce Cookbook By Gordon McComb
This is the closest thing we've seen to a comprehensive guide to building commerce-enabled sites. Explains how to set up sites to sell either tangible goods, or content. Includes a wealth of useful CGI scripts and HTML templates.
Internet Commerce By Andrew Dahl and Leslie Lesnick
This is also a pretty comprehensive guide to building commerce-enabled sites. Includes a chapter on building commerce sites using Lotus Notes.
The Microsoft Merchant Server Book By Barry S. Wadman, Brad Miser and Marta Partington
This is a very thorough explanation of MS Merchant Server, a suite of applications that offers a unified approach to building a commerce-enabled site.
Frontiers of Electronic Commerce By Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B. Whinston
This textbook covers credit card systems, EDI, electronic cash systems, security, and much more. Its 850 pages cover a vast scope, mentioning an array of Internet-related subjects, but not going into technical detail about any. Perhaps more suitable for managers than for Web developers.
Electronic Commerce - A Manager's Guide
By Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B. Whinston
This book covers many aspects of electronic commerce and communications. It is by the same authors as Frontiers of Electronic Commerce, and expands on that book's subject matter.
Build A World Wide Web Commerce Center By net.Genesis Corporation
This book tells you how to set up an in-house NT Web server, with a view to hosting commercial sites. Web commerce issues like credit cards, electronic payment systems, and security are briefly touched on, but the main focus of the book is on NT Web server setup.
