E- Commerce Site for online shopping
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND:
A website that allows people to buy and sell physical goods, services, and digital
products over the internet rather than at a brick-and-mortar location . Through an e-
commerce website, a business can process orders, accept payments, manage shipping and
logistics, and provide customer service. An e-commerce website is one that allows people to
buy and sell physical goods, services, and digital products over the internet rather than at a
brick-and-mortar location. Through an e-commerce website, a business can process orders,
accept payments, manage shipping and logistics, and provide customer service. It’s tough to
imagine daily life without e-commerce. We order food, clothes, and furniture; we register
for classes and other online services; we download books, music, and movies; and so much
more. E-commerce has taken root and is here to stay. The term “e-commerce” simply means
the sale of goods or services on the internet. In its most basic form, e-commerce involves
electronically transferring funds and data between 2 or more parties. This form of business
has evolved quite a bit since its beginnings in the electronic data interchange of the 1960s
and the inception of online shopping in the 1990s.In recent years, e-commerce has enjoyed
a massive boost from the rise of smart phones, which allow consumers to shop from nearly
anywhere.
1.2 NECESSITY
An e-commerce website allows a business to reach more customers for sales and
marketing. In some cases, it can even help achieve rapid growth if the product is right. A
good way to do this is through online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, or Etsy where
you can sell your products and services. But of course, you will need a well-optimized site
that matches customer expectations and search engine requirements so you get better results
in terms of traffic and conversions which means increased revenue opportunities.
The internet serves as a great tool to expand businesses beyond geographical borders and
create global markets allowing businesses to reach out to more customers easily. E-
commerce provides clients with access to products without leaving their comfort zone which
in turn increases customer satisfaction. Plus the ease of purchasing the product online attracts
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E- Commerce Site for online shopping
new audiences who might not have been exposed to your brand before. This helps expand
sales which eventually results in growing revenue numbers.
If you own a business where you offer products or services, you must own an e-
commerce website. The purpose of an e-commerce website is to facilitate the buying and
selling process for yourself and your customer. If you were to own a physical store, it would
require more time and money. For example, you would have to think about paying rent every
month. If you sell on an e-commerce website, all you need is a website and the product you
are selling.
1.3 OBJECTIVES
i. One needs to improve on the conversion rates. A high rate of conversion means that
more people are clicking through from the homepage to make a purchase. This can
be attained by creating attractive content and making sure that the site is easy to
navigate.
ii. One of the most common reasons businesses opt to use online marketing is to
enhance brand awareness. When customers, through online channels, are introduced
to a company or product, it creates a stronger connection between them and the brand.
iii. Satisfying customer needs, one objective of ecommerce, includes ensuring that the
products and services provided full fills the requirements of the customer. This can
be done through making sure of accuracy in product information, providing useful
guides and tutorials, and responding quickly to questions.
iv. The primary objective of ecommerce site is to offer a great user experience for its
customers. This means making sure that the site is easy to operate and that all features
are accessible without difficulty.
v. Establish a loyal customer base by offering unique products and services and by
providing excellent customer service. Product prices should be competitive and your
customers should be provided with value for their money. In order to solve the faced
problem we emphasize on two major alternatives.
vi. In order to solve the faced problem we emphasize on two major alternatives.
1.4 Theme
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E- Commerce Site for online shopping
An ecommerce theme is a pre-built ecommerce store design that brands install on their
ecommerce site to deliver the best possible user experience for customers. Using an
ecommerce theme can be an affordable option for online businesses because they can
eliminate web design and development costs.
1. Easy, simple website building.
It’s simple: themes and frameworks make for easy website building. You have access to
color schemes, multipurpose themes, responsive design, drag-and-drop page builder, Google
fonts, a visual composer, social media integration, and more. Plus, you can stand up landing
pages in no time with the help of pre-designed pages (e.g. homepage layouts).
2. Cost effective.
Themes and frameworks can be an affordable option for many brands. Many ecommerce
themes are free, while others come at a small price. With all of the easy-to-use tools available
to your ecommerce business, themes can save time and money spent on hiring and working
with a developer to do the work. Plus, when you want to update your look, you won’t have
to spend more time and money to make the changes.
3. Many options.
Looking for a design that offers the UX functionality you customers desire, but also matches
your brand tone and message? Luckily, there are many theme options available.
If you plan on housing your website design and content in an ecommerce platform, Big
Commerce themes and Big Commerce Stencil is a great way to start. If you are using a
CMS, ecommerce Word Press themes are another great option.
4. Automatic updates.
Building your website design with themes or frameworks ensures automatic updates, so you
can stay on top of best practices for technology, modern design standards, conversion, and
SEO without even thinking about it or spending time on it.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
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E- Commerce Site for online shopping
2.1 Literature Survey
As we all know, internet and e-commerce are entirely committed towards every
developed country. But we think it can be accomplished and can make a remarkable benefit
to developing countries also if an ideal business purpose can be made. Ohidujja man et.
clearly discussed that E-commerce is a revolution & turning point in online business
practices and can make a huge contribution to the economy and Hasan et.al also indicated
that currently, e-commerce organizations have increasingly become a fundamental
component of business strategy and a strong catalyst for economic development. A huge
amount of research works has been done on e-Commerce which is basically on online
shopping. A large group of researchers has found out and also pointed out the necessity and
possibilities of Online Shopping.
On the other hand, limitation of ecommerce is found and at the same time, they
provided essential suggestion and came to a prediction to make Online Shopping more useful
for the consumers. But the contribution of traditional marketing is also inescapable but
compare to online shopping it is less effective we think. So on this basis, Mehrdad Salehi
et.al found out distinguish between online marketing & traditional marketing. Though most
of the people of Bangladesh especially the rural people are not enough capable of operating
internet to run the online business. For that reason, they need to be dependent on traditional
marketing.
There are basically several types of e Commerce:
• Business to Business (B2B): B2B deals between the businesses or among business. In
Bangladesh BGMEA, readymade garment receives order from outside client of Bangladesh.
Example: Sindbad. com, address bazar, Bangladesh Business Guide, trade etc. • Business to
Consumer (B2C): This business is basically done with the general people like catalog
utilizing shopping software. Example: ajkerdeal, bag doom, daraz, othoba and so on.
• Consumer to Consumer (C2C): This business strategy which is basically done between
customers. Example: Bikroy.com, Ekhanei.com and ClickBd.com.
• Others: G2G (Government to Government), G2E (Government to Employee), G2B
(Government to Business), B2G (Business to Government), MCommerce (Mobile
Commerce), F-Commerce (Facebook Commerce).
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E- Commerce Site for online shopping
Advantages of E-commerce:
• Comfort: If we need any household commodities or even anything, we can get it by sitting
at home on the click of our finger on the internet.
• Time-saving: By using e-commerce sites, there is not a chance of waste of time and with
the help of online order, our necessary product will be delivered to our address.
• Options, options, and options: Without visiting outside from one store to another, the
consumer can simply compare goods products or commodity. We can see who offer low
price for standard & branded goods and can have more option to choose from the websites.
• Easy to compare: When the marketers place their products to the website, they make a
lucrative description of these products to compare them with other products, to let the
consumers know that they have the best option and come back for more.
• Coupons and deals: Some online business company makes offers that we can’t refuse.
Some major sites sometimes offer up to 80% of discount.
• 24/7, 365 days: if it’s holiday or rainy or sunny or the road is blocked by any reason, the
businessman should not be worry for his business because the door of this market is always
open & the profit will go rising every day.
3. SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
3.1 Waterfall Model:
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E- Commerce Site for online shopping
The Waterfall Model was the first Process Model to be introduced. It is also referred
to as a linear-sequential life cycle model. It is very simple to understand and use. In a
waterfall model, each phase must be completed before the next phase can begin and there is
no overlapping in the phases.
The Waterfall model is the earliest SDLC approach that was used for software development.
The waterfall Model illustrates the software development process in a linear sequential flow.
This means that any phase in the development process begins only if the previous phase is
complete. In this waterfall model, the phases do not overlap.
Figure 3.1: Waterfall Model.
3.1.1 The sequential phases in Waterfall model are −
• Requirement Gathering and analysis − All possible requirements of the system to
be developed are captured in this phase and documented in a requirement
specification document.
• System Design − The requirement specifications from first phase are studied in this
phase and the system design is prepared. This system design helps in specifying
hardware and system requirements and helps in defining the overall system
architecture.
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E- Commerce Site for online shopping
• Implementation − With inputs from the system design, the system is first developed
in small programs called units, which are integrated in the next phase. Each unit is
developed and tested for its functionality, which is referred to as Unit Testing.
• Integration and Testing − All the units developed in the implementation phase are
integrated into a system after testing of each unit. Post integration the entire system
is tested for any faults and failures.
• Deployment of system − Once the functional and non-functional testing is done; the
product is deployed in the customer environment or released into the market.
• Maintenance − There are some issues which come up in the client environment. To
fix those issues, patches are released. Also to enhance the product some better
versions are released. Maintenance is done to deliver these changes in the customer
environment.
All these phases are cascaded to each other in which progress is seen as flowing steadily
downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases. The next phase is started only after the
defined set of goals are achieved for previous phase and it is signed off, so the name
"Waterfall Model". In this model, phases do not overlap.
3.1.2 Waterfall Model – Application:
Every software developed is different and requires a suitable SDLC approach to be followed
based on the internal and external factors. Some situations where the use of Waterfall model
is most appropriate are −
• Requirements are very well documented, clear and fixed.
• Product definition is stable.
• Technology is understood and is not dynamic.
• There are no ambiguous requirements.
• Ample resources with required expertise are available to support the product.
• The project is short.
Requirement Analysis:
E-Commerce – A platform that has revolutionized the way we shop.
From clothing merchandize to grocery items, almost all our daily requirements are now met
by such platforms. Such an application plays a crucial role in many businesses these
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E- Commerce Site for online shopping
days. For an e-commerce project, the main business requirement is the same – A user comes
to the platform and purchases products
A checklist can include the following pointers:
1. User Actions On The Website
What all actions can a user perform on the website besides making a purchase? These include
:Searching for products on the home page or throughout the website and on what basis.
Products can be searched on the basis of product name, categories, brands etc.
Sorting products based on the filters provided. Which filters need to be placed? For clothes
these can be colours, sizes and types
2. Admin Console
This is an important module of any e-commerce application. A business analyst should
clearly determine the aspects that an admin can control from the backend. These include:
• Product Management – All the metadata of the products – Product images,
description, seller information, prices etc. Admin should be able to manage this data
i.e. add, remove and edit a product.
• Content management – The design aspect of the website i.e. the static pages a user
sees at the front end. It’s important to create an attractive and effective website to
attract and retain traffic. Will these pages be uploaded or a provision has to be made
for the admin user such that pages are created through the system?
• Master Management – Besides the product data, there are other masters that need
to be managed at the back end. Country, State and city masters, seller masters etc.
are just a few examples. For instance pin code masters help in extracting a city when
the user enters the pin code while adding the shipping address.
3. Inventory And Logistics Management And Order Fulfillment
Remember how we add some products to our wish lists and when it’s time to buy them,
some of the products go out of stock. Or the time when a sale is announced at mid-night but
you log in early morning only to see that the products in sale were brought overnight. We
have all been through such times. At the backend, this management is crucial to keep the
website up to date with the latest numbers. Whether new products are added, products are
returned or exchanged, dispatched, all the logistics and stock details should be maintained
in a robust system. Additionally once the products are purchased, some businesses require
fulfillment systems that can be used by the dispatch and customer services teams
4. User Checkout And Payment
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E- Commerce Site for online shopping
Generally users can check out as registered users or as guest users. An option of creating a
new account is also available. Some businesses require customers to make an account in
order to place orders. The information required to create an account needs to be considered.
• Payment options can vary – Cash on Delivery, E-Wallets, 3rd Party Payment
Gateways. Vendors are selected as per the requirement of the business.
• The shipping charges and methods. These can be either maintained at the backend or
made static.
5. Promo Code Application
It’s important for a business analyst to clarify the application area of these codes. At what
point of the user journey can a user apply a promo code?
6. Mailers
Automated mails are triggered to customers on a majority of actions – when an order is
placed, when an order is returned or an exchange request is placed, when complaints are
logged, when new accounts are created, etc. Besides the standard practices, promotional
campaigns are also run. Requirements should capture the mails to be sent for every action
and the content for each mailer.
7. Reports
Analytics is an integral part of e-commerce in today’s date. A lot of third party tools are used
by businesses to curate reports that’ll help the businesses to make informed decisions and
plan further actions. The type of reports should be added to the business requirements.
3.2 Working
E Commerce Business Models:
Most E Commerce takes place on an E Commerce website, which acts as a virtual storefront
wherein transactions and commerce can take place. E Commerce can manifest in many
different forms:
• Retail: Products are sold by businesses directly to an end-level consumer without
intermediary involvement.
• Wholesale: Products are sold in bulk, either directly to the consumer, or to
wholesalers/distributors.
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E- Commerce Site for online shopping
• Dropshipping: Products are sold online, but shipped directly to the consumer by a
third party that manages inventory, order fulfillment, and other logistics.
• Crowdfunding: Consumers pool money, often in advance of an anticipated
product coming to market, to raise startup capital, leverage buying power, reduce
product costs, etc.
• Subscription: Recurring purchases for products or services are automated until the
subscriber chooses to cancel or alter their subscription level.
• Digital Products: Most people think about tangible products, but many E
Commerce transactions include the sale of digital products, such as music, movies,
audio and video files, templates, software, etc.)
• Services: Skilled labor or services can be purchased digitally, such as hiring an
Uber driver or paying someone to run your errands online.
E Commerce websites work through a series of steps, utilizing website code, the database,
and 3rd party applications such as a payment processor or payment gateway .E Commerce
websites use SSL certificates to secure and encrypt all transferred data. Sensitive data,
including credit card information, should never be stored within the website’s database
unless the website adheres to all mandated regulations, including PCI Compliance.
3.3 Principle
1. User Friendliness
An E Commerce website should be easy to navigate. An easy search process allows the users
to reach various pages or products; they desire to buy. These websites should also provide
the visitors with ample details and pictures of the products so that they can understand the
products well, without touching or seeing them in real.
2. Unique Design Elements
The market is full of buying alternatives, and there should be a strong reason why a user
must pick you over other adversaries. To make the buyers notice you among the flock, you
should implement some bold and unusual components in your design so that they remember
you for long, and visit your site again to experience a unique user interface.
3. Emphasize on Security
Each person, who is opting to buy products from your website, needs assurance that his/her
personal and financial details are safe and that you are not going to share them with any third
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party. Make sure that your payment gateway is safe and secure, failing to which will directly
affect your leads and sign ups, ultimately resulting in hammering your sales targets badly.
4. Responsive Technology
Some designers tend to use heavy HTML coding, large-sized images, and big flash files to
improve the design and look of the website. But, it is not favorable for an ECommerce site
in any way, as it will make the website slow to load. You cannot afford to have a slow
loading site as there are thousands of other competitors on the web selling similar products.
5. Know Your Target Audience
You should know your customers well and design your website accordingly, to serve them
better. You have to understand what they necessitate so that you can make them feel at ease
while browsing through your products and provide them with your services to win their trust.
6. Add Search Column
The search option is indispensable for every ECommerce website, as the visitors might be
looking for a particular product that they need to buy. Going through various categories and
looking for a specific product might become a tedious task.
7. Effective Product Descriptions
Product descriptions on your site are very crucial and can influence your buyer’s purchasing
verdicts. The more alluring the fonts, descriptive text, images, and videos are, the better the
buyer will relate it to his buying needs.
8. Minimalistic Layout
Getting minimalism right can be a bit fiddly, nonetheless. Carefully selected color palette,
ample white space, attractive typography, and above all, deciding on choosing the right
design elements and leaving out the unimportant ones are some of the key factors that will
direct your users exactly where they intend to go.
9. Consistent Branding
Following the brand identity throughout your site and keeping it consistent all the way can
help the users distinguish your store’s brand values and exclusive offerings. You must ensure
that the font, brand-specific color palette, tone of product photographs, descriptive texts, call
to action buttons, and every element and style used in the design is strictly following the
eccentricity of your brand.
10. Efficient Call to Action
No matter how bold and intuitive your CTA is, if it carries a below average copy, it won’t
work well. The audience has come to your site seeking a solution; thus, ensure that the words
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used on the call to action buttons are catered towards the probable questions they have in
mind and take them to exactly what they are looking for
3.4 Technical Specifications
HTML :
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), the languages of the World Wide Web (www),
allows users to produce web pages that include text, graphics and pointer to other web pages
(Hyperlinks). HTML is written in the form of labels (known as tags), surrounded by angle
brackets. HTML can also describe, to some degree, the appearance and semantics of a
document, and can include embedded scripting language code which can affect the behavior
of web browsers and other HTML processors. Used to create the User Interface. CSS:
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation
semantics (the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language. It is
designed primarily to enable the separation of document content (written in HTML or a
similar markup language) from document presentation including elements such as the layout,
colors and fonts. Used to create the designing for the User Interface. Bootstrap : Bootstrap
is a free and open-source CSS framework directed at responsive, mobile-first front-end web
development. It contains HTML, CSS and (optionally) JavaScript-based design templates
for typography, forms, buttons, navigation, another interface components.
JavaScript : JavaScript is scripting language used for client-side scripting JavaScript
developed by Netscape in 1995 as a method for validating forms and providing interactive
content to website. JavaScript was designed to add interactivity to HTML pages JavaScript
is a scripting language. A scripting language is a lightweight programming language
JavaScript is usually embedded directly into HTML pages. JavaScript is an interpreted
language. Used to perform browser actions on the User interface .
PHP :
PHP is Hypertext Preprocessor. PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward
web development. PHP is a server side scripting language that is embedded in HTML. It is
used to manage dynamic content. It is integrated with a number of popular databases,
including MySQL.
MySQL :
MySQL is an open-source relational database management system. MySQL is a relational
database management system based on SQL – Structured Query Language. The application
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is used for a wide range of purposes.The most common use for mySQL however, is for the
purpose of a web database. The purpose of a database is to store and retrieve related
information.
3.5 Design Specifications
ER Diagram
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DataFlow Diagram
Context level DFD – 0 level
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1st Level Admin Side DFD
2nd Level – Admin side DFD (3.0)
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2nd Level – Admin side DFD (4.0)
2nd Level – Admin side DFD (5.0)
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Class diagram
3.6 Observations
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Suppose you are a retailer who wants to store simple product information of shirts. Some E
Commerce platforms use to store the data in a simple RDBMS or spreadsheet kind of
format where information is kept in tables.
Your shirt may have attributes like Unique ID, Title, Color, Size and SKU
If you sell the same thing throughout your website, then you just need to add additional
rows in your database keeping all the columns same.
The problem arises when you want to add separate kind of entity having attributes which
are not similar to those of shirts. Like for example, Jeans have attributes like Unique ID,
Title, Size, Waist, Pattern, SKU
Adding an extra column in your database can be a probable solution for this.
This might work for a small data set but the solution is not scalable.
Imagine a situation where you need to add 1000 of products having dissimilar attributes.
Considering the above solution, very soon you will be having a database having 1000 of
columns.
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E- Commerce Site for online shopping
A popular solution to such a problem is the Entity-Attribute-Value (EAV) approach which
is followed by major e Commerce platforms like Magento and Bagisto
EAV basically stores the product information in parts in multiple tables. As a piece of
information in an entity, the table may look like this
The attributes and values will be stored in a different table
REFERENCES
[1] http://www.w3schools.com/
[2] http://msdn.microsoft.com/
[3] http://agilemodeling.com/
[4]http://csharp-video-tutorials.blogspot.co.uk/p/free-dot-net-video-tutorials-for.html
[5]http://csharp-video-tutorials.blogspot.com/p/free-aspnet-video-tutorial.html
[6]http://csharp-video-tutorials.blogspot.com/p/free-adonet-video-tutorial.html
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