E – Commerce For Dummies – Don Jones

And Craftopia did get its site up quickly, but it didn’t run as well as the company had hoped. For example, Craftopia hada valid business reason to create a checkout process that required customers to sign in with an e-mail address and password before making a pur- chase. After all, Craftopia wanted to know who its customers were. Craftopia didn’t consider the frustration that customers feel when asked to sign in.

This type of registration is akin to « telling shoppers in a retail store that they have .to complete a survey before cashiers will take Why thou shalt design first, and build second _ their money. Responding to customer com- plaints, Craftopia decided to enable customers to check out without registering. Unfortunately, Craftopia couldn’t do much to redesign the site, so the company had to settle for jury-rigging instead.

Now customers can make purchases without registering, but they don’t have any option to become registered users. Craftopia was left with an anonymous clientele. Craftopia could have started out by planning its checkout process so that it offered the best of all worlds: enable new customers to check out quickly and then have them register as users after completing the transaction.

The company could then have had everything it wanted — registered users and their money. The benefit of a good design is that your customers have engaging, stress- free experiences every time they visit the site. Emphasis on every time —a good design and an enjoyable online experience say to customers, “Glad to see you! Come on back and see us again real soon!” Design the customers’ experience as carefully as a Broadway choreographer might design her Tony- award-winning dance numbers. Designing Catalogs Don’t make the mistake of purchasing e-commerce catalog software and then adapting the way you organize your products and present your wares to fit the catalog’s style.

What you’ll end up with is a big ugly catalog mess.

browser: A common type of software used to contact other computers on the Internet to retrieve data. The most popular browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. EDI (Electronic Data Interchange): One of the first and most widely used formats for sharing data between disparate computer systems.

e-mail orelectronic mail: A means of sending messages through the Internet. This means people can communicate without having to both be connected to the Internet at the same time. extranet: Extensions of your secure intranet to your business partners to enable them to access some of your organization’s internal resources. firewall: Hardware or software that keeps unauthorized individuals from accessing your servers without permission. FTP (File Transfer Protocol): The technology used to move files from one server to another through the Internet.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language): Documents created in HTML use codes called tags to tell browsers how to display information and help users utilize that information. Web pages are cre- ated with HTML. HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol): Comprises a standard for formatting data so that it can appear on other users’ computers. HTTP enables you to format text, position graphics, and embed links (called hyperlinks), which allow users to move from one page to another by clicking a word or picture. Internet: A group of networks that interconnect through a shared set of communication protocols.

intranet: The collection of networks within an organization. Intranets typically have a single point where you log in and then gain access to the servers and resources within your organization. Intranets are typically protected from the public Internet through firewalls. server: A computer that provides information and services to other computers. Web servers respond to Web browsers and return Web pages. Database servers store information and return answers to queries about that data.

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol): Represents a set of technologies for sharing data between computers and networks. VPN (virtual private network): VPNs encode data so it can be sent securely through the public Internet. VPNs are often used to connect different locations of an organization or to secure data sent between business partners. XML: Defines data and helps computers share information, by using structures similar to HTML.

Because XML is self-defining, it is very flexible. Copyright © 2001 Hungry Minds, Inc. All rights reserved. Cheat Sheet $2.95 value. Item 0847-4. Hungry Minds fo, more information about Hungry Minds, call 1-800-762-2974. For Dummies: Bestselling Book Series for Beginners Hungry Minds, the Hungry Minds logo, For Dummies, the For Dummies Bestselling Book Series logo and all related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of Hungry Minds, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 2cf34476facf738f
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 25,627,181 bytes (24.44 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 0764508474, 3175723993, 8004343422, 8004342086
• Pages: 437
• Language: English (en)

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• Total Words: 151,177
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• Average Words per Page: 345.94
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