<html> <!--AD_DND--> <head> <title>Ecommerce Module (explained for MBAs)</title> </head> <body bgcolor=#ffffff text=#000000> <h2>Ecommerce Subsystem (explained for MBAs)</h2> of the <a href="ecommerce.html">Ecommerce Module documentation</a> (this small part of which was written by <a href="http://photo.net/philg/">Philip Greenspun</a>) <hr> The big decision: <ol type=A> <li>you are the retailer <li>you send all orders to one retailer <li>you offer products and send orders to multiple retailers <li>you let an arbitrary number of retailers come to your site and build shops (Yahoo! Store; Amazon Z Shops) </ol> ACS supports the first three ways of doing business and will eventually support the last one (clone of Yahoo! Store). <h3>High-level features</h3> If your imagination is limited, you can think of this as "Amazon.com in a box". Is is it impressive to do everything that Amazon does? Not really. Ecommerce is a fast-moving field. Packaged software always embodies last year's business ideas. The interesting thing is how quickly one can extend an open-source software system to accomodate the latest business ideas. <h3>Feature List</h3> <blockquote> <table cellspacing=3> <tr> <th>in MBA-speak <th>translation for programmers </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>catalog engine <td valign=top>Oracle table (<code>ec_products</code>) plus extra tables for mapping to categories, subcategories, and subsubcategories; bulk upload from structured data </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>e-recommendation engine <td valign=top>Oracle table (<code>ec_product_recommendations</code>) mapping products to categories, subcategories, for everyone or only a particular class of user </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>e-review technology <td valign=top>Oracle tables for professional reviews and customer-contributed reviews </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>shopping cart <td valign=top>Oracle tables (<code>ec_user_sessions, ec_orders, ec_items</code>) </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>real-time credit card billing <td valign=top>CyberCash and CyberSource interfaces </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>user tracking <td valign=top>log every page view and search </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>integrated customer service (telephone, fax, email, and Web) <td valign=top>all interactions logged into same Oracle table; inbound <a href="email-handler.html">email handler</a> (Perl script); call center staff sit at Web browsers and use the /admin/ecommerce/ pages </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>CRM <td valign=top>write custom rules for <a href="crm.html">standard ACS CRM module</a> </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>intelligent agent <td valign=top>Oracle query for "users who bought X also bought Y" </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>content management with visual interface <td valign=top>Web forms plus auditing of all changes </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>discounts for different classes of user <td valign=top>Example: MIT Press wants to sell journals at different rates for individual, institutional, and student subscriptions </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>cross-sales platform <td valign=top>Oracle table of "if you're interested in X, you probably also should buy Y"; links are unidirectional </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>object-oriented design <td valign=top>per-publisher custom fields table to add arbitrary attributes to products </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>intelligent parametric and free-text search engine <td valign=top><code>pseudo_contains</code> if you want to have an easy Oracle dbadmin life; <code>Contains</code> (Intermedia text) if you don't; limit to category at user's option </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>gift certificates <td valign=top>auditing and mandatory expiration </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>enterprise-scale e-business solution <td valign=top>add more processors to your Oracle server </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>highly scalable transaction engine <td valign=top>orders are inserted into Oracle table </tr> <tr> <td valign=top>XML-enabled <td valign=top>download free Java XML libraries from Oracle </tr> </table> </blockquote> <h3>Bottom line</h3> If a closed-source ecommerce package doesn't do exactly what you want, you're out of business. If the company behind a closed-source ecommerce package goes out of business, so will you. If the company behind a closed-source ecommerce adopts a different "business model", you're screwed. <p> If you're even tempted to adopt a commercial ecommerce system from a company other than IBM, Oracle or SAP (three enterprise software vendors that seem likely to be around for awhile), read the iCat story towards the end of <a href="http://photo.net/wtr/using-the-acs.html">http://photo.net/wtr/using-the-acs.html</a> <hr> <a href="mailto:philg@mit.edu"><address>philg@mit.edu</address></a> </body> </html>