OpenACS

andrewg
committed
oacs-5-1:andrewg:20040629135339
on 29 Jun 04
Fixed a bug. dotlrn_community_type.del is a procedure not a function. Assigning a return value made Oracle unhappy.
/doc/ecommerce-for-mbas.adp (+15 -10)
2 2   <property name=title>@title;noquote@</property>
3 3   <property name="signatory">@signatory;noquote@</property>
4 4   <property name="context_bar">@context_bar;noquote@</property>
5 5
6 6   <p>The big decision:</p>
7 7
8 8   <ol type="A">
9 9     <li>you are the retailer</li>
10 10     <li>you send all orders to one retailer</li>
11 11     <li>you offer products and send orders to multiple retailers</li>
12 12     <li>you let an arbitrary number of retailers come to your site and
13 13       build shops (Yahoo! Store; Amazon Z Shops)</li>
14 14   </ol>
15 15
16 16   <p>OpenaACS supports the first three ways of doing business and will
17 17   eventually support the last one (clone of Yahoo! Store).</p>
18 18
19 19   <h3>High-level features</h3>
20 20
21 21   <p>If your imagination is limited, you can think of this as
22     "Amazon.com in a box".  Is is it impressive to do everything that
  22   "Amazon.com(2002) in a box".  Is is it impressive to do everything that
23 23   Amazon does?  Not really.  Ecommerce is a fast-moving field.
24 24   Packaged software always embodies last year's business ideas.  The
25 25   interesting thing is how quickly one can extend an open-source
26 26   software system to accomodate the latest business ideas.</p>
27 27
28 28   <h3>Feature List</h3>
29 29
30 30   <blockquote>
31       <table cellspacing="3">
  31     <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" border="1">
32 32       <tbody>
33 33         <tr>
34 34           <th>in MBA-speak</th>
35 35           <th>translation for programmers</th>
36 36         </tr>
37 37         <tr>
38 38           <td valign="top">catalog engine</td>
39 39           <td valign="top">Database table (<code>ec_products</code>)
40 40             plus extra tables for mapping to categories,
41 41             subcategories, and subsubcategories; bulk upload from
42 42             structured data</td>
43 43         </tr>
44 44         <tr>
45 45           <td valign="top">e-recommendation engine</td>
46 46
47 47           <td valign="top">Datbase table
48 48             (<code>ec_product_recommendations</code>) mapping products
49 49             to categories, subcategories, for everyone or only a
50 50             particular class of user</td>
51 51
 
61 61           <td valign="top">shopping cart</td>
62 62
63 63           <td valign="top">Database tables (<code>ec_user_sessions,
64 64           ec_orders, ec_items</code>)</td>
65 65
66 66         </tr>
67 67         <tr>
68 68           <td valign="top">real-time credit card billing</td>
69 69           <td valign="top">Payment gateway interfaces</td>
70 70         </tr>
71 71         <tr>
72 72           <td valign="top">user tracking</td>
73 73           <td valign="top">Log every page view and search</td>
74 74         </tr>
75 75         <tr>
76 76
77 77           <td valign="top">integrated customer service (telephone,
78 78           fax, email, and Web)</td>
79 79
80 80           <td valign="top">All interactions logged into same Database
81             table; inbound <a
82             href="http://www.arsdigita.com/doc/email-handler">ACS 3.4.8
83             email handler</a> (Perl script); call center staff sit at
84             Web browsers and use the @package_name@ admin pages</td>
  81           table by call center staff who sit at
  82           Web browsers and use the @package_name@ admin pages; It is possible that
  83           inbound emails can be supported, but this has not been recently confirmed.
  84           See <a
  85           href="http://web.archive.org/web/20010807171136/http://www.arsdigita.com/doc/email-handler">http://www.arsdigita.com/doc/email-handler</a>
  86          (via archive.org) an ACS 3.4.8 email handling perl script. Note that incoming emails may be better
  87           handled by a method used in the OpenACS forums package that imports to email. No
  88           support is available for incoming email to this package.
  89           </td>
85 90
86 91         </tr>
87 92         <tr>
88             <td valign="top">CRM</td>
  93           <td valign="top">Customer Relationship Managemement (CRM)</td>
89 94
90 95           <td valign="top">Write custom rules for <a
91             href="http://www.arsdigita.com/doc/crm">standard ACS 3.4.8
92             CRM module</a> (to be ported...)</td>
  96           href="http://web.archive.org/web/20020228064957/http://www.arsdigita.com/doc/crm">http://www.arsdigita.com/doc/crm</a>
  97          (via archive.org) a standard ACS 3.4.8 CRM module</a> (to be ported...)</td>
93 98
94 99         </tr>
95 100         <tr>
96 101           <td valign="top">intelligent agent</td>
97 102           <td valign="top">Database query for "users who bought X also bought Y"</td>
98 103         </tr>
99 104         <tr>
100 105           <td valign="top">content management with visual interface</td>
101 106           <td valign="top">Web forms plus auditing of all changes</td>
102 107         </tr>
103 108         <tr>
104 109           <td valign="top">discounts for different classes of user</td>
105 110
106 111           <td valign="top">Example: MIT Press wants to sell journals
107 112             at different rates for individual, institutional, and
108 113             student subscriptions</td>
109 114
110 115         </tr>
111 116         <tr>
112 117           <td valign="top">cross-sales platform</td>
 
129 134           <td valign="top"><code>pseudo_contains</code> if you want to
130 135             have an easy Database dbadmin life; <code>Contains</code>
131 136             (Intermedia text) if you don't; limit to category at
132 137             user's option</td>
133 138
134 139         </tr>
135 140         <tr>
136 141           <td valign="top">gift certificates</td>
137 142           <td valign="top">Auditing and mandatory expiration </td>
138 143         </tr>
139 144         <tr>
140 145           <td valign="top">enterprise-scale e-business solution</td>
141 146           <td valign="top">Add more processors to your Database server</td>
142 147         </tr>
143 148         <tr>
144 149           <td valign="top">highly scalable transaction engine</td>
145 150           <td valign="top">Orders are inserted into a database table</td>
146 151         </tr>
147 152         <tr>
148 153           <td valign="top">XML-enabled</td>
149             <td valign="top">Use the nsxml module for AOLServer</td>
  154           <td valign="top">Use the XML features supported by OpenACS.</td>
150 155         </tr>
151 156       </tbody>
152 157     </table>
153 158   </blockquote>
154 159
155 160   <h3>Bottom line</h3>
156 161
157 162   <p>If a closed-source ecommerce package doesn't do exactly what you
158 163   want, you're out of business.  If the company behind a closed-source
159 164   ecommerce package goes out of business, so will you.  If the company
160 165   behind a closed-source ecommerce adopts a different "business
161 166   model", you're screwed.</p>
162 167
163 168   <p>If you're even tempted to adopt a commercial ecommerce system
164 169   from a company other than IBM, Oracle or SAP (three enterprise
165 170   software vendors that seem likely to be around for awhile), read the
166 171   iCat story towards the end of <a
167 172   href="http://www.arsdigita.com/asj/using-the-acs">Using the
168 173   ArsDigita Community System</a>
169 174