UNIT 8
What is E-commerce?
E-commerce is selling and buying of a good and services, within an electronic network, most
commonly the internet. E-commerce operates in all four of major market segments: business to
consumer, business to business, consumer to consumer, and consumer to business.
What type of products are ofered by e-commerce retail websites? – Example 1
Downloadable products, for example a music album. In which costumers do not have to purchase a
physical CD disk which contains the music album. An advantage of being able to have an music
album digitally is that it can be saved on other devices, such as phone or tablet and be played on
those devices which are portable, while as having a disk the consumer would require a device such
as a music player with a cd rom drive which may not be that portable.
Screenshot of Itunes which is a media management sofware created by apple inc. Customers are
able to purchase digital music on Itunes.
What type of products are ofered by e-commerce retail websites? – Example 2
Informaton-based products, for example kindle e-books on amazon. Customers would be able to
purchase virtual books which they can access from their device, such as tablet or laptop. The
advantage of being able to do this is the customer would be able to store multple books within their
device, instead of carrying a high amount of books which would be heavy, meaning being able to
store books within a device is more portable, although a device requires power and the device could
run out of batery.
,Screenshot of Amazon’s kindle store secton of the website, in which customers are able to purchase
e-books.
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Kindle/b/?ie=UTF8&enode=3416=89031)
What types of services are ofered by e-commerce retail websites? – Example 1
Air travel reservaton, the advantage of being able to do this online is that the transacton is directly
between the customer and the air-travel company, which means there is no middleman such as a
travel agent, which would be more expensive as the travel agent would charge more to cover the
cost of labour.
A screenshot from the website: http://www.cheapflights.co.uk/ which displays a list of flights to the
customer and compares prices.
What types of services are ofered by e-commerce retail websites? – Example 2
Auctons, for example ebay, the advantage of being able to bid online is that there are millions of
items on ebay which are up for aucton, therefore a huge variety, in which a normal customer
wouldn’t get at an aucton in real life.
, Screenshot of ebay’s website: http://www.ebay.co.uk/
Web servers - Hardware
The hardware requirements to run a web server is the normal components a computer would
require: A processor, RAM memory, hard-drive, motherboard, power supply, CPU fan, and computer
case. Although, for a server it is unlikely to need hardware such as Network adapter card, and
graphics card as they are not required. Also, peripherals such as mouse and keyboard are not
required, usually remote desktop control from another computer would be done to gain access and
make changes to the server.
Web servers – Sofware
The web-server would need a server operatng system, for example windows server 2012. Web-
server software would also be required such as apache v2.2, a scriptng language such as PHP would
be required, and database such as MySQL.
Web authoring tools
This enables the user to develop a website in a desktop publishing format. The software creates the
HTML (Hypertext to protocol) coding for the layout of the web pages pending on the user designs.
This allows to toggle between the graphical design and the HTML code. An example of a software
which allows this is Adobe Dreamweaver.
Database system
This is a collecton of programs which allows a user to store, modify and remove informaton from a
database. There are many diferent types of database systems; small ones which run on computers
and huge systems that run on mainframes.
Networking
TCP/IP is a network protocol which is a set of rules on how communicaton takes place or how data
may be transferred or transmited. A port is a communicaton endpoint within a computer’s host OS
(operatng system) a port is commonly within internet protocols or a type of protocol which is used
What is E-commerce?
E-commerce is selling and buying of a good and services, within an electronic network, most
commonly the internet. E-commerce operates in all four of major market segments: business to
consumer, business to business, consumer to consumer, and consumer to business.
What type of products are ofered by e-commerce retail websites? – Example 1
Downloadable products, for example a music album. In which costumers do not have to purchase a
physical CD disk which contains the music album. An advantage of being able to have an music
album digitally is that it can be saved on other devices, such as phone or tablet and be played on
those devices which are portable, while as having a disk the consumer would require a device such
as a music player with a cd rom drive which may not be that portable.
Screenshot of Itunes which is a media management sofware created by apple inc. Customers are
able to purchase digital music on Itunes.
What type of products are ofered by e-commerce retail websites? – Example 2
Informaton-based products, for example kindle e-books on amazon. Customers would be able to
purchase virtual books which they can access from their device, such as tablet or laptop. The
advantage of being able to do this is the customer would be able to store multple books within their
device, instead of carrying a high amount of books which would be heavy, meaning being able to
store books within a device is more portable, although a device requires power and the device could
run out of batery.
,Screenshot of Amazon’s kindle store secton of the website, in which customers are able to purchase
e-books.
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Kindle/b/?ie=UTF8&enode=3416=89031)
What types of services are ofered by e-commerce retail websites? – Example 1
Air travel reservaton, the advantage of being able to do this online is that the transacton is directly
between the customer and the air-travel company, which means there is no middleman such as a
travel agent, which would be more expensive as the travel agent would charge more to cover the
cost of labour.
A screenshot from the website: http://www.cheapflights.co.uk/ which displays a list of flights to the
customer and compares prices.
What types of services are ofered by e-commerce retail websites? – Example 2
Auctons, for example ebay, the advantage of being able to bid online is that there are millions of
items on ebay which are up for aucton, therefore a huge variety, in which a normal customer
wouldn’t get at an aucton in real life.
, Screenshot of ebay’s website: http://www.ebay.co.uk/
Web servers - Hardware
The hardware requirements to run a web server is the normal components a computer would
require: A processor, RAM memory, hard-drive, motherboard, power supply, CPU fan, and computer
case. Although, for a server it is unlikely to need hardware such as Network adapter card, and
graphics card as they are not required. Also, peripherals such as mouse and keyboard are not
required, usually remote desktop control from another computer would be done to gain access and
make changes to the server.
Web servers – Sofware
The web-server would need a server operatng system, for example windows server 2012. Web-
server software would also be required such as apache v2.2, a scriptng language such as PHP would
be required, and database such as MySQL.
Web authoring tools
This enables the user to develop a website in a desktop publishing format. The software creates the
HTML (Hypertext to protocol) coding for the layout of the web pages pending on the user designs.
This allows to toggle between the graphical design and the HTML code. An example of a software
which allows this is Adobe Dreamweaver.
Database system
This is a collecton of programs which allows a user to store, modify and remove informaton from a
database. There are many diferent types of database systems; small ones which run on computers
and huge systems that run on mainframes.
Networking
TCP/IP is a network protocol which is a set of rules on how communicaton takes place or how data
may be transferred or transmited. A port is a communicaton endpoint within a computer’s host OS
(operatng system) a port is commonly within internet protocols or a type of protocol which is used
