Online Shopping free essay sample

However, the Internet has unique risk, so staying safe while shopping online is paramount. There are few ways that attackers can take advantage of online shoppers. First on the list would be targeting vulnerable computers. If you do not take steps to protect your computer from viruses or other malicious code, an attacker may be able to gain access to your computer and all of the information on it. It is also important for vendors to protect their computers to prevent attackers from accessing customer databases. Next would be creating fraudulent sites and email messages. Unlike traditional shopping, where you know that a store is actually the store it claims to be, attackers can create malicious websites that appear to be legitimate or email messages that appear to have been sent from a legitimate source. Charities may also be misrepresented in this way, especially after natural disasters or during holiday seasons. It is this level of service that dictates whether a commercial venture will succeed or not in the market. To provide a high accessibility of service we will design the online shopping website, so that potential customers need not go to a physical shop to buy products or services. They just need to online to complete their purchases. Unlike the prevailing â€Å"brick and mortar† shops which have physical existence, we will operate solely from cyberspace. Most current systems have a physical foundation that is the root cause to quite a number of problems. By maintaining multiple store fronts, itself being an expensive proposition, store prices are forced to rise. Thus, by using our product, our clients’ competitors are at a disadvantage because their costs are significantly higher than our costs, allowing our clients to sell the same goods at a lower price. As people become more accustomed to using the internet, they view ordering products and services online as a time-saving and cost-saving experience, which is the very essence of our online shopping system. This project envisages bridging the gap between the seller, the retailer and the customer. A very high flexibility is being maintained in the design process so that this project can take the following path : A multiple merchant venue with each merchant having his/her own window which the customer can visit to browse and subsequently buy the products from Maintaining the deliverable goods as well as services through single or multiple windows is also on the agenda. Target users : (Tentative list only) Mall Administrator: The Mall Administrator is the super user and has complete control over all the activities that can be performed. The application notifies the administrator of all shop creation requests, and the administrator can then approve or reject them. The administrator also manages the list of available product categories. The administrator can also view and delete entries in the guestbook. Shop Owner: Any user can submit a shop creation request through the application. When the request is approved by the Mall Administrator, the requester is notified, and from there on is given the role of Shop Owner. The Shop Owner is responsible for setting up the shop and maintaining it. The job involves managing the sub-categories of the items in the shop. Also, the shop owner can add or remove items from his shop. The Shop Owner can view different reports that give details of the sales and orders specific to his shop. The Shop Owner can also decide to close shop and remove it from the mall. Mall Customer/Guests: A Mall Customer can browse through the shops and choose products to place in a virtual shopping cart. The shopping cart details can be viewed and items can be removed from the cart. To proceed with the purchase, the customer is prompted to login. Also, the customer can modify personal profile information (such as phone number and shipping address) stored by the application. The customer can also view the status of any previous orders, and cancel any order that has not been shipped yet. Employees: Purchase department under a Purchase manager to overlook purchasing activities if warehousing needs arise. Sales department under a Sales manager who will look after the sale of products and services, the most important activity. Accounts department under an Accounts manager to look after the accounting activities of the enterprise. Project Scope Initial functional requirements will be: Secure registration and profile management facilities for Customers Browsing through the e-Mall to see the items that are there in each category of products like Apparel, Kitchen accessories, Bath accessories, Food items etc. Adequate searching mechanisms for easy and quick access to particular products and services. Creating a Shopping cart so that customers can shop ‘n’ no. of items and checkout finally with the entire shopping carts Customers should be able to mail the Shop about the items they would like to see in the Shop Regular updates to registered users of the website about new arrivals. Secured mechanism for checking out from the Shop (Credit card verification mechanism) Updates to customers about the recently added items in the shop through various mechanisms. Uploading ‘Most Purchased’ Items in each category of products in the Shop like Apparel, Kitchen accessories, Bath accessories, Food items etc. Strategic data and graphs for Administrators and Shop owners about the items that are popular in each category and age group Give special discounts to Premier customers Shop employees are responsible for internal affairs like processing orders,assure home delivery, getting customers delivery-time feedback, updating orders status and answering clients queries online. Feedback mechanism, so that customers can give feedback for the product or service which they have purchased. Also facility rating of individual products by relevant customers. Also feedback can be given on the performance of particular vendors and the entire mall as well. Adequate payment mechanism and gateway for all popular credit cards, cheques and other relevant payment options, as available from time to time. Initial non functional requirements will be: Secure access of confidential data (user’s details). SSL can be used. 24 X 7 availability Better component design to get better performance at peak time Flexible service based architecture will be highly desirable for future extension Advertisement space where it will effectively catch the customer’s attention and as a source of revenue. Initial reporting needs that are to be answered will be: Category wise items that are sold more and the brand names for the same Which brand is more popular in each category of products Who are the customers who visit often( to facilitate them by making them Premier customers ) Discounts given to the Premier customers In addition to the above mentioned points, due to the highly evolving nature of the project, the following are planned to be delivered if deemed necessary: Warehousing within the very ambits of the project More payment gateways. Dynamic price model by which prices can be changed based on demand and supply Dynamic Storefront: Each customer had a Web page personalized based on his or her recent purchases. This is the equivalent of having a unique storefront for each customer in hopes of drawing in as many return customers as possible. This list is by no means, a final one. The final list will be dictated by implementation constraints, market forces and most importantly, by end user demands for whom this is being built. Technology Platform Operating System: Any OS with a Java VM implementation. Programming language: JAVA EE: Java Enterprise Edition is a programming platform— part of the Java Platform-for developing and running distributed multi-tier architecture Java applications, based largely on modular software components running on an application server. HTML, XML: Hyper Text Markup Language and Extensible markup Language are the predominant markup languages for web pages. It provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document and to supplement that text with interactive forms, embedded images, and other objects. Any other scripting language as deemed necessary. Tools Development Environment DB2 EXPRESS EDITION: DB2 Database is the database management system that delivers a flexible and cost effective database platform to build robust on demand business applications. Apache Tomcat 6. 0.18 Server (minimum requirement JSE 5. 0, no JDK is required only JRE is sufficient) OR WAS: IBM WebSphere application server is an application server that runs business applications and supports the J2EE and web services standards OR Sun GlassFish Application server. ECLIPSE J2EE: Eclipse is a toolkit which is designed for the creation of more complex projects, providing fully dynamic web application utilizing EJB’s. This consist of EJB tools , CMP ,data mapping tools a universal test client that is designed to aid testing of EJB’s. OR Oracle JDeveloper 11g IDE along with ADF