Project Proposal for E-Commerce Site Essay Sample

Ecommerce provides clients with the convenience to purchase the merchandises they need immediately from the convenience of their offices. places and anyplace provided they can entree a computing machine connected to the cyberspace. Business competitory border improves because they can merchandise on the planetary market topographic point. It besides gives concerns repeating grosss based on urging merchandises to clients. through goods antecedently brought by clients. This is what is called up merchandising and cross merchandising. However non all ecommerce solutions improve the experience clients wish to hold while shopping online. Research shows that about 47 % bead out when they get to the check-out procedure due to assorted grounds as will be highlighted subsequently on. The chief purpose of this undertaking is to develop an online shopping system for Diversey East and Central Africa. I have to admit the fact that developing an online shop without seeking to understand the grounds why many online shops fail without run intoing their aims is like besides be aftering to be another failure statistic. I will therefore return you through the jobs clients face while shopping and seek to give likely and realistic solution. First a brief history of Diversey.

Diversey is a taking planetary supplier of cleansing and hygiene solutions to institutional market place. functioning clients in the housing. nutrient service. retail. wellness attention. nutrient and drink sectors. every bit good as edifice service contractors. Diversey East and Central Africa does some of its concern dealing online. clients place orders through mail. the orders are processed on the company’s Enterprise Relational Planner ( ERP ) instantly after verification of payment by the client. Several inside informations are sent through the electronic mail and later the same procedure has to be repeated when come ining the inside informations of the client on the ERP to treat the order. During the procedure a batch of mistakes occur and some orders are non processed as a consequence of non holding the needed inside informations or the company mail directing the mail in the Spam box.

Chapter 1: Introduction
1. 1 Introduction
In 1990 Tim Berners Lee a professor developed the World Wide Web waiter. and it opened for commercial usage in 1991. In 1994 there were several promotions that took topographic point such as on-line banking offered by Stanford Federal Credit Union to all its members and the on-line Pizza Shop by Pizza Hut. In the same twelvemonth. Netscape introduced SSL encoding of informations transmitted online. which has become indispensable for unafraid online shopping. This was the Renaissance of new ways of making concern as a consequence developments in calculating and information sharing through the World Wide Web. Some of the new ways of making concern that emerged were E-banking. E-commerce E-marketing among many others. The sort of information a site uses to make its nucleus concern operations depends critically on what the site does e. g. a site that does publicities and advertisement do non necessitate robust security characteristics as an online banking system that has to be secure from the users browser to the web and in conclusion the waiter.

Suffice to state this security mechanisms necessitate to be implemented both physically and logically. On the other manus an Ecommerce site requires average security that is much stronger than that for advertisement but less strong compared to E-banking. I must over emphasize security because it is enhances client trust which is one of the cardinal ways of bettering the on-line shopping experience. Harmonizing to Wikipedia online shopping online shopping is a signifier of electronic commercialism whereby consumers straight buy goods or services from a marketer over the Internet without an intermediary service. The term ecommerce. online store. online shop will be used interchangeably throughout the papers.

1. 2 Statement of the job
Diversey is a taking planetary supplier of cleansing and hygiene solutions to institutional market place. functioning clients in the housing. nutrient service. retail. health care. nutrient and drink sectors every bit good as edifice service contractors. It has more than 200 old ages in offering these services to its clients. Here in Kenya these services are offered to Kenya Breweries Limited. concatenation shops ( supermarkets ) and Hoteliers. It can be categorized as a concern to concern signifier of entity. As seen from the brief history above Diversey has a planetary client base that can be found all over the universe. The planetary concern environment is altering so fast due to betterment in engineering and communicating.

This has led to new ways of making concern among them being selling merchandises and services online to fit the new environmental dispensation so as acquire an extra market and remain competitory in a dynamic universe. Since the company has all the ideal attributes for carry oning their concern activities online. developing an online shop is a good scheme of acquiring the concern in the new environmental dispensation. However making concern online has assorted booby traps that have led many on-line stores to prostration. Some of these booby traps are alone to that peculiar concern whereas some are common and tend to cut across all online shops. In order to develop an online shop that gives users an improved shopping experience. I will foreground some of the jobs that users encounter while making concern online. Problem # 1: Security Concerns

Security has come a long manner. with strong “military grade” encoding going the norm. However. extremely publicised security concerns of the early yearss of the commercial Internet still vibrate with on-line consumers and these concerns are sporadically reinforced with high profile intelligence narratives of individuality larceny at major Web sites. At the terminal of the twenty-four hours: if a site does non look secure to a consumer. the consumer will non swear it. Problem # 2: Confusing Checkout Procedure

Harmonizing to surveies conducted by e-consultancy. com 48 % of clients abandon the check-out procedure procedure. Harmonizing to surveys1. the top grounds clients abandon the cheque out procedure are:

1. Hidden charges at check-out procedure ( 36 % )
2. Having to register to purchase ( 31 % )
3. The client was merely comparison shopping ( 30 % )
4. Transportation charges were excessively high ( 27 % )
5. The client did non hold clip to finish the check-out procedure ( 27 % )
6. The merchandise was out of stock ( 16 % )

Problem # 3: Customers Can non Find the Shop
If a merchandiser has an on-line shoe shop. the hope is search engines like Google will drive traffic to the site and increase organic /unpaid visitants to the site. A Google hunt on “online shoe store” produces about 57. 400. 000 consequences. therefore the chance of non being found is really high or being found at the underside of the heap due to seek engine punishments. Search engine optimisation techniques ( SEO ) to increase their site’s relevancy and popularity and cut down the incurrence of punishments by hunt engines. Problem # 4: Customers Can’t Find Products

Customers can easy lose forbearance because of the inability to happen the merchandises they are looking for. Shops with ill laid out classs or a deficiency of a hunt interface can do a client to abandon the site. Problem # 5: Achieving Good Design

Good design is a balance between looking professional and maintaining serviceability. A important barrier to any on-line retail merchant is achieving both a professional expression and accomplishing a good. functional layout. Poor layout is the equivalent of an unkempt brick-and-mortar shop. It subtly cues the client that goods and order fulfilment will be substandard. However. design can besides be so professional that it frustrates the client experience. Poor design or professional design that employs Flash and Java in its pilotage and catalog construction can besides confound hunt engines and consequence in a hapless hunt consequence ranking. Such design can besides except users with disablements and may finally convey the retail merchant into struggle with local Torahs regulating equal entree. Problem # 6: Unable to Sell Products Under the “Long Tail”

Traditional retail merchants with limited shelf infinite tend to concentrate on a narrow scope of merchandises that sell in high volumes. A retail merchant would much instead give shelf infinite to points purchased ten times a twenty-four hours versus one time a twelvemonth. However as the figure below demonstrates low gross revenues volume merchandises can be or transcend gross revenues generated by the high volume merchandises highlighted in yellow. This frequently neglected merchandise scope is known as the “Long Tail” .

Figure 1. 0 merchandising merchandises in the long tail.
Successful retail merchants such as Amazon. com and Apple’s iTunes tie their catalogs to their providers. If a book is non in Amazon. com’s warehouse but exists in a publisher’s catalog. Amazon. com can automatically airt the order to the publishing house to finish fulfilment. Ecommerce removes the shelf infinite barrier nevertheless it presents a proficient and logistical challenge for smaller merchandisers. Problem # 7: Customers Can’t Touch and Feel a Merchandise

Merchandises less suited for e-commerce include merchandises that have a low value-to-weight ratio. merchandises that have a odor. gustatory sensation. or touch constituent. merchandises that need test fittings—most notably clothing—and merchandises where colour unity appears of import. Books seemed a good tantrum. Customers don’t have to seek on books. Despite proverbs to the contrary. book purchasers by and large judge a book by a screen. And books by and large sell themselves via reappraisals and word of oral cavity. Problem # 8: No Gross saless Staff Means No Chance of Up-Selling

“Would you like Blue Band? ” is a authoritative illustration of up-selling. Without a salesperson’s aid alarming clients as to what merchandises compliment or heighten a purchase. online shops suffer an inability to up-sell. As good. clients sometimes rely on a gross revenues individual to inform them of extra required merchandises. For illustration. a digital camera needs batteries and a memory card. Problem # 9: Language Barrier

While English is the current tongue franca of concern. there are a great figure of consumers who speak economically of import linguistic communications like Spanish or Arabic. Ignoring big pools of possible non-English talking consumers can be a lost chance. Computers can’t presently offer accurate interlingual renditions and doing a site multi-lingual constantly requires human interlingual rendition services. Unless endowment is in-house. this can intend undertaking out at a really high hourly rate. Problem # 10: Geographic Barrier

While a little brick-and-mortar shop in say. Columbus. Ohio might ne’er hold to face the possibility of carry throughing orders from other states. an online shop has the possible to peddle to the universe. In add-on to the linguistic communication job discussed supra. transporting. different weights and steps. and currencies all vary depending on geographic part. If the merchant’s shop all of a sudden became popular in Brazil ( a state of about 200 million consumers ) . the merchandiser needs to be able to manage transportation and will necessitate to be able to monetary value transporting decently. What if a merchandiser starts acquiring a big figure of orders from another state and finds a big per centum of orders are ensuing in expensive charge dorsums because of recognition card fraud? In a bead transportation agreement it could be quite clip devouring as the merchandiser has to manually name sellers and cancel orders. 1. 3 Proposed solution

Surveies show that as clients move nearer to the buying phase they drop away and although this is natural and expected. bettering the user experience can cut down this loss by extinguishing barriers your clients may be sing with the web site. Since we know that non merely making an online store will make more clients but I will seek to work out some of the jobs that have made some of the major ecommerce site fail. Some of the ways we use to better the experience new Diversey Online Shop. * Promoting and marketing the presence of the Diversey’s Online Shop * Instilling assurance and trust in clients

* Enhancing merchandise fundability
* Reducing cart forsaking
* Keeping enrollment brief and optional
* Sell Products Under the “Long Tail”
* Good design
* Touch and Feel
* Language barrier
* Demographics

i. Instilling assurance and trust in clients
This refers to job one which takes a expression at security issues that affect a client adversely. Procuring the client instills assurance on the client and builds trust. Security can be implemented utilizing Secure Socket Layer ( SSL ) on the client side to code recognition card information. The site will expose clear and concise policies. trust certifications. security badges and contact information. Customers are cautious when asked about personal information because of misgiving and the possibility that it may used to their disrepute. If the merchandiser is utilizing an on-line 3rd party recognition card processor. the merchandiser besides needs to guarantee the payment processor is unafraid.

two. Reducing cart forsaking
Harmonizing to studies. the top grounds clients abandon the cheque out procedure are:

1. Hidden charges at check-out procedure ( 36 % )
2. Having to register to purchase ( 31 % )
3. The client was merely comparison shopping ( 30 % )
4. Transportation charges were excessively high ( 27 % )
5. The client did non hold clip to finish the check-out procedure ( 27 % )
6. The merchandise was out of stock ( 16 % )

To assist forestall “sticker shock” . ( job 1 ) an ecommerce platform should ever hold a seeable running sum of purchases conspicuously displayed during the client experience. Problem 2 and job 5 are both jobs related to client clip restraints. Some clients merely don’t want to register but want to do a purchase. While for selling intents the merchandiser wants to retain this client informations via a enrollment procedure. the merchandiser should weigh the cost of losing a sale today. It is likely a client who does non register is far less likely to be a return client. Hence any future selling attempts will hold small consequence on that client. So. the ecommerce platform should supply a manner for the client to buy without traveling through a enrollment procedure. For registered clients. the ecommerce platform needs to do maximal usage of stored informations during the check-out procedure procedure. The ecommerce platform should car finish the customer’s transporting information and recognition card and. of class. give the client the chance to overrule. Problem 3 is a job faced by all merchandisers. online or offline. How to turn a visitant into a client?

An ecommerce platform that allows the merchandiser to expose both the suggested retail monetary value and the on-line store’s monetary value can assist a comparing shopper. As good. the ecommerce system should hold a good publicities engine. leting the merchantto offer everything from volume price reductions to making “razor and blades” type publicities ( that is to state. the client gets the razor at a good monetary value if the client buys ten figure of regularly monetary value blades ) . Besides. alternatively of coercing a client to perpetrate an point to a basket. the ecommerce system should hold a “Wish List” option. This manner a client can add a list of points and come back later to compare. The job of “shipping shock” ( job 4 ) can be handled by fiting transportation every bit accurately as possible with the merchandise being shipped. Too many on-line merchandisers pad out the transportation. bear downing more to do up any possible loss on another merchandise.

Amazon. com. for illustration. has a instead generous transportation and managing rate it pays to used book and Cadmium merchandisers. It’s so generous that it has created the interesting phenomenon of being able to purchase any figure of books for a mere penny. The little clip used book merchandiser merely sells the book for a nominal sum to gain from the embroidering Amazon. com adds to its transporting charge. To humor. an ecommerce platform should let extremely farinaceous control over transportation charges. The merchandiser should be able to make a general transportation grade along with merchandise specific overrides. Selling out of stock points ( job 6 ) can easy be prevented if the ecommerce platform paths stock and lucifers gross revenues to stock. If the ecommerce platform’s stock tracking map detects a merchandise has sold out. the on-line shop can flag the point as out of stock for the consumer. three. Customers Can non Find the Shop

The site will implement Search Engine Optimization to increase visibleness of the site by hunt engines iv. Enhancing merchandise fundability
The site will hold a merchandise seeking characteristic. which will assist visitants happen the merchandise they are looking for. The information grade will implement the MySQL FULL TEXT hunt. A page nexus map to enable the client navigate the catalogue backward or forward. The on-line platform will besides back up the ability to show the client with nested classs ( via a “bread crumb trail” like Shoes & gt ; Women’s & gt ; Jogging ) . Hence. the e-Commerce platform will to be able support merchandises belonging to multiple classs every bit good as the ability to bring forth about an limitless figure of classs. v. Good Design

A good design and easiness of serviceability will pull the visitants to the site.
The site will seek to accomplish a balance between looking professional and maintaining serviceability.

six. Sell Products Under the “Long Tail”
The online store platform should be able to automatize the procedure of order fulfilment from a jobber or a maker. When an order is taken by the e-Commerce package. the package needs to bring forth an order petition for the jobber.

The Diversey’s online platform so will to hold an import map. An Import map allows a retail merchant to acquire a bounded Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access file from the jobber and rapidly import tonss or 100s of merchandises at the chink of a button.

seven. Touch and Feel
The Diversey’ online platform will to back up merchandise images. Images that reasonably and accurately reflect the merchandise. The platform will besides back up the ability to attach multiple images to a merchandise catalog page. leting the consumer to see the merchandise from multiple angles. Merchandises that have a odor. gustatory sensation. or touch constituent. merchandises that need test adjustments most notably vesture and merchandises where colour unity appears of import will necessitate add-on media to back up the practical world. eight. Up-Selling

The platform will to be able to tie in merchandises with related and complimentary merchandises. These associations will be displayed automatically on merchandise pages. A robust promotional engine will be able to bind the purchase of one merchandise to a price reduction on another merchandise or even a class of merchandises. For illustration. an on-line electronics shop might desire to make a publicity where a purchase of a digital camera over $ 200 triggers a 10 % price reduction on the purchase of batteries or memory cards.

nine. Language
This will shortly necessitate to be looked into as the site grows in states that do non utilize English as the tongue franca. Some of this states Gallic talking like Rwanda DRC etc.

ten. Demographics
The platform will to be able to work in either Metric or Imperial weights or steps. An ability to work in many different currencies is a customer-friendly characteristic. leting clients to correctly monetary value goods in their ain currency. The platform will besides necessitate to be able to black out certain states and merely reject orders from states with high incidents of recognition card fraud. As good. some Sellerss of advanced electronics can non lawfully vend to certain states. The system can beforehand reject orders from certain states can salvage a merchandiser from holding to do clip devouring overrides after the fact.

1. 5 Aim and aims of the undertaking
* Improve the online shopping experience.
* This is the top most precedence of the undertaking making convenience for clients who find it difficult to make their shopping online.
* Make money
* Generates gross revenues and increase net income for the company.
* Promoting goods that can be purchased everyplace.
* Advertise on the site.
* Publish company information online booklets
* Cut costs on both the client and the site.
* Save clip.

1. 6 Research Question
* Can the betterment of the shopping experience addition gross revenues for Diversey and every bit cut costs?

1. 7 Hypothesis
* The execution of the Diversey online Shopping System will increase gross revenues by atleast 20 % .

1. 8 Justification of the survey
For a concern to travel on-line one needs compelling. realistic. and specific grounds. Since Diversey has a planetary client base it is merely logical for concern to be on-line. some of the grounds are listed below ;

* Retain bing clients and acquire new clients
Addressing this issue is mostly a inquiry of doing your site known. Aside from advertisement. methods of acquiring more clients to see include registering the web site with the popular hunt engines and directory listings. optimising the site for search-engine ranking. making forums. directing newssheets. and so on. * Encourage bing clients to pass more

A quality e-commerce site can increase your Diversey’s concern gross. The convenience of being online besides means that people are more likely to take you over other local providers. The mere fact that your site is on-line 24 hours a twenty-four hours. instead than the usual 9 to 5. your clients can shop with you outside of their working hours. Peoples with Internet entree will happen puting an order online far easier than any other method * Reduce the cost of carry throughing orders

A well-built e-commerce site will be much less expensive to run than a comparable offline concern. Under conventional concern theoretical accounts. a staff member must feed an order into the company’s order-processing system. With e-commerce. the client can make this for you. the gateway between the site and the order processing can be seamless.

1. 9 Scope of the survey
The system will be given a trial tally amongst a few clients before it can to the full implemted. The system will merely have merchandises that are really popular with clients and do non necessitate much of a fuss like machines.

Chapter 2: Literature reappraisal
Introduction
I did a comprehensive instance survey in three stages to set up the degree of usage in ecommerce in different parts of the universe. I will get down from the planetary position. regional so local.

Global Position
Case Study 1: Amazon

Amazon is one of the most popular online shops available. Let us take a expression at the phases involved in its order procedure:

* Select merchandises to buy.
* Detailed basket displayed on one side of each page.
* Authentication:
* Login
* Register
* Do nothing—already logged in
* Select bringing reference.
* Select bringing method.
* Select gift wrapper.
* Enter payment inside informations.
* Enter verifier codification.
* Confirm inside informations.
* Process payment.
* Order processed.
* Order dispatched.

Once the client has selected the merchandises they wish to buy. they are displayed in great item on the left-hand side of each page. When the client chinks on the check-out procedure button. they are either taken to the delivery-address page ( if they are logged in ) or they are taken to the login/sign-up page. where they can either log to the site. or get down the first phase of the hallmark procedure. Once authenticated. the client is taken to the delivery-method page. This page lists antecedently used bringing references. leting the client to either select. edit one of them. or come in a new bringing reference for this order. Next the client selects their bringing method ; this is by and large a free method. a priority/first category method. or an express method.

The free method is non automatically selected. so by default an extra charge is applied to the customer’s order. Besides. on this page is the option for the client to choose if they wish to hold their order gift wrapped. utile if the order is being sent direct to the receiver of a present. The following page allows the client to come in their payment inside informations. and the option to come in a verifier codification. Finally. the client can reexamine their order. confirm they wish to buy. and have their recognition or debit card charged for the relevant sum. Once the payment is processed. Amazon processes the order and dispatches it. ensuing in a happy client!

Regional Position
Case Study 2: Reggae
Reggies is a South African based company specialising in kids and babe points. It has an on-line shopping shop. The catalog is organized harmonizing to the kids age groups and gender. The check-out procedure procedure is as follows:

* Shopping Cart
Choose the points from the catalog you wish to purchase and so add it to the shopping cart. * Address Book
Login. mark up. or register a new client
* Transporting Options
Supply bringing information. in instance one is a registered client this information is automatically is filled for you unless you want to alter it. Customers that are first registering will hold to supply this information before they move to the following phase. * Payment information

Provide manner of payment. PayPal or pay utilizing 1s recognition card. * Order verification
Topographic point an order. An electronic mail is sent to the client together with the point he/she has bought. Besides an electronic mail is sent to client to get down treating the order. * Order complete

When the order has been completed an electronic mail is sent to the client. The client can track his or her through the electronic mail reference [ electronic mail protected ]

Reggies system won the award for the best online store in 2011 for its outstanding service bringing and value add-on. The site has really clear policies displayed e. g. return policies and policies sing the usage of recognition card information. This increases client assurance and trust.

Drumhead
Reggies has all the ideal qualities of an online store. I would to borrow the following to implement on the Diversey online shopping system ; * Sending electronic mail to the client to demo inform them that their order has been received or is completed. * Leting clients to track their orders through an electronic mail.

Local Position
Case Study 3: Uchumi supermarket
Uchumi is a local based supermarket that was established in 1975 as a public public-service corporation company by three Kenyan parastatal companies as a public public-service corporation companies viz. ( a ) Industrial Commercial and Development Corporation ( ICDC ) ( B ) Kenya Wine Agencies Limited ( KWAL ) and ( degree Celsius ) Kenya National Trading Corporation ( KNTC ) . Uchumi has subdivisions all over Kenya and East Africa. Uchumi as supermarket gross revenues all sort of points and services from electronics to kitchenware nevertheless on its online store really few merchandises are featured. They include books. imbibing cocoa. East African Coffee and Maize Meal. It has a manner a really efficient and luxuriant manner of maintaining stock through the shop maintaining unit ( sku ) . This fundamentally informs the client of the handiness of a peculiar merchandise before they make purchase and the figure of units available. The phases involved in the Uchumi online order procedure are as follows ; * Select a merchandise to buy from a class

* A cart/shopping basket is displayed on the side that shows the sum-up of the points the client wishes to buy.
* Proceed to checkout
* Visiting client or returning
* Give inside informations and choose manner of payment
* Give bringing and transportation inside informations
* Confirm payment
* Process order