| eCommerce, Part 2: Basic Product Selection by Crimson Star |
Last month, we defined eCommerce in general terms and learned that four separate steps are required to complete an eCommerce transaction. This month, we examine the first step in more detail. On-line Brochures Your Web site must identify each product or service that you sell in sufficient detail so that a customer can place an order in one step, without having to contact you for additional information. The least expensive way to do this does not involve any real programming. You create a basic list or catalog of your products and display it on-line. Your customer fills out an order form off-line and mails it in to you. There are two simple variations on this theme. To create a basic list of products, simply create an HTML table designed to look like an order form. It must contain all of your products, descriptions and prices. In addition, there must be a space to enter the quantity desired of each product. Place this page on your Web site. Your customers must print this page, fill it out, and mail it to you. (We will examine the shipping, billing and payment steps in future months.) This is a very basic system, but it is dirt cheap to create and will get you going. It is easy to change product data provided your HTML tables are not too complex and you do not have too many products. To extend the basic list into a simple on-line catalog, modify your HTML table so that it is an index of products, organized by product group. Create a hyperlink from each product to a feature page devoted to that product. Each product page must have a return link to the product index and should return to the same product in the list, so the customer does not have to start over from the top. You will also need a regular-style order form on another page. Your customers print the order form, fill it out as they view your product feature pages on-line, and then mail it to you afterwards. This on-line catalog may be simple, but it is not easy to create or maintain. If you have ten products, the catalog is ten times more difficult and expensive to produce than the basic list. If you have fifty products, it is fifty times more expensive! You can save some time and money by using a standard layout for your feature sheets. These types of Web sites are often called on-line brochures. Instead of printing it and mailing it to customers, you publish it on-line for the entire world to see. Customers place their order the old-fashioned way. These on-line brochures are usually much cheaper than printed brochures, and can be updated more frequently. They are a great way to get started, but do not provide the features needed for true eCommerce. Start with either of these, but plan to replace it entirely when you can justify the cost of something more advanced. Shopping Carts On-line brochures are not true eCommerce applications because they do not support on-line order completion. You can build custom programs that run on your Web server and let your customers complete their orders on-line. These programs are called shopping carts. Customers who enter your store are assigned a customer number and set up with an empty shopping cart (order record). As they view your products, they can add items to their shopping cart by entering the quantity they require and then clicking on an icon. They can also view the contents of their shopping cart at any time, delete items or make changes to previously selected items. The total cost for all items currently selected is also shown on the shopping cart page. When your customers are finished shopping, they must take their shopping carts and "check out." This checkout procedure helps customers complete their order on-line, or they may cancel their order. Many people will start shopping, then surf off to another site. Your shopping cart program better know how to find discarded shopping carts and empty them or you will have a confusing mess on your hands. Next month we will continue our examination of shopping carts by reviewing two basic types, an intermediate version, and an advanced system that provides true eCommerce functionality.
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