Page 64 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

42 2 E-Commerce: Mechanisms, Platforms, and Tools

manufacturer (e.g., geappliances.com and dell.com), to a volume. For example, the Emall of Maine (emallsofamer-
retailer (e.g., amazon.com), to individuals selling from ica.com/emallofmaine.htm) is an e-mall that aggregates
home, or to other types of business. Note that some compa- products, services, and providers in the state of Maine. It
nies refer to their webstores as portals. contains a directory of vacation services and product catego-
A webstore includes tools known as merchant software ries and the vendors in each category. When a consumer indi-
that are necessary for conducting online sales. The most cates the category he or she is interested in, the consumer is
common tools are an electronic catalog; a search engine that transferred to the appropriate independent webstore. This
helps the consumer find products in the catalog; an electronic kind of mall does not provide any shared services; it is
shopping cart for holding items until checkout; e-auction merely a directory. Other malls, such as choicemall.com or
facilities where auctions take place; a payment gateway etsy.com (see Chapter 4), do provide some shared services.
where payment arrangements can be made; a shipment cen- Both yahoo.com and ebay.com operate electronic malls.
ter where shipping arrangements are made; and customer
services, which include product and warranty information
and CRM. Web (Information) Portals

Microsites A portal is an information gateway that is used in
e- marketplaces, webstores, and other types of EC (e.g., in
A microsite is a webpage(s) that acts as a supplement to a e-collaboration, intrabusiness, and e-learning). A Web
primary website, but is external to it. It expands on the con- (information) portal is a single point of access, through a
tent by adding editorial, commercial videos, or educational Web browser, to critical business information located inside
and training material. and outside of organizations. This information is aggregated
and is accessed and presented in a consistent way. Many Web
portals personalize for users. Note that wireless devices are
Electronic Malls becoming portals for both enterprise and Internet access. A
schematic view of a portal is shown in Figure 2.2. Information
In addition to shopping at individual webstores, consumers sources (external and internal) are shown on the left side, and
can shop in electronic malls (e-malls). Similar to malls in the integrated and process data are shown as output on the moni-
physical world, an e-mall (online mall) is an online shop- tor’s screen. Web portals offer some useful services such as
ping location where many stores present their catalogs. The e-mail, news, stock prices, entertainment, shopping capabili-
mall charges commission from the sellers based on their sale ties, and so forth.

External Sources
News Feeds
Content
Report
Websites
Stock Prices
Weather
Databases
Customer Names
Supplier Names
Daily Sales
Internal Sources
Data Warehouse
Documents
Internal Files
Knowledge Base

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Integrating and Aggregation of content User sees one integrated,
processing data in a dynamic format personalized, up-to-date
from external per user’s request Web page
and/or internal
sources

Figure 2.2 How a portal works