Page 66 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

44 2 E-Commerce: Mechanisms, Platforms, and Tools

Distributors in B2B and integrated with selling and buying procedures, shopping
carts, order taking, and payment. E-catalogs may include
A special type of intermediary in e-commerce is the B2B video clips. The tools for building them are being integrated
e-distributor. These intermediaries connect manufacturers with merchant software suites and Web hosting tools (e.g.,
with business buyers (customers), such as retailers (or resell- see aabacosmallbusiness.com/ecommerce). Examples of a
ers in the computer industry). E-distributors aggregate simple product catalog can be seen at JetPens (jetpens.com)
product information from many manufacturers, sometimes and Starbucks Store (store.starbucks.com).
thousands of them, in the e-distributor’s catalog. An example Although used only occasionally in B2C commerce, cus-
is W.W. Grainger (grainger.com). The distributor buys the tomized catalogs are used frequently in B2B e-commerce.
products and then sells them, as supermarkets do.

EC Search Activities, Types, and Engines
SECTION 2.3 REVIEW QUESTIONS
Search activities are popular in EC, and many tools for con-
1. Describe webstores and e-malls. ducting searches are available. Several studies revealed that
2. List the various types of webstores and e-malls. 95% of shoppers conduct research online before making
3. What are Web (information) portals? List the major types. any purchase. Consumers may search inside one compa-
4. Describe e-distributors. ny’s catalog to find a product or service, or use Google or
Bing to find companies that sell the product they need. Here
we describe only the essentials for EC search. For a video
2.4 MERCHANT SOLUTIONS: illustration, see “Google Commerce Search” (2:15 min) at
ELECTRONIC CATALOGS, SEARCH youtube.com/watch?v=gj7qrotOmVY. To read publica-
ENGINES, AND SHOPPING CARTS tions on electronic research and e-commerce at the Research
at Google website, see research.google.com/pubs/Economics
To enable selling online, a website usually needs EC merchant andElectronicCommerce.html. Let us now look at three
server software. Merchant software includes several tools and major types of searches.
platforms. Such software offers basic tools that include elec-
tronic catalogs, search engines, and shopping carts; all are Types of EC Searches
intended to facilitate the electronic trading process.
One example of such software is osCommerce, which is The three major types of EC searches are Internet/Web
open-source software (see oscommerce.com). For a list of search, enterprise search, and desktop search.
merchant software vendors, see cmscritic.com/directory/
enterprise-e-commerce.
1. Internet/Web Search. This is the most popular
search that involves looking for any documents on
Electronic Catalogs the Web. According to Pew Research Internet
Project (pewinternet.org) and other statistical sites
Catalogs have been printed on paper for generations. (e.g., see infoplease.com/ipa/A0921862.html),
Recently, electronic catalogs on a DVD (or CD-ROM) and finding information is one of the most frequent
on the Internet have gained popularity. Electronic catalogs activities done on the Web.
(e-catalogs) consist of a product database, directory, and a 2. Enterprise Search. An enterprise search describes
presentation function. They are the backbone of most the search for information within the files and data-
e- commerce sales sites. For merchants, the objective of bases of an organization. For example, Google has a
e-catalogs is to advertise and promote products and services. powerful Search Appliance (known as GSA).
For the customer, the purpose of such catalogs is to locate 3. Desktop Search. A desktop search involves a search
information on products and services. E-catalogs can be of a user’s own computer files (e.g., using copernic.
searched quickly with the help of search engines. Some offer com or windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/
tools for interactions. For an example, see Infinisys’s products/features/windows-search). Searching for
“Change My Image” for Microsoft Windows at en.infinisys. documents is done by looking through all the infor-
co.jp/product/cmimage, and for Macintosh at en.infinisys. mation that is available on the user’s PC. A simple
co.jp/product/cmimage_mac. example is the ability to search all files related to your
Most early online catalogs were static presentations of e-mail archive. A search also can be extended to pho-
text and messages from paper catalogs. However, online cat- tos, USB ports, and Word documents.
alogs have evolved to become more dynamic, customizable,