Choosing a starting point – Your e-commerce platform.

In general there are three options:

1. A site hosted and created by a company for example Shopify
2. A site created for you but it is hosted on your own server space for example Cubecart
3. An Open Source Shopping Cart such as Oscommerce

Pro’s and Cons:

1. For option one, you don’t have to worry about updates, support is probably available and you never have to worry about complex code, and for most of the time any code. They do have you over a barrel though, so you need to make sure it is a company you can trust and get data out of if you need to leave. They hold your sales information, customer details, design, images etc and they can shut you down. This option is best for the new e-commerce business if you are running it from a non technical point of view.

2. Hosting your own Webstore. Unless you pay said company to do so you will be responsible for security updates and any downtime will be up to your hosting. This option is my favourite for the adventurous. Its all your, the data, the site, but you will come up against it sometimes. There is paid and community support with most systems. You will pay less in subscriptions etc, but all the data is yours and you are in full control.

3. Open source. Its free, usually heavily supported by a community, you have full freedom with your store. The downside is the code editing. Unless you want to pay ( and you might as well choose one of the other options if you are going to do that) you will have to edit the code yourself and learn a lot on the way. It can be a heartache as support is not guaranteed and totally voluntary, but it is also FREE!

Next to consider is the functionality and features you NEED:

Inventory management – Import, export and sort inventory (bulk uploads and updating methods for inventory crucial for large catalogue) You will need to be able to sort, search and filter your inventory.

Image Hosting ( option 1)

Manageable sales data and order processing- Sales and various stages of orders. You will need to also be able to export sales for accounting purposes.

Inventory based shipping AND flat rate shipping – the most basic of shipping methods which can be used to fit a variety of models

Space for Meta Data – somewhere for you to edit your site html title, keywords and description for search engines

Basic statistics – either space for Google Analytics integration or home grown basic statistics

Customer Data – ability to send a newsletter and export customer data

Secure Payments – SSL and a secure payment method for credit cards for example paypal payments pro or cybersource integration.

Paypal – its too big to ignore. make sure you can accept paypal standard transactions with your secure credit card processing.

Multi tier Category Management – you will need sub categories to manage your user experience.

SEF URLs – Text based URLs for your products.

Currency Conversion – a website need to be international so Dollars, Euro’s and Pound Sterling at least.

Inventory Quantity by Attributes – you want drop down attributes on your products for the various options, for example shoes in their various sizes and colour combinations, with quantity attached.

Ability to cname if not hosted on your servers ( option 1) – you need to be able to make sure the site ’seems’ hosted and you have better urls for example http://www.yourdomain.com/redshoes and not http://www.randomcompany.com/yourcompanyname/redshoes or http://yourcompanyname.randomcompany.com/redshoes

Newsletter Function – to send basic marketing emails.

Functions you will WANT but you don’t necessarily need to survive: (next bit coming soon)

This will be updated as the industry changes and I have time to write more. I am not going to list all the available e-commerce solutions as there are plenty of sites to do that. This is the most organised one though:

E-commerce Shopping Cart Solutions Examples

If you need advice on any of these you can contact the authors of the blog (see at the bottom of the page) or myself as I will review any of these systems for you on my blog:

My new specialisation is going to be ‘Search and Marketing’ and I am currently looking into affiliate marketing.

1. Hierarchy of legal jurisdictions (UK)
1. Standards & Codes of practice (UK bodies)
2. UK statute & common law
3. EU directives to governments
4. International agreements
2. Concerns are global
1. Domain names & trademarks, advertising, defamation, IPR, privacy, taxation of e-commerce

UK statutes:

1. Consumer Credit Act 1974
2. Health & Safety at Work Act 1975
3. Data Protection Acts 1984 & 1998
4. Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988
5. Computer Misuse Act 1990
6. Electronic Communications Act 2000
7. Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
8. Law of contract, sale of goods, etc.

EU Directives:

1. Must be enacted into UK law
1. Often done through statutory instruments
2. Basis for privacy, H&S laws
2. Try to look at Europe-wide standards
1. Can conflict with basis of national law
3. Many changes due through this route
1. E.g. Harmonisation of aspects of copyright, taxation of sales

Protecting Privacy:

1. Privacy
1. The right to be left alone and the right to be free of unreasonable personal intrusions
2. Information Privacy
1. The claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, and to what extent, information about them is communicated to others

How is Private Information Collected?

1. By individuals providing data during registration, searching, purchase
2. From Internet Directories
3. By making your browser record information about you
4. Server logs of what you browse
5. From e-mail monitoring

Five principles of e-commerce privacy:

1. Notice/Awareness  €“ Notice to make informed decisions.
2. Choice/Consent  €“ on use of personal information.  Consent may be granted through  €˜opt-in €™ clauses requiring steps.
3. Access/Participation  €“ Must be able to access their personal information and challenge its validity.
4. Integrity/security  €“ Must be assured that data is secure and accurate.
5. Enforcement/Redress  €“ methods should exist. Alternatives are self-regulation, legislation for private remedies, government intervention.

Company Guidelines:

1. UK – the relevant legislation is Data Protection Act 1998
2. USA – few laws directly controlling use of personal data
1. Privacy Act 1974 – regulates Federal record keeping
2. 1997  €˜Framework for Global e-Commerce €™ from Clinton Admin.  – recommended self-regulation
3. Federal Trade Commission Children €™s Online Privacy Protection Rule (from 21/4/2000) – before collecting personal information from a child under 13, must have consent of parent.

Web Site Registration:

1. Much information can be gathered
2. Presents problems for sender & recipient:
1. Who will receive the data?
2. How will the data be used – business planning, sale to a third party, appropriately?
3. Is the data correct?
4. Who really sent it?

99.99% of statistics are made up on the spot:

1. 10th User Survey by GVU suggests:
1. 40% of all users have falsified information when registering online
2. 66% of all U.S. and European respondents don €™t register as they don €™t know how the information is going to be used
3. 63% don €™t feel that registration is worthwhile considering the content of the sites
4. 58% don €™t trust the sites collecting this information from them
2. http://www.gvu.gatech.edu/user_surveys/

Protecting Intellectual Property:

1. Copyright – Copyright Design & Patents Act, 1988 gives protection for literature, including

i.          Derived works – translations, adaptations);

ii.          Art (inc. applied art – jewelry, furniture etc.);

iii.          Computer programs

1.
2. Copy; distribute; record; perform; broadcast;

i.          Lawful only with authorisation of copyright owner

1.
3. Case: Shetland Times v. Wills (i.e.  €˜Times €™-v-  €˜News €™)

i.          Court decreed that headlines had copyright protection, and hence could not be linked without authorisation

2. New EU directive on copyright harmonisation due soon.

Trade Marks:

1. A sign (words, pictures, colours etc.) – a means of identifying a business capability for particular goods/services
1. protection through registration
2. E-commerce problems for trademarks:
1. domain name problems – misuse; cybersquatting & selling; character string problems (e.g. CANDYLAND case – Hasbro v. IEG Ltd. 1995)
2. deep linking (e.g. case: Ticketmaster v. Microsoft, 1997; Ticketmaster 2001)
3. metatagging (e.g. case: Playboy v. Calvin DL, 1997)

More Intellectual Property Issues:

Trade Secret

1.
1. Intellectual work such as a business plan, which is a company secret and is not based on public information.
2. Corporate espionage via internet technologies is said to be a problem.
2. Patent
1.   A document that grants the holder exclusive rights on an invention for some years.
2. Case: Amazon v. Barnes & Noble (1999) for 1-click purchasing.

Public Key Infrastructure:

1. Aim: secure and trusted environment for the conduct of electronic commerce.
2. Digital Signatures authenticate the identity of the sender and give assurance of message integrity, and thus can provide a system of non-repudiation.
3. Smart Cards – implements PKI in hardware rather than merely in software, for greater security.
1. Card can contain PKI chip containing user’s private key, which can only be used by someone with physical possession of the card (WHAT YOU HAVE), and knowledge of a secret pass phrase (WHAT YOU KNOW) plus perhaps a biometric identifier (WHO YOU ARE).
2. Time/date-stamping – by third party

Implications for business internet usage:

1. Specify the rules of electronic contracting and jurisdiction prevailing when buyers, brokers, and sellers are in different countries
1. Establish whether encryption, e-certs required
2. Have a policy to ensure compliance with law (esp. in UK  €“ e.g. Data Protection Act 1998)
3. Ensure that sites do not breach copyright (including within intranets)
4. Be aware of infringing laws (e.g. on data handling, content, trading) of other nations if scope is beyond own national boundaries.