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Non-technical Report

E-Commerce

Today the internet has became a daily part of our lifes. We will bound to use the internet everyday may it be for communication, getting the latest news or information searching, the internet has became so important that some of us cant live without it. With this wide acceptance of the internet businesses are also moving online in order to explore new areas in expanding their businesses.

By using E-Commerce large organization are able to better control their businesses which are distributed throughout the world. This helps them to have a better control over their management system as they are able to link all their businesses to one central location. E-Commerce also helps them to overcome geographical boundaries ans help them to cover a wider areas compared to the past.

E-Commerce not only brings advantage to organizations but it also helps their customer in reducing the time they required to do a purchase. For example Tesco in UK, they provide services where their customer are able to purchase their groceries online and the request will be sent directly to their home.

Now with a growing usage of mobile users, E-Commerce is also evolving to M-Commerce. M-Commerce are able to bring much more advantage when compared to E-Commerce, M-Commerce are available anywhere as long as the user has his mobile devices with him. Even though M-Commerce is still in its introduction stage, the high acceptance of user using mobile devices and the technological advances in M-Commerce is showing that there are many potential to be discovered.

Technical Report

Security

The main concern of E-Commerce ever since its introduction intill now its still security. Every transaction in E-Commerce contains sensitive information, it may be information on the company’s secret (example the companies supplier list) or personal information on its customer (example credit card number). In order to protect these data there are few technology that are able to help so that these information are not able to be leak out to the public or hacker.

The easiest way to prevent any unauthorized personal retrieving data from the server would be firewall. It blocks out any request from the IP addresses which is not configured for them to allow. Other then accepting request from IP filtering another method would be packet- filtering. This works by filtering certain request so that the request in retrieving the data is limited.

To further secure the data application –proxy level, this application –proxy level acts as a second level of defense where it limits the request which are from the internet into the companies private network this can be done by a server called the bastion gateway. It limits the type of request which can be made from the internet to the private network. This helps to prevent any leak of sensitive data to other people.

Other then firewalls when companies are engaging B2B they are also able to use VPN (Virtual Private Network). It serves as a private network by using the internet from one point to another. Data traveling thru here are encrypted using ssl which eliminates the fear of a third party eavesdropping.

What causes E-Commerce to fail

Like any new business strategy, implementing e-commerce also has its risk and there are a number of things that could go wrong, for example:

• Poorly designed web site
  Website which poorly design may cause user to be lost in their website and may cause them to eventually stop going there
  

• Misunderstanding customer needs
  Some organization may concentrate more on developing the website and neglect their customers. A website which does not work for them will cause them to move on to other website where the internet is just a click away.
  

• Insufficient trained staff
  No matter how good the website is if there are insufficient staff there will be no one there to maintain the website
  

• Focusing on the technology rather than the content
  Some developer try to implement Flash, Java, Shockwave and others which may increase the load time of the customer when browsing the website. It may cause a problem to customer who is connection using dail-up connection.

Reference:
http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ecommerce/drecommerce/answers/000079.html

Top 10 Tips For E-Commerce Website Design

1. Think about design
   Design can be so much more. Make sure all aspects of design matches your customers expectations, not just how it looks.


2. Use the best technology
   Make full use of the technology to help customers browsing experience and not adding trouble to them.


3. Plan your marketing
   There is more than one way to promote your site and a lot of common sense advice on things you may have missed.


4. Plan your SEO and marketing carefully
   Search Engine Optimization if of course very important, but it has to tie-in to other aspects of your business.


5. Design the copy you use
   The text you use on your web site will impact on the sales you make.


6. Anti-tips, what not to do
   It can be easier to learn from others' mistakes than make your own.


7. Take usability very seriously
   usability of your E-Commerce site is very important.


8. Be accessible to all
   Being accessible to all is both a legal requirement and the right thing to do.


9. Think about your business and legalities
   When working with some design or technology companies, you would be forgiven for imagining that it's all about the technology.


10. Pay attention to who is giving you advice
    It is better to read for other's advice as different company requires diffrent tips.

Reference:

http://www.othermedia.com/articles/the-top-10-top-10-tips-tips-for-ecommerce-web-site-design,154,TA.html

Advantage and Disadventage of E-cash

• Advantages
  With more and more banks introducing online banking for their customer to make their daily transactions e-cash helps to make these transaction more efficient and less costly. Usage of e-cash does not require any special authorization which means anyone can just use it for their own convenience.
  
  
• Disadvantage
  With the increasing cases of fraud on the internet it poses a great disadvantage to the growth e-cash. These cases are very hard to be solved as the usage of the e-cash is anonymous. This makes it very hard to find out who is using the e-cash and the personal that has obtained the e-cash could not be apprehended.
  

Reference:

http://www.win.tue.nl/~berry/papers/cosic.ps.gz

What makes e-cash secure

The security that is used in e-cash is cryptographic algorithms where is a key to create a tamper proof e-cash which can be traces back to where it is being issued. The usage of the e-cash is anonymous which means the e-cash could not be traced back to find out who sent it.

Each of the e-cash is embedded with a serial number and the number will not be used again. E-cash also has threat prosecution where it’s the main security in order to prevent double spending. This is made possible due to the complicated two-part lock which provides the e-cash with anonymous security and informs when someone is attempting to double the spent cash.

Reference:

http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/dts/pm/practical/ecash.htm
https://www.bs-card-service.com/en/card-acceptance/debitkarten/electronic-cash-debitkarte.html