Business to Customer Web-Design

Running Head: BUSINESS TO CUSTOMER WEB DESIGN 1
BUSINESS TO CUSTOMER WEB DESIGN
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BUSINESS TO CUSTOMER WEB DESIGN 2
INTRODUCTION
IKEA is a Swedish multinational company that is responsible for designing and selling
furniture, home accessories and kitchen appliances alongside the necessary services that go
hand in hand with the business. It was founded in 1943 in Sweden and has survived
throughout the generations where there was no technology into the 21st century where
everything is basically done through the internet (Sebesta, 2012). IKEA has grown to be the
largest multinational retailing furniture company with the highest consumption of wood. The
company launched their E-commerce portal in 2018 through which they endeavour to
enhance their customer experience and increase their profits (Lutz, 2013). The major
advertising avenue for the company has been the making of catalogues which normally come
in different languages and editions. In addition to this, they want to create a website in which
they can be able to interact with customers and enable them make purchases that suit their
needs (Calvin, 2013).
This research paper seeks to explore the development of a Business to Customer website
through the Object Oriented Approach. It will also examine the website business strategy by
IKEA, the usability of the website to the consumer, its efficiency and impact on the
consumer. It will further look into how this web development will help improve the
operations of the business, marketing as well as the generation of profits.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This research employs the use Object Oriented Approach in developing the website.
In the recent past there have been conflicting ideas on whether Object Oriented Programming
is relevant for the development of websites (Dawn, 2014). Despite the fact that OOP
languages are not used in developing websites, there are major concepts that can be borrowed
to accomplish the task. Therefore, some of the major reasons why IKEA selected on using the

BUSINESS TO CUSTOMER WEB DESIGN 3
Object Oriented approach is because it comes along with many benefits (Dennis, Wixom, &
Tegarden, 2015).
Object Oriented Programming (OOP) is a programming criteria that is based on
objects which contain information in terms of fields depending on the nature and properties
of the information. The code for OOP normally follows a given procedure in accomplishing
its task (Calvin, 2013). The features of the object are defined by a set of procedures that are
able to alter the functioning of that object. Therefore, OOP entails objects that interact with
each other. The most commonly used OOP languages are usually class-based and they
include C++, Python, Java, C#, Object Pascal, MATLAB, Dart, Ruby, PHP, Smalltalk,
Objective-C, JavaScript, Scala, Perl, Swift and Common Lisp (Dawn, 2014).
Although these programming languages claim to be compatible with OOP, not all of
them directly support its structures and techniques (Sebesta, 2012). However, there are
common features for all the programming languages that support OOP. The first feature that
the website will require is variables which shall be used for the purpose of storing
information. This information can be stored as strings, characters, integers or lists (Lutz,
2013).
There are also procedures or functions which provide the methodology for accepting
the input, processing the data and generating the output. The modern languages that provide
these procedures include the use of loops and conditionals. Procedures can be grouped into
files for the purposes of order through Modular Programming (Dennis, Wixom, & Tegarden,
2015).
There is also the feature of objects and classes in OOP. Classes define the format of
the data and the procedures that are available for that given data (Nevin & Torres, 2012).
Objects on the other hand are the instances of the classes. For instance, an object may take

BUSINESS TO CUSTOMER WEB DESIGN 4
the dimensions of real objects and shapes such as circles and squares. In the case of building
a website for IKEA, the web may contain a shopping cart as an object on the web. Other
objects may be used to represent a customer and others the item to be purchased
(Salvaneschi, Ghezzi, & Pradella, 2012).
In OOP there are special terms that are used to refer to specific items in the
programming process. For instance, a class variable is a general representation of a class as a
whole and an instance variable is one that is part of an individual object and each object has a
copy of its own (Dennis, Wixom, & Tegarden, 2015). Member variables can be used to refer
to both the instance and class variables but they are defined by a specific class. Class methods
are assigned to the entire class and only access class variables and other inputs from the
procedure call (Salvaneschi, Ghezzi, & Pradella, 2012). Lastly, the class methods are the
functions which belong to specific objects and can gain access to the class variables, inputs
and instance variables of the individual object to which they belong. The developers at times
refer to objects as variables with a complex structure (Nevin & Torres, 2012).
The class-based programming languages in OOP work by first defining the classes
and then later on instantiate the objects based on the classes. For instance, if there is a class of
fruits, the objects may be an apple and an orange which generally possess similar
characteristics with a few variations (Lutz, 2013). In prototype-based languages, objects are
regarded as the primary item with no existence of classes. Instead of classes, objects have
other objects as prototypes to which they are linked. There is only one prototype for one
object. Therefore, if the developer wants to create a new object, they will do so on the basis
of the existing objects that will be selected as their prototypes (Calvin, 2013).
An example for prototype-based programming can be given in the case of IKEA retail
company. If there are two objects table and chair with another object named furniture as their