Enhancing E-commerce Functionality

The assignment is about creating an e-commerce website for an organization that lacks online transaction features. The project involves designing and developing a fully functional e-commerce website with key features such as cart feature, payment integration, customer portal, product gallery, blog, social media integration, and comment system. The development process will be completed within 3 months, and the website will be deployed once it is tested.

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Running Head: E-COMMERCE
E-commerce
Student’s Name
Institution

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E-COMMERCE
E-commerce
Planning and System Analysis
The current website used by the organization lacks various features which are key in enabling online
transactions and promoting the products sold. The website lacks an e-commerce feature through
which customers can add items to cart and pay for the orders made. Also, it does not integrate social
media feature. As such, the scope of the project will focus on the key features that the website lacks in
order to enhance its functionality and usability. The project will involve creating a fully functional
ecommerce website that is customized to align with the organization’s brand. The project will be
completed within 3 months.
System Design
Currently, the organization has a website which is only used to display the products available as well
as the information about the company. Customers are limited to viewing the information available as
there no features to interact with. As an electronic retailer, the company needs an e-commerce website
which allows it to promote its product and support online transactions (Laudon, 2013). The site will
serve as a virtual storefront that provides details about the company and enables the organization to
sell its products (Turban, 2009). As an e-commerce website, it will have several features which are
aimed at supporting online transactions. These features include online payment integration, customer
portal, cart feature, product gallery, blog, social media integration, and comment system. The key
pages included in the website include homepage, products, about us, and contact us. The structure of
the website will be optimized by including clear menus that allow users to navigate the site, product
images, and social media sharing icons.

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E-COMMERCE
System Construction Plan
The website will be developed by an in-house IT team. It will be developed in phases to enable
project progress can be monitored and allow the project sponsor to review the milestones achieved in
order to determine whether they align with his expectations.
Activity Duration (Days)
Gathering requirements 4
Requirement analysis 3
Project Scope definition 5
User Interface Design 16
Database Design 7
Front-end development 20
Back-end development 24
System testing 4
Website deployment 2
System Testing Plan
Testing of the website will be done in phases. The key tests that will be conducted include unit test
and security test. In unit test, various modules such as customer login with be tested to ensure they
work as expected (Alalfi, 2007). Security test will focus on assessing how secure the website is from
various security threats.

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E-COMMERCE
System Implementation
The website will be deployed once it is tested. A domain will be bought and the website files will be
uploaded to the hosting service. Below is the timeline of the development process:
Activity Date
User Interface Design 14th October 2017 – 30th October 2017
Database Design 1st November 2017 - 7th November 2017
Website template coding (home, product, about
us, contact us, etc.)
8th November 2017- 28th November 2017
Logic coding 29th November 2017 – 20th December 2017
Marketing Plan
To market the new e-commerce site, the organization will leverage social media and email platforms.
Posts describing the new site and including a link to the site will be distributed in various social media
accounts held by the organization. The organization will also send customized emails informing users
about the new website. These two marketing methods will be key in improving awareness among
users.