Legal, Security and Technical Issues in E-commerce Operations

COM6004 E-commerce
Systems

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
Legal, security and technical issues that must be addressed to conduct online operations....3
The intended audience for e-commerce products, along with several media channels and
technologies through which the company can reach its target audience................................5
Benefits of adopting an e-commerce in comparison with traditional “bricks and mortar” store.
................................................................................................................................................7
Development of a paper prototype and testing the design through usability testing methods9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13
Books and Journals:..............................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
E-commerce or electronic commerce is defined as an process of purchasing and
merchandising of products and services, or the transmission of data or funds, over an electronic
network, mainly the internet. These business transactions happen either as B2B (business to
business), B2C (business to consumer), consumer to business or consumer to consumer. In order
to run a e-commerce business, the company needs to identify the e-commerce platform to run
their business. These platforms can be regarded as the software application where both the
parties, buyer and seller come to interact and play their respective roles. There are several types
of platforms at which the e-commerce entrepreneur can reach their potential customers
throughout the world (Aggarwal and Aakash, 2018). As per the case study, an e-commerce
entrepreneur wants to develop their website for the purpose of selling their physical goods such
as soft toys to its target customers. For such purposes, they need to identify several legal,
security and technical issues that can come along in the way of dealing online business with its
customers. Also, it will outline its key customers and many media channels and technologies to
share the information of the goods and brand to its aimed audience. Later, in this report, it also
highlights key advantages of using e-commerce approach as opposed to a traditional “bricks and
mortar” store.
TASK
Legal, security and technical issues that must be addressed to conduct online operations.
As the entrepreneur wants to create their website and sell its physical goods i.e. soft toys,
to the target audience, it becomes essential for them to critically identify different issues that can
affect their business operations in multiple ways (Barenji and et.al., 2019). These issues can be
come in a legal, security or technical way, so the organisation must understand their effects as
well as make suitable ways to resolve or address those issues.
Legal issues:
 Incorporation problem: If the organisation has operated their business merely through an
online site and not being unified is a critical issue. Any selling and purchasing activity
associated to the items will be considered unlawful and one cannot claim for the right in
case of corruption and fraud.

 Copyright protection issue: While publishing or posting any content on online websites,
exploiting the content of any other organisation can be a big legal issue, resulting can
mark the business towards end (Behl and et.al., 2020). There are multiple online sites
which are royalty free and enable one to access their images and content. Being a new
business in e-commerce line, the company might not use intentionally the content of
other business site, but this might also lead the business to be sued by the other party.
 Privacy issues: When it comes to e-commerce business, the concern for privacy is crucial
to the business, together with its customers. Buyers share many information with
businesses when dealing their online transactions such as personal information like name,
contact number, addresses, bank account details and many more, and they expect that
sellers to maintain the privacy for all such data. But, one mistake or negligence behaviour
may leak the information to fraud and the organisation will not only lose the potential
clients, but also it harms the reputation and image in the market.
Security issue:
 Spam: Emails are highly known for being an impactful channel for boosting business
sales, but they are also one of the most frequently exploited mediums for spamming.
Nevertheless, leaving abscessed URLs in comments on the contact forms or blog is a
strong invitation for internet spammers to harm the business. It often times send through
the social media inbox and wait for the click on them. Therefore, it might raise the
concern for security of the online site.
 Brute force attacks: It is one of the major issues in security that is password cracking
techniques. Hackers attempt to exploit as many character combinations as doable for the
purpose of hacking the correct password.
 Man in the middle: A cybercriminal may listen the communication between a customer
and a store consultant (Cao, Shao and Zhang, 2022). If the customer is connected to an
assailable network or Wi-Fi, hackers can take benefit of that to steal the confidential
information.
Technical issues:
 Logistics issues: Overcoming logistics issues is increasing among e-commerce
businesses. The online entrepreneurs need to ensure that deliveries of their products are
made on time. In case if the product deliveries are delayed, then business may suffer.