E-Commerce Technology: Features, Building Process, Security, Online Marketing, Social Networks vs Portals

This article discusses the unique features of e-commerce technology, the process of building an e-commerce website, tools for establishing secure internet connection channels, technologies that support online marketing, and the difference between social networks and portals. It also highlights the significance of e-commerce technology for businesses.

RUNNING HEAD: E-Commerce Technology
E-Commerce Technology

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Contents
Question 1........................................................................................................................................2
Question 2........................................................................................................................................2
Question 3........................................................................................................................................3
Question 4........................................................................................................................................3
Question 5........................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5

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Question 1
The unique features of e- commerce technology include richness, ubiquity, global reach,
universal standards, information density, interactivity and social technology. The range of
ecommerce technology is across national cultures and traditional boundaries and enables the
client access worldwide content. E-commerce technology is available everywhere and every
time. Consumer can connect to the internet from anywhere including their offices, homes, etc.
Complex and content-rich information can be easily sent without sacrificing its reach. Record
keeping has also become simple with the help of e-commerce technology. Moreover, the same
standards of internet and of directing ecommerce are common in all nations across the globe. The
volume and quality of information accessible to market participants has become cheaper to
deliver and is massively increased. Interaction is facilitated by ecommerce technology by
allowing two sided communication between consumer and the business. Social networking
technologies and generation of user content are the most useful features through which client
activity is accelerated for sharing information and content in a single click (Laudon, Laudon &
Dass, 2010).
E-commerce technology is significant for business as it allows the customers to make purchases
according to their convenience from their smartphone, tablet or home computer. E-commerce
technology helps the businesses by making their products available to the customers across the
globe. Businesses are easily capable of keeping the records without sacrificing their security.
Easy communication is facilitated with the customers and increases the popularity of business in
the marketplace (Schneider, 2014).
Question 2
The process to be followed in building an e-commerce website includes selecting a domain for e-
commerce website which provides a recognizable brand, a professional email address and search
engine optimization benefits. Then the selection of right platform is required to be made which is
easy to use and flexible. The next step involves designing the store by adding blog posts,
products, images, videos, etc. and making the selection of correct theme that showcases the
products and brand in the best possible light. Then two key aspects of payments are required to

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be considered i.e. the manner of payments by the customers and the manner in which such
payments will be transferred to the bank account. This also requires searching for a third party
payment processor for acting as a link.
The next step involves adding products to the ecommerce website along with providing their
names and description, uploading photos, setting prices and available quantities for sale. This
also requires providing the range of payment and delivery options. Then the website is tested at
the checkout for working on tablets and smartphones and letting people for purchasing multiple
items. Last and the most important step in the process is search engine optimization which will
assist people in searching the ecommerce website, services and products online (Geoff, 2017).
Question 3
The tools that can be used for establishing secure internet connection channels include Secure
Sockets Layer (SSL) and Virtual Private Network (VPN). SSL establishes a secure internet
connection between two computers by providing a negotiated and secure client-server session in
which the requested document’s content and URL is encrypted. VPN allows secure access to
internal network to remote users via internet through Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP)
(Harwood, 2010).
For protecting the network, firewall and proxy servers can be used. Firewall is the hardware or
software with the help of which packets are filtered by using security policy. Its main approaches
include application gateways and packet filters. Proxy servers are the software servers that are
responsible for handling the communication being sent to or originated from the internet. It can
be used for restricting the access to some sites such as stock trading or auction or to store web
pages that are frequently accessed for reducing download times. For the protection of servers and
clients, operating system security enhancements including upgrades and patches and anti-virus
software can be used. Anti-virus software is the least expensive and easiest way for preventing
threats to integrity of system. For this they need to be regularly upgraded (Guise, 2017).
Question 4
The main technologies that support online marketing include advertising networks, data mining
and data warehouses, cookies and web bugs, web transaction logs and customer relationship

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management systems. Advertising networks collects the user behavioral data and presents user
with appropriate banner advertisement. Data mining allows the measurement of customer
response by collecting the relevant customer data. Data warehouse collects the customer and
transactional data in a single location and is provided to the site managers or marketers for
offline analysis (Gay, Charlesworth & Esen, 2007).
Moreover, cookies provide the online marketers with a means for identifying customers and
understanding their prior behavior. Web bugs are used for automatically transmitting information
regarding the page and user to the monitoring server. Web transaction logs keep the record of
user activity and provides ample of marketing information to the marketers. Customer
relationship management systems act as the repository of information of customers. It keeps
psychographic and demographic data, contact history, usage and product summary data, etc.
Question 5
Social network involve a group of individuals in its online community that are encouraged to
share their music, photos, ideas, videos, interests and stories with other registered members (Lin,
Fan & Chau, 2014). Social networks share common ties and social interaction among its
members who share an area for a particular time period. Portals are general- purpose content
providers having a diverse selection of capabilities and features. A number of internet services
are offered at a portal from a particular convenient location (Memon & Alhajj, 2010).
The difference between social networks and portals is that members are exclusively responsible
for content creation in social networks whereas content is created and aggregated from elsewhere
in case of portals. The similarity between social networks and portals is that both of the same of
goal of keeping the visitors on their sites for a longer time period. Both of them aim to mold
themselves as a sticky destination site. Moreover, the features of social networking are found in
many portals.

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References
Gay, R., Charlesworth, A. & Esen, R. (2007). Online Marketing: A Customer-Led Approach.
OUP Oxford.
Geoff. (2017). 7 Steps to Building an ECommerce Website. Retrieved April 24, 2018 from
https://founderu.selz.com/7-steps-creating-ecommerce-website-store-pro/
Guise, P. D. (2017). Data Protection: Ensuring Data Availability. CRC Press.
Harwood, M. (2010). Security Strategies in Web Applications and Social Networking. Jones &
Bartlett Publishers.
Laudon, K., Laudon, J. & Dass, R. (2010). Management Information Systems: Managing The
Digital Firm, 11/E. Pearson Education India.
Lin, H., Fan, W., & Chau, P. Y. (2014). Determinants of users’ continuance of social networking
sites: A self-regulation perspective. Information & Management, 51(5), 595-603.
Memon, N. & Alhajj, R. (2010). From Sociology to Computing in Social Networks: Theory,
Foundations and Applications. Springer Science & Business Media.
Schneider, G. (2014). Electronic Commerce. Cengage Learning.