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An online shop, Internet shop, web shop or online store evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a bricks-and-mortar retailer or in a shopping mall. It is an electronic commerce application used for B2B or B2C.
Steps when buying online
- Browse product categories
- Put items into shopping cart
- Checkout (Login, edit personal data and choose means of payment)
- Confirm order
- Logout
Alternatively to this shopping cart system a recurring user could be recognized again by storing a "Cookie" on his computer. So he could also buy an item by just clicking on it without having to login and edit the credit and shipping information again. Amazon.com was granted the United States Patent Number 5,960,411 for this method - the famous "Amazon One-Click Patent".
Using an online shop
One can move about the online store by using a web browser, browse the product categories and put the selected items into a virtual shopping cart (or market basket).
Upon checking out of the store it is required to log in. When visiting the store for the first time one normally has to register by choosing a username and a password. Furthermore one must provide this kind of information:
- Name
- Address
- Delivery or shipping address (can be different from the address)
- Telephone number
- Means of payment
- Delivery speed and method (post, some kind of courier and logistics service, etc.)
After editing the personal data a confirmation page is beeing displayed so that the online shopper can approve, change or abort his order.
When a user finishes his session he will logout.
Means of payment
Setting up a shopping cart system
- Simple systems allow the offline administration of products and categories. The shop is then generated as HTML files and graphics that can be uploaded to a webspace. These systems don't use an online database.
- A high end solution can be bought or rented as a standalone program or as an addition to an ERP program. It is usually installed on the companies own webserver and may integrate very well into the existing supply chain so that ordering, payment, delivery, accounting and warehousing can be automated to a great extent.
- Other solutions allow the user to register and create an online shop on a portal that hosts multiple shops at the same time.
- Open Source solutions can be adapted and installed on a webspace.
- There are also commercial systems that can be tailored to ones needs so that the shop does not have to be created from scratch. By using a framework already existing software modules for different functionalities needed for a webshop can be adapted and combined.
Security issues
User and payment data is encrypted by SSL when it is transferred on the Internet.
History
- 1994: Pizza Hut offered pizza ordering on its Web page. The first online bank opened. Attempts to offer flower delivery and magazine subscriptions online. "Adult" materials were also commercially available very soon. Netscape 1.0 in late 1994 introduced SSL encryption that made transactions secure.
- 1995: Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com and the first commercial 24 hr. internet only radio station "Radio HK" started broadcasting.
- 1996: eBay was founded.
- 1998: Electronic postal stamps can be purchased and downloaded for printing from the Web.
- 1999: business.com was sold for US $7.5 million (purchased 1997 for US $150,000) The peer-to-peer filesharing software "Napster" was launched.
- 2000: The dotcom bust.
- 2001: Merger of AOL and Time Warner.
See also
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