Using a Component Approach to Building an Ecommerce Site

Stop Press: Final Report

G.Bell [Software Engineering - 2000/01]

The continuing increase in the general public's perception of the Internet as an everyday tool that can be used both for communication (via e-mail) and as a source for obtaining information on any number of subjects, has resulted in a greater number of people obtaining access to it, either at

"DOS addresses only 1 mega-byte of RAM because we cannot imagine any applica-tions needing more."

Microsoft, 1980, on the development of DOS.

home or at work. Retailers have identified that all these additional users represent a lucrative new worldwide market for their products and as such are anxious to obtain access to this market by having a presence on the "web". Larger companies are more likely to be in a position to justify the expenditure to carry out the necessary research and development to construct a custom built ecommerce solution. However, smaller to medium companies, while expert in their particular business area, may have limited knowledge of the challenges that constructing an effective ecommerce web site can produce.

This project investigates the possibility of constructing a set of software components that would allow an effective ecommerce Internet site to be easily constructed on behalf of a retailer. This involves an examination of what an ecommerce site is and the necessary functionality required of such a system, both from the retailer and end user's perspective, taking into consideration factors such as speed of loading each web page to security of the system. An explanation is then provided of the technology that could be utilised to implement one possible solution to meet the identified needs. Finally a prototype of the system is built and tested using Active Server Pages and VBScript.

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