E-COMMERCE

E-Commerce

E-commerce is fast gaining ground as an accepted and used business paradigm. More business houses are implementing web sites providing functionality for performing commercial transactions over the web. It is reasonable to say that the process of shopping on the web is becoming common place.

An online store is a virtual store on the Internet where customers can browse the catalogue and select products of interest. The selected items may be collected in a shopping cart. At checkout time, the items in the shopping cart will be presented as an order. At that time, more information will be needed to complete the transaction. Usually, the customer will be asked to fill or select a billing address, a shipping address, a shipping option, and payment information such as credit card number. An e-mail notification is sent to the customer as soon as the order is placed.

A GOOD E-COMMERCE SITE SHOULD PRESENT THE FOLLOWING FACTORS TO THE CUSTOMERS FOR BETTER USABILITY

• Knowing when an item was saved or not saved in the shopping cart.

• Returning to different parts of the site after adding an item to the shopping cart.

• Easy scanning and selecting items in a list.

• Effective categorical organization of products.

• Simple navigation from home page to information and order links for specific products.

• Obvious shopping links or buttons.

• Minimal and effective security notifications or messages.

• Consistent layout of product information.

Completed orders should be acknowledged quickly. This may be done with an acknowledgment or fulfilment page. The amount of time it takes to generate and download this page, however, is a source of irritation for many e-commerce users. Users are quick to attribute meaning to events. A blank page, or what a user perceives to be "a long time" to receive an acknowledgment, may be interpreted as "there must be something wrong with the order." If generating an acknowledgment may take longer than what may be reasonably expected by the user, then the design should include intermediate feedback to the user indicating the progress being made toward acknowledgment or fulfilment.

Finally, feedback should not distract the user. Actions and reactions made by the web site should be meaningful. Feedback should not draw the user's attention away from the important tasks of gathering information, selecting products, and placing orders.