J-Link
management has been in the Information Technology Consulting Industry since
1970. We have managed the development and implementation of virtually every type
of application imaginable. In the 1970's "on-line" application systems
such as Order Entry would require years of custom software development with
teams of analysts and programmers numbering into the several dozen. We
personally managed such a project in 1973 for a Fortune 500 company in
Pittsburgh that took over 2 years with a team of 48 people, costing millions of
dollars. That application provided customers of our client to use an on-line
transaction processing menu to enter product orders and allowed our client to
track and manage inventory and client orders.
Things have changed. Today, that
same application is called E-commerce. From a user's PC, the user can access a
business's catalog and can use a shopping cart methodology to select and order
products. Typically, the business has real time order tracking and inventory
management capabilities. These systems no longer cost $ Millions. They are
commercially available for under $ 1 thousand for software and implementation
effort of perhaps 30 days.
Essentially, an E-Commerce
application such as this has a number of elements:
Web Site Structure a
multiple page web site that explains to a potential customer the who, what,
where, how and why they should do business with you. This structure would be
developed by us from scratch and would reside on our servers.
Catalog section of
the site that displays products, descriptions, pricing, etc. and accepts an
order.
Shopping Cart
maintains purchases during the buying process.
Product Database
where the product data is maintained
Transaction Processing
software interacting with other software providing the capacity for
on-line transactions
Credit Card Processing
allowing for financial transactions
All the data would reside on
our host ISP servers. System Software including operating systems, databases,
Front Page extensions, IIS, ASP, SSL, etc also resides on the Host. Store owner
tools to enter, modify and delete products, pricing, etc would be browser based,
accessible by the Store owner from their PC. Software to generate the Catalog
and Shopping Cart would reside on J-Links computers. Once we construct the
final software solution, we upload the operational product to the Host.
The main element of cost in
an E-commerce implementation is not the software, but the effort. The project
effort to implement the system would be as follows (briefly):
Select
and Acquire the Shopping Cart and Catalog software
Install software on J-Link
computers
Acquire and install all
required plug-ins on J-Link computers these vary based on your personal
operating desires. Most people want to be able to maintain and track
Products, Orders and Transactions. Each has its own plug-in.
Develop and document the
system operating features including shipping, taxing, discounting, etc. Once
understood, customize the Catalog and Shopping Cart software to accommodate
these decisions.
Develop the web site
structure
Acquire and install
operational linkage for the desired url (xxx.com).
Generate the html system
and upload to the Host.
Implement interfaces for
system software at the Host.
Define your product
coding.
Load database
interactively with product data.
Install credit card
management software on your computer.
Turn the site on.
Promote the site.
The software product J-Link
recommends is the oldest, best known product available. Its name is SalesCart.
Originally in 1995 and then a commercial product in 1997 on Microsoft FrontPage,
they were the first to create an E-commerce shopping cart extension/component
onto a website Design Tool. SalesCart's key features are:
Easy
installation.
Wizard-driven
shop configuration, takes 10 minutes to get your SalesCart files installed
and running.
No
programming or scripting required.
Scaleable.
SalesCart is easily expandable.
Completely
customizable, Open architecture.
Online
support options.
Sales
Cart has many versions with many different features. Most Store requirements
seem to be met with their standard version. The list of features of the standard
version includes:
Whole
Order Discounting:
This
applies a discount to any whole order based upon the total purchase going
over a certain threshold value. It can be applied in addition to single
item discounting.
Apply
Taxes to the whole order:
Allows
you to apply sales tax to the whole order for one or multiple states or
countries. Counties may be substituted for countries.
Design
your own "quantity" graphic or "add-to-cart" button
graphic.:
Allows
you to design any kind of graphic to prompt the user for the quantity of
items to be ordered and the button to add the item to the cart.
Apply
Taxes to a single item:
Allows you to apply sales tax to a single item or multiple
items without applying sales tax to the whole order.
Customer
email receipt:
Allows
you the option to decide whether or not you wish to send an email to your
customer, by proposing alternatively provided receipt pages.
Determine
whether customer will checkout after placing an order or continue
shopping:
Allows
you to determine whether you wish customers to automatically go into the
process of checking out when an item is placed in the cart, or to continue
shopping.
100%
compatible with built in ASP Database Region wizard provided with
FrontPage or Dreamweaver recordset query display:
100%
compatible with the ASP database Region Wizard provided by FrontPage, so
you can easily mix or match static product pages with dynamically
generated product pages.
Built-in
Check-Luhn routine:
Has a
built-in check-Luhn routine which mathematically verifies that the credit
card number entered in the payment page is "mathematically" valid.
This speeds the checkout process and reduces fraud, especially on manually
processed ordering.
Web
Wizard eases cart building process:
In
addition to the built-in FrontPage template, SalesCart comes with an
automatic Web wizard which automatically configures your shopping cart
system for your particular circumstances.
Provides
Default Localization:
Can be used in any country, and provides default
localization. You can operate in whatever currency values you determine
are applicable in your country. You designate the currency values using
the Control Panel of the machine running the shopping cart.
Previous
shoppers can retrieve previous order information:
Repeat
customers can retrieve their previous order information, making checkout
faster and easier for repeat buyers.
Session
Object Storage:
Allows all global parameters that define the shopping cart
to be located in a single location and file.
Entirely
built on Active Server Pages (ASP):
Provides a more robust and more secure architecture.
Customer
information gathering on a product-by-product basis:
You
can gather specific additional customer information on a
product-by-product basis during checkout. Great for gifts where
information such as engraving detail is needed.
Customizable
E-mail header:
Allows you to configure and customize the particular email
the customer will see upon order confirmation.
Affiliate/Multiple
Merchant Tracking:
Allows
you to track purchases against affiliates and multiple merchants to your
shopping cart on an order-by-order basis. Custom affiliates summary report
written in Access included.
Improved
Link-Wise Checkout System:
Allows
you to more easily separate, replace or modify different pieces of the
checkout process like links in a chain. This gives you virtually limitless
customizability, even during the checkout phase of the order. See the
instructions for removing shipping or payment information.
Customer
Item Notes:
Let your customer specify last minute notes to you on an
item-by-item basis.
You can review view a system built with Sales
Cart as the shopping software at these link: http://www.gerailfans.com/
and http://www.herbalcare.com/They
are only 2 of many successful implementations using SalesCart. More details can
be found at: to be announced.
If you would like to schedule a
private consultation on E-commerce solutions for your company, please contact
us.
J-Link, Inc.
508 Mariner Village, Huron, OH 44839 (419) 433-7474
J-Link
management has been in the Information Technology Consulting Industry since
1970. We have managed the development and implementation of virtually every type
of application imaginable. In the 1970's "on-line" application systems
such as Order Entry would require years of custom software development with
teams of analysts and programmers numbering into the several dozen. We
personally managed such a project in 1973 for a Fortune 500 company in
Pittsburgh that took over 2 years with a team of 48 people, costing millions of
dollars. That application provided customers of our client to use an on-line
transaction processing menu to enter product orders and allowed our client to
track and manage inventory and client orders.
Whole
Order Discounting: