This course is an introduction to the architecture, design,
implementation, and management of eCommerce websites. It covers topics
including enterprise architecture, hosting and vendor management,
outsourcing principles, challenges of multi-channel commerce,
principles of design and usability of websites, licensing and ownership
of software, business process, reporting metrics, Search/SEO, eCommerce
fraud concerns, and some legal issues and regulations around eCommerce
practices.
Prerequisite: none
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Week |
Topics Covered |
Reading |
Assignments |
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1 |
- Introductions & why you're taking this class - What's ecommerce - A little bit of history/timeline - Our favorite ecomm websites. Why we like them? What do we expect in a good (and a bad) eCommerce website (speed, reliability, assortment, availability, delivery options, delivery cost) - Types of ecomm websites (goods, services, data, marketplaces) - Website vs. an application - where is the line drawn? - What happens behind the scenes when we click the "Buy" button - Explain the class presentation structure. Students will suggest a list of topics and self organize into groups based on a particular topic they chose. |
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2 |
- Major differences between mom'n'pop and enterprise websites - How do we grow a website? Scalability - Maintainability - Risk management and fail-over - Disaster Recovery and planning - Licensing and Cost of ownership - Hosting and vendor management - Hosting and vendor management Cont'd - Call center and customer support - Order management system |
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3 |
- Warehouse management system - Tying everything together: Enterprise Architecture - Enterprise Application Integrations, ESB - Technology Selection (Java/.NET/PHP/Ruby-on-rails) - Web 2.0 (flash/ajax) - CDN, Akamai - Community - Ratings & reviews - Cross-selling and recommendations - Click-to-call - Click-to-chat - mCommerce |
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4 |
- Multi-channel selling and brand consistency - Data consistency and single customer view - Special orders / Drop ship - Email campaign management and CAN-SPAN - Traffic sources - Shopping engines - Affiliates - Amazon - Paid Search - Alternative checkout - Paypal - Bill me later - Google checkout - Measuring and reporting performance of different sources |
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5 |
Business Process - Merchandising & Stock position - Advertising - Long tailing and endless Isle - Promotional engines - Couponing and offer abuse - Free shipping - Seasonality - Direct Marketing and marketing strategy - Upsell, cross-sell, out-of-stock, product bundles, and substitution - Reporting: Conversion & AOV - Google Analytics - Student presentations: Q&A |
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6 |
Students presentations on the topics of choice (agreed on in class 1) |
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7 |
Fraud - Types of fraud - Credit cards: Address verification and standardization, AVS and CVN, debit cards
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8 |
Search - Site search, filtering, refinements, faceting - Search Engine Optimization - Paid Search - Search Reporting - Search Tuning |
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9 |
Guest Lecturer: Building a successful eCommerce business from ground up Guest Lecturer: Managing eCommerce Marketing for a large enterprise |
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10 |
- Usability - User Interface: Don't make me think - What customer say they want vs. what they really want: surveys and focus groups - Build vs. buy - Software as a service vs. hosted |
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11 |
Management - Change Management - Release management - New features, bugs, and roadmap process - Virtue of templating and reusability - Capabilities vs. make-it-work and just-do-it - Team structure - Creating YOUR process - Value of SOP |
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12 |
- SCRUM Agile methodology primer |
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13 |
- Each students will present their website project |
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14 |
- Legal issues and regulations - Privacy & security - PCI/SOX compliance & credit card numbers - Taxation - Outsourcing - Types - Why/why not - What can you outsource, how, when, and to whom - Case Study - Review for the final exam |
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