| Lesson 8 | Mapping to business concerns |
| Objective | Business concerns that must be addressed by your site. |
Mapping to Business Concerns
Make sure you can justify each decision you make about what services to provide and what purchases to make.
Each time you decide on a particular storyboard element, you should stop to ask exactly why you need it.
Each time you decide on a particular storyboard element, you should stop to ask exactly why you need it.
Additional business issues include ways to generate and determine demand for the site. as well as how to:
- Record the customer's information.
- Process the order accurately.
- Ship the product.
- Deal with customer feedback, including complaints.
- Pre-sales inquiries and sales tracking.
- Online sales support.
- Building a sense of community with the customer, so that he or she is aware of the product's life cycle, new offerings, and upgrades.
Because an e-commerce site is available to anyone, you must consider how you will deal with the proceeds from transactions.
Some of these issues are shown in the SlideShow below.
Some of these issues are shown in the SlideShow below.
- How will you deal with the possibility that you product or service may be forbidden from sale in a particular country, province or state?
- What is fair in one region may not be legally correct in another.
- How will you deal with currency? What will your statement look like?
- If you plan on selling world-wide, then how will you deal with multiple languages? Will you support customer service calls in only one language?
Mapping Business Concerns
Intellectual property and the Web
The Internet suggests to some that they can borrow ideas freely from any site. However, this is not the case.
A properly implemented Web site represents an enormous amount of time and money that most companies want to protect. They do not appreciate close imitation.
Intellectual property involves the use of existing material. This includes the copyright law and issues concerning plagiarism. Specifically, you cannot use information if your plan is to use both the content and the expression of another Web site.
Intellectual property involves the use of existing material. This includes the copyright law and issues concerning plagiarism. Specifically, you cannot use information if your plan is to use both the content and the expression of another Web site.
Support staff
If you require any type of support services, such as a help desk or online sales support, you have to consider associated costs with employing support staff.
An e-commerce site is a business, and thus requires that you plan for every eventuality.
In the next lesson, you will learn about outsourcing.
In the next lesson, you will learn about outsourcing.
