Databases in Electronic Commerce

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Chapter 14

• Databases in Electronic Commerce
• Database Systems Design, Implementation, and
  Management, Fifth Edition, Rob and Coronel

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In this chapter, you will learn

• What electronic commerce (e-commerce) is
• How e-commerce affects the new economy
• About the different e-commerce styles
• About the Internet architectural components
  required to conduct electronic commerce
• About database design and implementation issues
  for electronic commerce applications
• What Extensible Markup Language (XML) is and why
  it is important

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What is Electronic Commerce?

• Definition
• Bring new products, services, or ideas to market
• Support and enhance business operations
  (including sales of products/services over the
  Web)
• Generally identified with Internet use
• External evidence is corporate Web site
• Prime revenue source
• Not an end in itself

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E-Commerce Impact

• Changed business environment
• New economy
• Benefits
• Ability to provide quick and convenient
  comparison shopping
• 24X7X365 operations
• Global access
• Lower entry barriers
• Increased customer market knowledge
• Disadvantages
• Hidden costs
• Technology is not perfect
• Thin profit margins
• Security, loss of privacy, service levels, and
  legal issues

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E-Commerce Styles
Figure 14.1
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E-Commerce Architecture

• Managerial issues
• Establishing partnerships
• Suppliers
• Distributors
• Vendors
• Design and development of business plans
• Technological issues
• Hardware and software
• Well-planned architecture

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E-Commerce Architecture (Cont.)
Figure 14.2
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Internet Basic Services

• Internet
• TCP/IP
• Router
• WWW
• Web Page
• HTML
• Hyperlink
• URL
• HTTP

• Web Browser
• Web Server
• Web Site
• Static Web Page
• Dynamic Web Page
• FTP
• E-Mail
• News and Discussion Group Services

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Internet Basic Services
Figure 14.3
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Business Enabling Services

• Search Services
• Security
• Site Monitoring and Data Analysis
• Load Testing, Balancing, and Web Caching
• Usability Testing

• Personalization
• Web Development
• Database Integration
• Transaction Processing
• Content Management
• Messaging
• Wireless Device Support

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Security

• Procedures and technology uses
• Protection against accidental and intentional
  access
• Warrantee identity of transactions participants
• Buyer
• Seller
• Protect transaction data from unauthorized
  modifications during Internet travel
• Protect resources (data and computer)
• Customers personal data
• Privacy issues
• Property against criminal activities

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Sample E-Commerce Transaction
Figure 14.4
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Payment Processing

• Digital Cash
• Digital equivalent of hard cash
• Digital certificates verify identity of
  transaction participants
• Low transaction costs
• Lack of customer acceptance
• Credit Card purchasing
• Most common for online purchasing
• Secure Electronic Transaction (SET)
• Electronic wallets

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Database Design for E-Commerce

• Dont reinvent the wheel
• No need for new design techniques
• Scope
• Facilitate sales of products and services
• Show products and services
• Conduct basic sales transactions
• Customer service
• Product returns
• Web customer profiling

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Basic Business Rules

• Sell products
• PRODUCT and CUSTOMER Tables
• Customer may place multiple orders
• 1M relationship between CUSTOMER and ORDER
• Order contains multiple lines
• 1M relationship between ORDER and ORDLINE
• Order lines refer to one product
• 1M between PRODUCT and ORDLINE

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Basic Business Rules (Cont.)

• Customer browses catalog by category
• Each PRODUCT belongs to PRODTYPE
• Customer places products in shopping cart
• SHOPCART belongs to one CUSTOMER and references
  one or more PRODUCTS
• Customer checks out and enters credit card and
  shipping info
• Added to ORDER
• After credit card authorization order created
• SHOPCARD used to create ORDER with ORDLINEs

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Basic Business Rules (Cont.)

• Merchant offers shipping options
• SHIPOPTION stores details
• Merchant offers many payment options
• PMTOPTION stores details
• States may have different tax rates
• Stored in STATE and TAXRATE

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CUSTOMER Table

• Details for each registered customer
• Some customers prefer not to register
• Primary table contents
• Name and address information
• Login information
• Credit card information
• Billing information
• Shipping information
• Membership type

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PRODUCT Table

• Central entity in DB
• Some customers prefer not to register
• Primary table contents
• Product details
• URL of image
• Vendor ID
• Reorder
• Pricing
• Alternate item
• May need a PRODOPT table for options within a
  particular product

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ORDER Table

• Contains all customer orders
• After credit card approval order added to table
• One row for each new order
• Primary table contents
• Order date
• Customer ID
• Payment and credit card information
• Shipping info
• Cost info
• Status

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PRODTYPE Table

• Describes product categories
• Multiple levels
• Primary table contents
• Product type name
• Product type parent

ORDLINE Table
Contains items in customer order One product for
each row Primary table contents Order ID Product
ID Quantity Tax
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SHOPCART Table

• Temporarily store products during shopping
  activity
• Primary table contents
• Product ID
• Quantity

PMTTYPE Table
Payment information Primary table
contents Payment name Merchant ID used by
processing systems
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SHIPTYPE Table

• Stores different shipping option names
• Primary table contents
• Shipping name
• Cost

TAXRATE Table
Tax information Primary table contents Rate
State for that rate
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STATE Table

• Stores state names
• Primary table contents
• State ID
• State name

PROMOTION Table
Stores information about promotions Primary table
contents Promotion Name Promotion
details Promotion pricing and quantity
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PRICEWATCH Table

• Information about particular products customers
  hope to buy when the price drops
• Primary table contents
• Customer information
• Product information

PRODPRICE Table
Manages multilevel pricing based on
quantity Primary table contents Product Quantity P
ricing information
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Extensible Markup Language (XML)

• Meta-language
• Represents and manipulates data elements
• Facilitates exchange of structured documents over
  the Web
• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published
  standard definition in 1998
• Allows definition of meta-tags to describe data
  elements

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XML Characteristics

• Allows definition of new tags
• Case sensitive
• Tags must be well-formed
• Proper nesting required
• Can use lt-- and --gt to enter comments
• XML or xml prefixes reserved for XML tags only
• Not a replacement for HTML

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Contents of ProductList.xml
Figure 14.5
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Document Type Definition (DTD)

• File with .dtd extension to describe XML elements
• Provides composition of databases logical model
• Defines syntax rules for each XML document
• Defines valid tags

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XML Schema

• Advanced data definition language used to
  describe structure of XML documents
• Checks for database types
• Validates data for out-of-range values
• XML Schema Definition (XSD) file uses syntax like
  XML document

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Extensible Style Language (XSL)

• Specifies rules for display of XML data
• Two parts
• Extensible Style Language Transformation (XSLT)
• General mechanism to extract and process data
  from one XML document and transform within
  another
• XSL style sheets
• Defines presentation rules applied to XML
  elements
• Describes formatting options for different XML
  elements
• Limited browser support

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Framework for XML Transformations
Figure 14.10
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XML Applications

• B2B exchanges
• Legacy system integration
• Web page development
• Database support
• Database meta-dictionaries
• XML databases
• XML services