Introduction:

Projections show that by the year 2002 Internet commerce will have jumped up 360%. This is only a relative dollar view but it suggests that getting on the web to sell products is going to happen and is going to be expanding greatly in the next few years. Companies that begin early at getting on the web position themselves to take advantage of powerful upcoming technological changes.

This proposal outlines such a project to make available to 6500 items to the web. The focus is this: develop a simple, reliable, and expandable Internet / dB connection which can easily be updated and monitored. Additionally, this project is tailored for a particular company – it is NOT an off-the-shelf-solution. Pre-existing inventory dB tables will be transferred to web site-located dB files. Here a customized programmed web interface presents the items to the internet visitor. Therefore presenting the data worldwide.

Yet, at the end of the project the resultant web site and system for updating will be stand-alone. Therefore, it will not need the constant maintenance of the designer / builder - me.

The web site must work for the company. None of this project will require that existing inventory systems or work methods be overtly disrupted or changed. The Item Tables are extracted from company information. And after being viewed, purchased, or inquired about from a web visitor the results are presented in Table form. The number of items to be displayed on the web will be up to the company – and it should not interfere in how records are presently kept.

The proposal is to build a web site which will "serve" a dynamic collection of data to the Internet. The "data" is directly obtained from the inventory list of product items. Each component of each item will be collected in a data base – inventory number, price, description, graphic, etc. For example: there would be four tables: Inventory Table, Price Table, Description Table, Graphic Table, etc. These tables are what drive the data displayed in the web site. This issue keeps the focus and direction targeted to the ultimate purpose of this project, which is, start off from the beginning to get the full-list of the product items and then add extra functions on this data.

The "web/dB server system" serves product information on the web. The number of initial items will be small. In fact, only enough to prove that the web surfer can get to the data and that the company can get to the back-end in order to do updates, changes, additions, and deletions. When this is proven, the company will embark upon filling-up the dB with information. Much of this will be automatic because information is just updated into the different data base tables. But, there might be some amount of "new business" because of the edition of new fields like: price, and graphics.

Each item will be available for purchase on the net. A separate web page will take the billing information over a secure web connection and verify for on-the-spot purchases. Because it is on the Internet it will be available 24 a day. Early in the morning (let us assume), a daily report will made on the purchases and the correct Purchase Tables will be updated. These Purchase Tables are what the shipping department will use to ship and bill the product.

At anytime a dynamic account of items, transactions, responses, and real-time data will be available through a web interface. This ensures that both the developer and company personal can keep track of what going on with the Web Site.

A company that is trying to use the Internet to sell it’s products must keep track of its web site visitors and customers. Email lists, demographic data, buying trends, and other trivial information become important with time and usage. A system must be in place that keeps track of users and web customers. Keeping with the overall design: this data is stored in a Visitor Table and is available using a web browser.

Internet Web Site Design

The design will be done by a third party. A style sheet will be agreed upon from the start and the HTML people will be given the general design guidelines (color, text, structure). Form design and shopping cart pages will be added after the initial site is on the web.

Having an internet site is like renting cyber property on the information highway. Two machines will be placed several feet away from a T1 Bandwidth connection. This site is very close to the Southwestern NAP connection (ATM) – downtown Columbia, SC. Power and bandwidth must be provided 24 hours a day. The two servers are remotely controlled through the internet. There are set-up and a monthly server co-location fees to get these servers so close to the global Internet.

When dealing with credit card information, web sites require a secure web server to process the sensitive data. This data must be kept secure at all times. To do this a certification is registered that "proves" the computer is using encryption when it transfers data. There is a one time fee for this certificate. The registration process for a SSL Certification can take several months.

The software is installed on two Pentium computers that take care of the following functions:

dB server Web Server, FTP server, Remote Control, Backup, SQL Server

Two computers are hooked up to one monitor, keyboard, and mouse to simplify switching from one box to the other when servicing directly. Two IP numbers will be assigned to the servers giving them full presence on the Internet. They will both be the primary servers for the Internet Domain Name (www.yourplace.com).

A windows NT domain will tie the two computers to the office server. This will allow domain wide authentication and file serving.

Using two machines spreads out the processing. Things will run faster this way. The computers don’t have to be high-end server-class PCs. But they must be secure and trustworthy.

The computers form a co-dependent software system. One computer serves the web and processes the orders to the other computer. The other one (Transaction server) stores all the data and is updated via a web connection (from anywhere with the correct password). The Transaction Server updates shipping and secure credit card information.

1. Find out how the customer does business. Schedule a week (5 days) of observing how orders are processed, inventory is kept, what records are used for what purpose.
2. Coordinate a web presence quickly in order to get feedback from company personal on what is needed.
3. Build a set of tables from the collected "needs" from the existing inventory tables.
4. Add search, retrieval, and update functions to the web linked to these "extracted" tables.
5. Work with company personal to use the system to add, delete, and modify records. Training.
6. Implement a shopping cart and secure transaction process to existing product items.
7. Work with company personal to use the system to take orders and ship out the products. More Training.

Specialized software is needed to serve the web pages, transfer files, and allow for remote administration. Independently, one software choice is not BETTER than another. Rather, the whole system must work together without messing up. Careful initial design choices make sure that all the components work together with the simplest of catch-up work.

This proposal concludes that about $10,000 is needed to pay for hardware, software, and bandwidth charges to start this project. No design fees have been included in this value.