I read somewhere that e-commerce is the ability to perform business transactions over a network. Ravi Kalakota and Andrew Winston, in A Manager s Guide to Electronic Commerce, say that the definition of e-commerce changes depending on who you ask. From a business process perspective, electronic commerce is the application of technology toward the automation of business transactions and workflows. From a service perspective, electronic commerce is a tool that addresses the desire of firms, consumers, and management to cut service costs while improving the quality of goods and increasing the speed of service delivery. In this case, it may be more cost effective to invest in a bigger yellow pages ad.
Most Web designs begin by determining the technical requirements of the page.
The Web authors at Visual Matrix state that the technological requirements are important, However, an effective web site needs a lot more than this. It should start with a requirements definition that evaluates the real needs of the company and how they can best be served through the web. This goes back to determining what perspective of e-commerce the company holds mentioned above. Once the company s Web needs have been determined, the company should then start a careful design and planning stage. The next phase is to build and test the site.