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E-business site

An e-business site is an externally facing site designed to market a company's products and services to consumers and allow them to purchase these items online. The focus of the site is on helping consumers match their needs to the appropriate product or service and maximizing their purchases.

The site provides:

  • Press releases about the latest news relating the company's products and services.
  • Promotions area with information about products and services including sales, special package deals, and discounts.
  • Products and services catalog area with the entire catalog displayed as a searchable taxonomy.
  • Shopping area where users can see:
    • Searchable list of available products and services available for purchase online.
    • Summary of the items they are intending to purchase.
    • Area to calculate tax, shipping and other costs.
    • Area to purchase these items online using mail order, or using a follow-up call from a salesperson.
    • Area to track orders they have already initiated.
  • Articles where the organization can help customers using articles discussing their products and services.
  • Support area with technical documentation, contact numbers, support request forms, FAQs, and downloads.
  • Service for subscribing to a newsletter where the user is sent a regular update highlighting new promotions, products or articles.

The home page of the site is used to highlight the latest promotions, and to give a strong sense of the brand of the organization. Throughout the site, collaborative filtering is used to help suggest products and services to consumers based on their purchasing and navigational activity. A discussion system may also be used to allow users to build a community where they can comment on and rate various products and services.

A number of components are used together to build the e-business site:

  • WebSphere Portal is used to provide a platform for the integration of content and applications that form the e-business site.

  • The overall theme and top-level navigation of the intranet is also managed using WebSphere Portal.

  • Web Content Manager provides the micro-level layout of the content within the site, and is also used to directly build the press releases, FAQs, articles, and promotional content.

  • The catalog and shopping areas are run using WebSphere Commerce.

  • Personalization is used to suggest products to users based on collaborative filtering, and to email the newsletter.

  • A third-party discussion system is used to deliver collaborative forums in the communities section of the site using a custom portlet.

An e-business site can generate a large amount of traffic with a relatively small amount of content.


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