Electronic Shopping

Electronic Shopping

With the electronic retail business model in mind, let's now follow the process of electronic shopping in an electronic storefront. Companies host their storefronts as Web applications on Web servers. The Web site becomes the store's electronic identity. Customers "step into" stores by browsing the store's Web site. The electronic storefront provides customers with a virtual shopping experience, as they browse the merchandise and decide what they want to buy. The electronic storefront also interfaces with a payment processing system or a payment gateway provided by the company's financial institution for accepting payments on the merchant's behalf. The electronic storefront also interfaces with the company's corporate systems and the suppliers' and clearinghouse's systems for order processing and fulfillment.

When the customer visits the electronic storefront, or Web site, he browses the different products that the store sells. The customer then reads the description of the products, looks at product prices, and decides whether to buy one or more product. Once a customer has arrived at a decision to buy a particular product, he needs to set the product aside until the shopping "trip" completed. In a regular storefront, the customer uses a shopping cart to hold his selections until he is ready to check out. Today's electronic shopping cart is analogous to the metal or plastic shopping cart familiar to every shopper. An electronic shopping cart holds the customer's selections and when all the selections are made, the shopping cart helps the customer check out and pay for his purchases. Electronic storefronts handle customer payments via payment gateways provided by the storefront's financial institution where it has its bank accounts. This application provides some sort of customization to serve customers' varying needs. The payment gateway verifies the validity of the payment instrument used by the customer and takes the necessary actions to process the payment instrument and credit the merchant's account with the appropriate funds. Figure 3-4 depicts a customer's interaction with an electronic retail business.

Figure 3-4. Use of electronic shopping cart and payment gateway