Ecommerce
Construction
Online Shop Terminology
The Customer Experience
Ecommerce Features

Ecommerce
Ecommerce is a broad term used to talk about websites which are use by individuals or businesses who sell online. Ecommerce websites have a number of names, usually two words one of which relates to the internet and the other which relates to business. Some examples are online store, estore, webstore, virtual store and internet store. In Australia, we are more likely to say online shop, eshop, webshop, virtual shop and internet shop. Some people also say online shopping cart and shopping cart website.

Ecommerce Construction
Online shops which have a standard appearance, standard features and a standard sales process have the greatest chance for online success. While some creativity and originality can add value to your online shop website, you need to ensure your visitors will know exactly where to look and where to click. Even if your product is in demand and great value, a confusing website will not be able to keep visitors, let alone get orders. To ensure the customer experience is relaxed and enjoyable, successful online shops have a familiar appearance, familiar features and a familiar sales process. Despite website developers being all over the world, online shops from around the world have evolved together. Generally speaking, good ideas are adopted around the world while flawed, complicated and confusing ideas are abandoned. This means all online shops tend to have similar core components and tend to be structured in a similar way.

Online Shop Terminology
The language used to talk about online shops has also become uniform around the world. As it has done in the music and movie industries, American English is often adopted as the international standard in the programming and computer world. Australians often use American terms instead of traditional Australian terms. For example, "shopping cart" instead of "shopping basket or shopping trolley, "online store" instead of online shop and "checkout" instead of paying at the register.

The Customer Experience
To understand the various features and to simplify user experience, online shops use terms similar to that used when shopping at a supermarket or large department store. "Customers" can "browse" "products" and decide to "buy now" or "put in cart". Customers can add more items to their cart and "remove" items as they browse. With a click, customers can "view items in cart".

Ecommerce Features
Items are listed with prices and a subtotal is automatically calculated and displayed. Instead of adding the same product five times, customers can select a product once then change the quantity from "one" to "five" and click the "update" button. If a customer wishes to purchase only one product or has finished selecting products, they can click on the "checkout" button. The checkout process confirms the selected product(s), the subtotal, confirms the delivery address, shipping method, freight costs and also the payment method.

Like many other advanced websites, online shopping websites allow internet users to create an account. The customer enters their name, phone number, delivery address, user password and an email address which is used for correspondence and also serves as a username. Additional phone numbers, fax numbers, billing addresses, business names can also be collected by the "store owner". A great feature of online shops is that automatic emails are sent to both the customer and the store owner. If a store owner checks email once a day, they can immediately see if anyone has joined, ordered products or sent an enquiry from their website in the previous 24 hours.