E-COMMERCE
E-Commerce Glossary
E-Commerce Market Size & Trends
Unique Feature of E-Commerce Technology
Example of E-Commerce Enabling Business Goals
Ad
Clicks :
Number of times that a viewer clicks on an ad banner.
Address
Verification :Process
used by a credit card processor or other party to verify that a
customer's ordering address matches their records.
Affiliate
Program: A popular website promotion tool where a website contracts
with other websites for driving visitor to its site. The revenue is
calculated according to the traffic brought by a particular website.
Automated
Clearing House :An
ACH transaction is an electronic fund transfer through the Federal
Reserve Bank from a checking or savings account
Authorization
:The
process of checking the validity and available balance of a customer's
credit card before the transaction can be accepted.
Bandwidth
:
The amount of information (webpages, text, graphics, video, sound, etc)
that is downloaded through a connection. Hiway manages a customer's
website based on the amount of data transfer used per month.
Banner
:An
interactive ad placed on a webpage that is linked to an external
advertiser's website or another internal page within the same website.
Browser:
Software Application program required to access and read the websites on
the Internet.
Business to
Business: A business model for business on Internet. Popularly
called as B2B, it includes E-Commerce transaction between two
business organizations.
Business to
Consumer: A business model for business on Internet. Popularly
called as B2C, it includes E-Commerce transactions between a
business organizations and an individual.
"Card
Not Present" Merchant Account :An
account that allows merchants to process credit cards without a face to
face transaction with the purchaser.
Certificate
Authority :A
Certificate Authority (CA) is a third party which verifies the identity
of merchants and their sites. The certificate authority issues a
certificate (also called a digital certificate or an authentication
certificate) to an applicant company, which can then put the certificate
up on its site.
Commerce
Server :The
server that manages and maintains all transactional and backend data for
a commerce website.
Cross
Promotion :The
promotion of a website through other traditional forms of advertising
such as magazines, newspapers, radio, TV, billboards, etc.
Delayed
Settlement Processing :Once
a transaction has been authorized, the merchant must ship the hard goods
before a transaction can be settled. Delayed settlements are stored
online until the merchant selects the transactions for settlement.
Digital
Certificate :A
Digital Certificate issued by a Certificate Authority certifies that a
merchant and a particular website are connected, just as a photo on your
driver's licence connects your identity with your personal details. A
digital certificate verifies to the shopper that the virtual store is
actually associated with a physical address and phone number which can
increase the shoppers confidence in the authenticity of the merchant.
Distribution
Channel :The
method through which a product is sold including retailers, catalogers,
internet commerce websites, etc.
Domain Name:
The unique name given to every website. It is used to physically locate
a website over the Internet. A domain name consists of three
different parts with each separated by a dot. These are host server
name, the unique name of the website and the third defining the
purpose/type of the website.
Download
:The
transfer of information from the internet to the browsing computer. Drop
ShipThe shipping of a product directly from the manufacturer to the
customer without requiring inventory carrying by the retailer.
E-Commerce:
A methodology used for executing business - either wholly or partially -
over Internet or a network.
Electronic
Software Distribution :Software
that can be purchased and downloaded directly from the internet.
FTP:
File Transfer Protocol (FTP). A globally accepted set of rules used
while transferring files from one computer to another computer of a
network or Internet.
Gateway:
A hardware or software that acts as a mediator between two distinct
protocols and help in the transfer of information between diverse
systems.
Hit
:Each
time a Web server sends a file to a browser, a "hit" is recorded in the
server file logs.
Home
Page:
The first page through which a viewer usually enters a website.
Hosting:
A term used for storing and maintaining files, email or domains on a
server that is connected with Internet.
HTML
:Hyper
Text Markup Language is the standardized language which allows web
browsers to interpret websites.
HTTP
:Hyper
Text Transfer Protocol is a protocol which allows computers to
communicate with each other.
Keywords
:Words
that may be used by viewers searching for information. Keywords can be
purchased from search engine companies so that an appropriate ad banner
may be displayed when a viewer searches on a particular word.
Merchant
Account: An online bank account required by a store to receive
payments through electronic mediums like credit cards. It can be
considered as a virtual bank account that receives electronic money.
Modem:
Acronym for Modulator-Demodulator. It is hardware required to access
Internet through a telephone line. Modem converts the format of
information received from the telephone
line (Analog) into a computer friendly format (Digital) and
vise-versa.
Network:
Group of computers or devices connected with each other. A network is
used to transfer data within the devices.
"
Off-Line Transaction Processing" :Capture
of order and credit card information for later authorization and
transaction processing through a traditional card swipe terminal or
through a computer.
Order
Confirmation :An
email message notifying a customer that an order has been received and
will be processed.
Order
Management System :A
system that accepts orders and initiates a process that results in the
outbound shipment of a finished good.
Order
Tracking:The process of tracing the status of particular order
placed by a customer in a web store.
Payment
Gateway: A computer system that acts as a mediator between a
merchant account and online storefront. Payment gateway is used in
authentication of credit card information and real-time charging
from a credit card.
Real
Time Credit Card Processing :On-line
authorization of a credit card number in real time informing the
merchant that the card has been approved.
Settlement
:Once
the goods have been shipped to the customer, the merchant can key a
transaction for settlement at which time the customer's credit card is
charged for the transaction and the proceeds are deposited into the
merchant account.
Shipping
Confirmation :An
email message that notifies a customer that an order has been shipped.
Shipping
Provider: An organization that provides the services of physically
transporting the goods ordered on the Internet, to the address
specified by a buyer.
Shopping
Cart: Software required for building an online store and accept
orders online.
SSL:
Secure Socket Layer. It’s a protocol designed for secure transfer of
Information over the Internet. It helps to maintain security,
reliability and privacy of the information and ensures that the
information is not tempered with while the transfer is taking place.
URL
:
Uniform Resource Locator which describes the "address" for a document on
the internet.
Website:
A collection of files organized in a structure that can be read through
a browser. The domain name given to a website is the unique
identification of a website in the World Wide Web.
Website
Traffic: The number of times a website is viewed by a unique visitor
within a stipulated time.
WYSIWYG:
“What You See is What You Get” is a feature of an editor. Such editors
show the exact appearance of the desired output while you are
creating the document or a web page.