What are the main types of e-commerce software and how do they work?
Apart from the standard web tools for forms processing and database-driven web back ends etc, e-commerce software can be roughly divided into the following sectors: 1. Shopping cart or shopping bag software Shopping cart software makes selection and compilation of orders from web sites easier for customers. Customers can select, total and pay by credit card in a more or less, easy to navigate environment. Examples are Cart32, InetStore and Net.Commerce from IBM. See here for a large list: www.poorrichard.com/freeinfo/shop.htm 2. Back Office integration One of the advantages of electronic commerce should be the opportunity to integrate ordering and invoicing into financial systems. Such applications would normally require custom software to be written. 3. Bank gateways For full scale e-commerce with end-to-end credit card authorization and processing, the merchant server requires a payment gateway to their participating bank. Explain ‘smart cards’ and how they will be used in e-commerce
