scholarly journals Online support for commerce processes: The Dutch food retailing sector

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-109
Author(s):  
Adam Lindgreen ◽  
Michael Antioco ◽  
Joost Wouters
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
Electronic Commerce ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Food Retailing ◽  
Food Retail ◽  
Effective Manner ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The World

Advances in information technology have changed not only traditional goods and services, but also business-to-consumer relationships in terms of interactivity. For example, by facilitating access to company data, offering additional services, and/or providing self-service options through the World Wide Web, consumer requests can be recorded, handled faster, and dealt with more individually in a cost-effective manner. This article examines the extent to which companies in the Dutch food retailing sector are using the World Wide Web and its associated technologies to conduct their business. Employing the electronic commerce architecture suggested by Basu and Muylle (1999, 2002), Muylle and Basu (2003), we analyse the commercial Web sites of Dutch food retail companies (numbering 34 in all) to determine which commerce processes are being supported online in this sector. The results of the research provide insights to academics on the adoption of electronic commerce in a particular industry sector and to food retail managers on their competitors' usage of the World Wide Web. Our findings show that, generally, support for electronic commerce processes and sub-processes is merely 16 per cent of the considered sample. Most retailers use the Internet only as a medium of communications, although others have set up commercial Web sites that provide higher customer support. Several sub-processes appear to be supported such as core logistics, online search of products, and price information display and determination. With the exception of search, there is practically no online customisation possible in the processes. A high correlation was observed between search, valuation, and authentication on the one hand and support for online payment on the other hand. Lastly, there is no significant difference between regional/national retailers or firm size, especially for the search and valuation processes, which share close to identical extent of support.

scholarly journals A Simulation of the Structure of the World-Wide Web

2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moses Boudourides ◽  
Gerasimos Antypas
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
Power Law ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
World Wide ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Web Pages ◽  
Small Worlds ◽  
Web Page ◽  
Simple Simulation ◽  
The World

In this paper we are presenting a simple simulation of the Internet World-Wide Web, where one observes the appearance of web pages belonging to different web sites, covering a number of different thematic topics and possessing links to other web pages. The goal of our simulation is to reproduce the form of the observed World-Wide Web and of its growth, using a small number of simple assumptions. In our simulation, existing web pages may generate new ones as follows: First, each web page is equipped with a topic concerning its contents. Second, links between web pages are established according to common topics. Next, new web pages may be randomly generated and subsequently they might be equipped with a topic and be assigned to web sites. By repeated iterations of these rules, our simulation appears to exhibit the observed structure of the World-Wide Web and, in particular, a power law type of growth. In order to visualise the network of web pages, we have followed N. Gilbert's (1997) methodology of scientometric simulation, assuming that web pages can be represented by points in the plane. Furthermore, the simulated graph is found to possess the property of small worlds, as it is the case with a large number of other complex networks.

Web 2.0 and Beyond-Participation Culture on the Web

2009 ◽  
pp. 1537-1544
Author(s):  
August-Wilhelm Scheer
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Broad Band ◽  
Local Data ◽  
Server Side ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Internet Connections ◽  
The Web

The emergence of what we call today the World Wide Web, the WWW, or simply the Web, dates back to 1989 when Tim Berners-Lee proposed a hypertext system to manage information overload at CERN, Switzerland (Berners-Lee, 1989). This article outlines how his approaches evolved into the Web that drives today’s information society and explores its full potentials still ahead. The formerly known wide-area hypertext information retrieval initiative quickly gained momentum due to the fast adoption of graphical browser programs and standardization activities of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). In the beginning, based only on the standards of HTML, HTTP, and URL, the sites provided by the Web were static, meaning the information stayed unchanged until the original publisher decided for an update. For a long time, the WWW, today referred to as Web 1.0, was understood as a technical mean to publish information to a vast audience across time and space. Data was kept locally and Web sites were only occasionally updated by uploading files from the client to the Web server. Application software was limited to local desktops and operated only on local data. With the advent of dynamic concepts on server-side (script languages like hypertext preprocessor (PHP) or Perl and Web applications with JSP or ASP) and client-side (e.g., JavaScript), the WWW became more dynamic. Server-side content management systems (CMS) allowed editing Web sites via the browser during run-time. These systems interact with multiple users through PHP-interfaces that push information into server-side databases (e.g., mySQL) which again feed Web sites with content. Thus, the Web became accessible and editable not only for programmers and “techies” but also for the common user. Yet, technological limitations such as slow Internet connections, consumer-unfriendly Internet rates, and poor multimedia support still inhibited a mass-usage of the Web. It needed broad-band Internet access, flat rates, and digitalized media processing to catch on.

Standards for Web Services

2008 ◽  
pp. 47-86
Author(s):  
Bill Karakostas ◽  
Yannis Zorgios
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
Web Services ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Comprehensive Description ◽  
Business Services ◽  
Software Technology ◽  
The World ◽  
The Web

Chapter II presented the main concepts underlying business services. Ultimately, as this book proposes, business services need to be decomposed into networks of executable Web services. Web services are the primary software technology available today that closely matches the characteristics of business services. To understand the mapping from business to Web services, we need to understand the fundamental characteristics of the latter. This chapter therefore will introduce the main Web services concepts and standards. It does not intend to be a comprehensive description of all standards applicable to Web services, as many of them are still in a state of flux. It focuses instead on the more important and stable standards. All such standards are fully and precisely defined and maintained by the organizations that have defined and endorsed them, such as the World Wide Web Consortium (http://w3c. org), the OASIS organization (http://www.oasis-open.org) and others. We advise readers to visit periodically the Web sites describing the various standards to obtain the up to date versions.

Using Semantic Web Concepts to Retrieve Specific Domain Information from the Web

2011 ◽  
pp. 249-270
Author(s):  
Rafael Cunha Cardoso ◽  
Fernando da Fonseca de Souza ◽  
Ana Carolina Salgado
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
World Wide Web ◽  
Semantic Web ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Specific Domain ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
The World ◽  
Domain Information ◽  
The Web

Currently, systems dedicated to information retrieval/extraction perform an important role on fetching relevant and qualified information from the World Wide Web (WWW). The Semantic Web can be described as the Web’s future once it introduces a set of new concepts and tools. For instance, ontology is used to insert knowledge into contents of the current WWW to give meaning to such contents. This allows software agents to better understand the Web’s content meaning so that such agents can execute more complex and useful tasks to users. This work introduces an architecture that uses some Semantic Web concepts allied to Regular Expressions (REGEX) in order to develop a system that retrieves/extracts specific domain information from the Web. A prototype, based on such architecture, was developed to find information about offers announced on supermarkets Web sites.

Webliography

2011 ◽  
pp. 957-962 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harrison Yang
Keyword(s):  
Technology Integration ◽  
World Wide Web ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Online Resources ◽  
State University ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Louisiana State University ◽  
The World

Traditionally, a bibliography is regarded as a list of printed resources (books, articles, reports, etc.) on a given subject or topic for further study or reference purpose (Alred, Brusaw, & Oliu, 2006; Lamb, 2006). According to the Micropaedia (1990), the bibliography refers to “study and description of books.” It is either the listing of books according to some system (enumerative or descriptive bibliography) or the study of books as tangible objects (analytical or critical bibliography). The term webliography is commonly used when discussing online resources. Although there is no clear agreement among educators regarding the origin of this term, many tend to believe that the term webliography was coined by the libraries at Louisiana State University to describe their list of favorite Web sites. It is referred to as “Web bibliography.” Accordingly, a webliography is a list of resources that can be accessed on the World Wide Web, relating to a particular topic or can be referred to in a scholarly work. A variety of studies suggest that understanding and developing webliographies, which relate to locate, evaluate, organize, and use effectively the needed online resources, are essential for information literacy and technology integration.

City Brands and their Communication through Web Sites

2010 ◽  
pp. 26-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Fernández-Cavia ◽  
Assumpció Huertas-Roig
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
City Marketing ◽  
The Public ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind

City marketing tries to position cities in the mind of the public, although the process of creating and communicating city brands is still at an early stage of its development. One of the main tools for the communication of these brands is now the World Wide Web. This chapter describes the results of two combined studies (qualitative and quantitative) that analyzes a sample of official city Web sites. The results show that official Web sites of cities give much attention to ease of navigation, but interactivity is much less implemented, especially between users. Furthermore, some lack of attention to the communication aspects of city brands can also be found. Finally, the chapter submits a number of improvement proposals.

The Design and Architecture of a Secure Agent Transport Protocol for E-Commerce

2011 ◽  
pp. 321-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Yang ◽  
Sheng-Uei Guan
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
Electronic Commerce ◽  
Intelligent Agents ◽  
Credit Card ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Transport Protocol ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Security Framework ◽  
Computer Agent ◽  
The World

With the proliferation of Internet, electronic commerce (e-commerce) is beginning to take the center stage in the commerce world. Transactions via electronic means have been growing rapidly over recent years, both in terms of turnover amount and volume. It is estimated that the trend will continue, as more and more businesses have already started or have plans to put their products/services online. However, the development of e-commerce is hindered by several factors. One of them is the lack of intelligence. Today, there is little intelligence in the World Wide Web. Users cannot delegate jobs to ‘agents’ that autonomously perform the desired tasks for their owners. One way to resolve this is through the introduction of ‘smart software programs’, or intelligent agents. With an agent architecture in place, users can delegate tasks to agents. An agent can help its owner to search for and filter information, negotiate with other agents, and even perform transactions on behalf of its owner. It is predicted that agent usage will become the mainstream in the future, not just in the field of e-commerce, but in the World Wide Web as well (Guilfoyle, 1994; Corley, 1995). Due to the nature of e-commerce, security becomes a primary concern for any architecture under this category. In fact, the threats to e-commerce come mostly from the area of security. Credit card companies lose billions of dollars every year on card frauds. Bank networks are broken into and millions are transferred out without the administration’s immediate knowledge. In order to fight against these electronic crimes, it is necessary to protect our architecture with a solid security framework. Besides the security needs, it is desirable for agents to have roaming capability as well. Roaming extends the agent’s capability well beyond the limitations imposed by its owner’s computer. Agent operations should not be affected by factors such as the availability of network, the limitation on bandwidth, or the lack of computing resources. Roaming agents should be able to physically leave their owners’ machines and perform their operations using the computing resources on hosting machines.

Mobile Commerce Technology

2005 ◽  
pp. 1967-1972
Author(s):  
Chung-wei Lee ◽  
Wen-Chen Hu ◽  
Jyh-haw Yeh
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
Electronic Commerce ◽  
Mobile Networks ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Mobile Commerce ◽  
Handheld Devices ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Cellular Phones ◽  
Research Subject ◽  
The World

With the introduction of the World Wide Web, electronic commerce has revolutionized traditional commerce and boosted sales and exchanges of merchandise and information. Recently, the emergence of wireless and mobile networks has made possible the admission of electronic commerce to a new application and research subject—mobile commerce, which is defined as the exchange or buying and selling of commodities, services, or information on the Internet through the use of mobile handheld devices. With services provided by mobile commerce, consumers may use the microbrowsers on their cellular phones or PDAs to buy tickets, order meals, locate and book local hotel rooms, even write contracts on the move.

Mobile Commerce Security and Payment

2011 ◽  
pp. 615-621
Author(s):  
Chung-wei Lee ◽  
Weidong Kou ◽  
Wen-Chen Hu
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
Electronic Commerce ◽  
Mobile Networks ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Mobile Commerce ◽  
Handheld Devices ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Business Transactions ◽  
The World

With the introduction of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic commerce has revolutionized traditional commerce and boosted sales and exchanges of merchandise and information. Recently, the emergence of wireless and mobile networks has made possible the extension of electronic commerce to a new application and research area: mobile commerce, which is defined as the exchange or buying and selling of commodities, services or information on the Internet through the use of mobile handheld devices. In just a few years, mobile commerce has emerged from nowhere to become the hottest new trend in business transactions. Mobile commerce is an effective and convenient way of delivering electronic commerce to consumers from anywhere and at any time. Realizing the advantages to be gained from mobile commerce, companies have begun to offer mobile commerce options for their customers in addition to the electronic commerce they already provide (The Yankee Group, 2002).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document