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PersonalStore.com
By Mrinalini Dar
Submitted To:
Dr. Julius Dichter
Submitted On:
12/17/2000
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OBJECTIVE:
This project is aimed to design and create an e-commerce website that would allow the
users to sell and buy various products from the convenience of their own homes. This ecommerce website would provide a platform to the user to buy/sell and get the best deal on every
purchase or sale.
DESCRIPTION:
The e-commerce websites have been the latest trend for businesses in today’s world. This
website would give an opportunity to the users to sell or buy any product, used or new, from the
convenience of their homes. This website would provide the following features:
1. User Registration: The users would be able to register online to get the best deals and sell
used products at the price chosen by the user. The user could also choose to obtain an
email account. In addition, registered users could choose to receive automatic emails
regarding the latest deals and any available products they might be searching for.
2. User Management: The users can manage their profile and accounts. In addition, the site
administrators would be able to add or delete user information.
3. Online Database: This site would have a listing service that would enable users to list
articles for sales. The registered users can sell their own products for others to buy from
the site. The backend database used would be in Oracle 7.0. The registered user and the
site administrators can add, edit or delete the items to the list of items for sale. The
general users would be able to search the database for available products on sale. The
users that have chosen to receive email alerts would receive the email when an item of
their choice has been enlisted.
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4. Online Sales: Users can buy or sell products. A proper credit card validation would be
carried out during the process of purchase.
5. Customized Home Page: A tool would be provided that would allow the registered users
to create a single web page which would contain the user’s contact information and items
listed for sales.
Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), Java Server Pages (JSP) and HTML would be used to
design the website. EJB and JSP would be used for the backend of the registration,
management/update, selling products and searching of the database. HTML would be used for
the front-end. In addition, Oracle or MySQL would be used for the backend database to store
user information, list of articles on sale and article details.
BUSINESS JUSTIFICATION:
According to an article by Michael Bartlett on Newsbytes.com, “Total spending of online
sales increased from $4.2 billion in September to $4.4 billion in October” (Newsbytes.com,
November 20th, 2000). This proves that although the e-commerce industry might seem to be
falling, the sales statistics prove that the general public interest in online shopping is increasing
day-by-day. With today’s busy world, people want to shop and sell products like second-hand
books, furniture, and electronics over the Internet from the convenience of their homes. Since
this project would be using products like Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE), the
University of Bridgeport’s database and web server and Kawa 4.10 for the deployment of this
project, the cost of building and maintaining the site is almost nothing. J2EE and Kawa 4.10 are
open source software products. If a company would like to implement this project independently,
the expenditure would be as follows:
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Java 2 Platform Standard Edition
$0.00
Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition
$0.00
Oracle 8i Enterprise Database Server
$750.00
iMessaging JavaMail Provider (50 User License)
$75.00
Apache Web Server
$0.00
Kawa 4.10
$0.00
Domain Rental (Annual Rent)
$19.00
Merchant Account ($0.30/transaction, 1200 transactions/year)
$360.00
Total $1204.00
Thus, for a mere $1204.00 you can have your e-commerce site up and running in no time.
The one-time cost for this project is $825.00 and the annual maintenance is $379 under the
assumption that we receive 100 transactions per month. The charge for the merchant can vary
from month to month. However, since this is a school project, the school already provides the
database and web servers. I would be using my domain for the presentation of the final product
and I would be using the Demo version of iMessaging JavaMail server. In addition, I am
currently negotiating with several merchant account providers to get a free or bogus merchant
account for the sake of the project. As a result, the cost of this project to the school and myself
would be as follows:
Java 2 Platform Standard Edition
Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition
Oracle 8i Enterprise Database Server
iMessaging JavaMail Provider (50 User License)
Apache Web Server
Kawa 4.10
Domain Rental (Annual Rent)
Merchant Account ($0.30/transaction, 1200 transactions/year)
Total
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
FREE
In addition, the customer who is selling her/his product would do the shipping. Thus, the
company would incur no charges or hassles. In addition, 10% of all sales made through the web
site would go to the company. So, the company’s income would be through the 10% charges on
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every sale and the advertisements on the site. Customers can also choose to ship the product to
the company to be sold at the company’s leisure and in that case if the sale price exceeds the
amount paid to the owner, then the difference is the company’s profit.
INTENDED AUDIENCE:
The intended audience for this project is everyday human like students, professionals, and
housewives and just about anybody. Customers can buy/sell products like books, furniture,
electronics (TV, computers, etc.), toys, clothes and other products used in the everyday lives of
the people living around us. Besides the probable sellers or buyers, other customers can also
register with the service if they just want to make a homepage for themselves. This could work
as a promotional measure, as people could surf around the site while visiting their own site.
COMPARISON TO SIMILAR EXISTING SITES:
Other similar sites are Priceline’s PerfectYardSale.com and GarageSale.com. The
following are some of the points why PersonalStore.com will definitely prove to be better than
other such similar sites:
1. Some sites like Virtual Garage Sale and Garage Sale Site do not even have a
decent display. There are no search capabilities on the site to search for the
products available for sale. On the other hand, PersonalStore.com would offer a
user-friendly interface in addition to a facility to search through our databases by
all users (including non-registered users) to look for a particular product available
for sale.
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2. Online stores like Garage Sale Site, morsex.com and GarageSale.com have no
facility for online purchase. These sites simple provide the address of the place
where the products are available. However, PersonalStore.com offers the
customers to place their order online. As soon as the user places an order, a sale
request in sent to the person selling the product and the information is stored in
our database as well.
3. Some stores like Garage Sale Page are restricted to only computer hardware and
software products. However, in the case of PersonalStore.com, customers can
place any product for sale.
4. The recent most talked about disaster and the closest product to
PersonalStore.com is Priceline’s Perfect Yard Sale. I believe, however,
PersonalStore.com is better than Perfect Yard Sale, because it provides much
more facilities than the latter one. PersonalStore.com provides the registered
customers with the facilities to receive regular emails about the products they
might be interested in. It also provides the users with the facility to create their
own homepage within our site.
All in all, we can say that PersonalStore.com is to an extent a unique idea. It provides a
lot more facilities than any of the other sites in the market currently or in the past have tried to.
REQUIREMENTS:
The main products required for the deployment of PersonalStore.com are as follows:
1. Java 2 Platform Standard Edition (Open Source)
2. Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (Open Source)
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3. Oracle Database Server (Provided by University of Bridgeport)
4. JavaMail Provider by iMessaging (Demo version available for free)
5. Apache Web Server (Provided by University of Bridgeport)
6. Kawa 4.10 (Open Source)
DELIVERABLES:
The following would be delivered by the end of the project:
1. UML for EJB classes
2. Page Transition Diagrams
3. Final Project Report
4. Working e-commerce web site
REFERENCES:
1. Official Sun Site (http://java.sun.com/products/ejb/)
2. Developing Java Beans by Robert Englander and Mike Loukides. Ed. O’Reilly &
Associates.
3. Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans and the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition by Ed
Roman. Ed. John Wiley and Sons.
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