Many small businesses are in need of an administrative e-commerce content management system. Most current e-commerce packages within the open-source community or $500-$1000 price range offer advanced functionality, but most small businesses shy from these packages because of complex interfaces and feature bloat. An example of a complex, existing e-commerce implementation is OS Commerce. It is our intention to explore and design an administrative e-commerce system that is simple and easy to use, aimed primarily at small businesses. This new system will not offer the feature list available in expensive packages; instead, it will offer a capable feature list that meets most small business needs while providing a simple and intuitive user interface.
This system may be extended to accommodate any additional functionality (with plug-ins) that may be required for custom projects. Our concern is reaching a sufficient balance between features and usability. We interviewed small business owners and/or managers on Franklin Street. Some of these persons included owners and managers that currently have an e-commerce system in place; for these businesses, we will explore their current e-commerce implementation while collecting positive and negative feedback. Is their current system satisfactory? Is it intuitive? What can be improved or simplified? We also interviewed small businesses that do not have a current e-commerce implementation. Do they need an e-commerce system? Why do they not have an e-commerce system? What features would they like or need?.
Before proceeding further, it is important to understand what a small business is and how it differs from other business demographics. There are three distinct business categories: personal or individual businesses, small businesses, and enterprise businesses. Personal or individual businesses are usually managed by a sole proprietor. These businesses may use simple, free solutions like PayPal, EBay, or Google Checkout for e-commerce implementations. Enterprise businesses are very large entities comprised of thousands of employees. These businesses also have large funds to purchase enterprise solutions from Oracle, SAP, and other expensive vendors. Small Businesses, however, are in between individual and enterprise businesses.
Small businesses cannot depend on individual business solutions, for these simple solutions lack the necessary tools and features that are vital to small business needs. However, small businesses also do not have the budgets of enterprise corporations; therefore, it is unreasonable to assume small businesses can afford solutions from Oracle and SAP. So it is our intention to develop a tool to address this lack of an appropriate small business tool, a tool that provides both sufficient and affordable features for small businesses.
