Functional Specifications: Jam Stand Online Store



Functional Specifications: Jam Stand Online Store

Kathryn Atiyeh

9 August 2009

TM 648 – Group 7

Dr. Kip Becker

Table of Contents

Project Overview

Company Information…………………………………………………………………………...3

Goal of Site – Strategic Analysis …………………………………………………………….….3

Team Members…………………………………………………………………………………...4

Information Culture……………………………………………………………………………..5

Physical Setting……………………………………………………………………………….….6

Primary Audience…………………………………………………………………………….….7

Demographics……………………………………………………………...………………….….7

Psychographic s……………………………………………………………...…………………...8

Viewing Platform…………………………………………………………...…………………....8

Primary Use…………………………………………………………...…………………..……...8

Current Company Resources…………………………………………………………...………8

Database Needs…………………………………………………………………………...………9

Security Needs…………….……………………………………………………………...………9

Visual & Functional Details

Site Map…………….………………………………………………………………...........……10

Wireframe………….………………………………………………………………..........……..12

Work Cited………….………………………………………………………………..........……13

Functional Design Overview

Company Information

The Jam Stand is a new private web based company that specifies in selling products that consumers use make their own jam at home. This focus of the firm is to provide products that are required in all steps of the process including materials used for cooking the fruit product and jars and materials that the final product will go into. Since the company is new the focus will be on jam; in the future the company make expand to products used for pickling depending on the success of this demographic. Products are to be sold and shipped to consumers in the United States and the center of operations will be in Connecticut.

Jam Stand will also provide video tutorials on how to do each step of the process using the products sold on the site Products sold on the site will be exclusive Jam Stand products that are not available for purchase through other retailers.

Goal of the Site – Strategic Analysis

Jam Stand will be competing to own a small share of the cooking industry market space. Online marketing will be conducted through search engines, advertisements on forums and on specific websites such as the Food Network. The position of the company is focused on gaining a small share as the company is focused on appeasing a small demographic.

The basic structure of the marketplace allows Jam Stand to compete and utilize it strengths to have a strong position against competitors in the marketplace. Weaknesses will be that the company is new and has to compete against others who are highly experienced. With a strong supply chain and simple initial focus, Jam Stand will remain competitive.

Jam Stand will commit the needed resources to establish the desired position of the company. The goal of the site is to gain market share in the cooking industry; specifically in selling products used for making jam. Through offering a premier line of products at competitive prices, Jam Stand can establish the desired position.

The company has sufficient resources to counter competitive strategies. These resources include focusing on the goal of the website, and offering premier products at a competitive price. Jam Stand products build a distinguishable element in its strategic that differentiates from competitors.

Team Members

Jam Stand’s web page will be ran by individuals responsible for specific functions who also work at the company. The following positions include: webmaster, marketing coordinator, projector coordinator, and customer support. The webmaster is responsible for maintaining the website and servers; this person has a highly technical background and is solely focused on the logistics of the site. The webmaster has a team of employees who are responsible for delegated areas; the home page, tutorials, product information and payments (including the shopping cart), add on’s and site enhancement; the team is also responsible for the upkeep and logistics of the customer and sales database, ad server and the inventory management.

The marketing coordinator and their team is responsible for the marketing and design of the site. The marketing team consists of individuals who are artists, marketing experts and graphic designers; the team is responsible for marketing Jam Stand on other sites, and for designing the graphics and tutorials on the Jam Stand site. This team is also responsible for creating the emails which are distributed within the email distribution of Jam Stand’s site; in addition the team is responsible for maintaining the customer and sales database and the ad server.

Customer support is the function that bridges the gap between Jam Stand and it’s customers. This team answers the calls for the company number (1-800-Jam-Stnd) and is also responsible for collecting market feedback data. Customer support is responsible for creating web surveys that are collected within the email distribution and when a customer makes a purchase; this team works closely with the webmasters team.

The project coordinator is responsible for creating synergies between the webmaster, marketing team and customer support. The project coordinator has a small staff which enforces that the goals of the company are being ensued through day to day operations this team deals with licensing and legal compliance, budget and scheduling. Jam Stand’s staff represents many different areas with team members focusing on their specific areas to ensure the goals of the company are achieved. The staff which was just described is that of Jam Stand’s website; there is another staff which focused on the design and manufacturing of the products which works with the web team at an organizational level.

Information Culture

The business objectives of Jam Stand are simple; the site will include tutorials of how to create jam which reference products the company sells. The products will be listed with specific information and if the consumer wishes to purchase the product they will be able to do so by placing the product into the shopping cart. Consumers will also be able to join the email list which includes a news letter and discount offers.

The information table below is a System Analysis which focuses on information sharing, (Laudon, 2009, pg. 204 – Table 4.1):

|Jam Stand Objective |System Functionality |Information Requirements |

|Display product |Digital catalog |Functional text and graphics catalog |

|Provide Jam Stand product information |Product Database |Product description, inventory levels, stocking number |

|Customize product order |Customer on site tracking |Site log for every customer visit; data mining |

| | |capability to identify common customer paths and |

| | |appropriate responses |

|Execute a transaction payment |Shopping cart / payment system |Secure credit card clearing with multiple options |

|Accumulate customer information |Customer database |Name, address, phone and e-mail for every customer; |

| | |online customer registration |

|Provide after sale customer support |Sales database |Customer ID, product date, payment, shipment date |

|Coordinate marketing / advertising |Ad server, e-mail server, email campaign |Site behavior log of prospects and customers linked to |

| |manager |e-mail |

|Understand effectiveness of marketing |Site tracking and reporting system |Number of unique visitors, pages visited, products |

| | |purchased, identified by marketing campaign |

|Provide product links |Inventory management system |Product and inventory levels, order quantity data by |

| | |product |

Jam Stand regards information rights, property rights, governance and public safety and welfare as important issues that are pertinent to the information the company has on its site. Consumers and individual users can access company information through the Jam Stand site: this information includes history, company overview, staff and product information. Intellectual property rights are enforced on the Jam Stand site by providing consumers with relevant information on the products they can purchase. Governance is addressed through providing high levels of safety and security; Jam Stand invests into providing a safe and secure website to ensure a safe online purchasing experience. Public safety and welfare is a concern; any material and information on the Jam Stand site is safe to be viewed at any age level; no graphic materials or verbiage is used throughout the site.

Physical Setting

The Jam Stand site is physically designed to meet the needs of the consumer and be user friendly. The logical design of the site is simple; databases are delegated to hold specific information that all link to the consumer logging into the site until they complete their purchase. The diagram below illustrates the physical setting (Laudon, 2009, pg. 206 – Table 4.3).

[pic]

Primary Audience

The primary audience of the Jam Stand web site are consumers who would like to make jam at home. The audience has disposable time and income; rather the purchasing the end product (jam) at the store, the consumer purchases the materials required to make their own jam. The process is more time consuming and has a greater initial cost than purchasing the end product at the store. Farmers, crafters, home makers, small business owners and children may fit into this primary audience. A secondary audience consists of individuals who have never made their own jam but may have experience in the food industry and would like to try this.

Demographics

The demographics of this group include the following: men and women, individuals the age of 16+ (any individual under the age of 16 would be advised to have an adult purchase the products and supervise), all races and ethnicities, both urban, suburban and rural communities, a household income over $30,000 and any educational attainment. Location would only be limited to the availability to purchase food / fruit; assumption is that all consumers have a market within their area which they can purchase fruit.

Psychographics

The interests of Jam Stand consumers are to make something they can easily purchase in a store at their home by purchasing the products required to make jam and growing or purchasing the fruits required. Interests and activities of consumers may expand into cooking, baking, crafting and entrepreneurial endeavors; there are no limits. The consumer may value the experience of making the product on their own at home more than being able to purchase the product at a store.

Viewing Platform

The consumer will be able to view the platform via the internet; this includes a personal computer, netbook, and smart phone (Blackberry, iPhone, HTC Touch etc.)

Primary Use

The primary use of the web site for the Jam Stand company is to provide consumers a place they can purchase materials to make their own jam at home. The website will also provide video tutorials on how to use each product and it’s role in the process of making jam. The website will allow consumers to learn about each product by providing information on it. The consumer will be able to purchase the product from the website and have it shipped to their desired location in the United States. The consumer may also join an e-mail distribution that includes news letters and special offers.

Current Company Resources

The company will maximize and train the existing staff to adapt to the online store. Existing artists and marketing experts that were used for the design of the products will be used for the web pages. Servers and the information systems team will be turned over to focus on the company web page in order to sell the products. Project and program managers that were used for the production and manufacturing products will be used to ensure logistics are smooth and secure. Customer support will be trained on providing customer support for electronic consumers and will be trained on basic functionality of the site.

Database Needs

The Jam Stand web site will require a multi-tier architecture. The web server will be linked to a idle layer tier; this middle layer tear includes the application servers, database servers, application servers, and mail servers. These will then be linked to the company’s backend layer of servers which satisfy company corporate needs, (Laudon, 2009, pg. 216). Databases will be required for the webpage. Databases for customers sales, inventory management, tutorial catalog, and orders will be used.

Security Needs

Security is extremely important to Jam Stand; HTML and XML will be used and Apache will be used as the web server software. The focus will be on securing infrastructure, transaction and data / information security. The security requirements include authentication, integrity, encryption and non-repudiation to provide this Secure Socket Layer (SSL protection will be used. Pictures (jpegs) of products, product information, links within the webpage, and company images will used on the site.

Cookies will not be used on the Jam Stand web page. While the use of cookies would allow the site to store data on a consumer’s computer then later retrieve it (Laudon, 2009, pg 373), the company does not want to do this to its customers. Jam Stand would like to establish the web site before it starts to use cookies. Although cookies would provide the marketing team with a rapid means of identifying the customer and understanding their behavior (Laudon, 2009, pg. 373); the website needs to mature and establish before it will do that.

Visual & Functional Details

Site Map

[pic]

The site map includes: Home, About Us, Contact Us, Product List, Service List, Employee List, Jam Stand Video Tutorials. The Home page provides an over view of the company page and allows the customer to log in with the customer ID and password. The shopping cart icon allows customers to view the contents of their shopping art.

This page would set the format for all following pages; there would be a scroll bar on the right hand side. Each link in the site map has an individual page where the customer can always view their shopping cart at the right hand corner; this way the consumer will never have to search for the items in their shopping cart. A detailed picture of the products will be inserted as well as captions describing the product; this way consumers have an opportunity to view and read about the product before they purchase it. At the bottom of each page is contact information and a scroll bar that goes horizontally across; which always provides links to the site map pages.

The major set of users for the home page are the consumers who come into the site. The customer ID users would be new customers who are creating an ID or returning customers using an existing ID.

The page below is the detailed product page that consumers will find in the Product List. The consumer can once again view the shopping cart and return to the product. This page would have detailed pictures, product summary, SKU / Item number, price, weight, product size and quantity sold.

[pic]

Wireframe

The Jam Stand web page will require video, text, links, scrollbars and both static and interactive graphics. Flash and Java platforms as well as HTML , XML and Windows Media will be required for best viewing of the webpage. The site map will have links and each linked page will have a horizontal scroll bar on the bottom and a vertical scroll bar on the right hand side. The Flash and Java will be used to view product pictures. Flash will also be used for the video tutorials which will be in a downloadable Windows Media format.

Users will be able to click on the site map links on the left and bottom of the page. Users will be able to enter data in the Customer ID portion; they may enter the wrong information. If they do they can refresh the page and re-enter the correct information. Wrong information can also be entered when inputting quantity; users will be able to review and modify before the final purchase.

The site should look like the two examples above in regards to color scheme. The dimensions should be best viewed when the webpage is fully expanded. The time to open should be no more than 10 seconds. Pictures and videos should be opened in no more than 15 seconds and Windows Media, Java, and Flash will be used.

The layout should be consistent for each page. Customers should always be able to log in and view their shopping cart by accessing links on the top right of the page. The site links should always be on the left and bottom middle.

Work Cited

Laudon, K.C. and Traver, C.G. (2009). E-commerce: business, technology, society (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

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