CS 491/591: Web Technologies and E-Commerce
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                 Assignment # 1, Due Date  02/04/02
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The goal of this assignment is to establish criteria to evaluate online 
businesses from the perspective of the customer and then use these criteria 
to evaluate three such enterprises.
The first set relates to the ability of the business' web site to attract
and absorb potential customers. The second set relates to the ability of 
the business to turn interest/attraction to purchases.

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Study the following criteria. Modify or delete some of them and also
suggest your own.


Is the information (such as product prices, warranties, etc.) that the 
customer desires available and if so is it easily accessible?

Is the information up-to-date? Are any links broken? Is the information
on the linked-to pages up-to-date?

How easy is it to navigate the site? How many clicks does it take to
get desired information and to make a purchase?

How imaginative is the formatting of text and the display of images?
Is multimedia used? To what effect? How well are text, images, audio
and video juxtaposed? Are any of these too distracting, even obnoxious?

Does the site work with the two most widely used browsers? Can it work 
with the not-so-recent versions of those browsers? What plug-ins, if
any are required?

Does the site load quickly? Is the response time acceptable to a 
discerning customer?

Is the web store personalized? If so, how and to what extent?

How easy is it to add/delete/modify purchases to the shopping cart?
To effect a purchase, does a form need to be filled and is the process
straightforward? Is an electronic wallet used to simplify the form?

What form of after-sale support is provided and how easy is it to get 
such support on-line? Is on-line goods delivery tracking provided?

If payment by credit card is supported, how safe is it perceived to be?
How safe is it really? Are alternative forms of payment also supported?

Is there any attempt by the web store to compare the prices with those 
of its competitors?

Are electronic sales assistants used? How intelligent, polite and useful
are they?


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After modifying the above criteria and adding your own, you assign weights
to them.
Select a total of three online stores -- two from the list provided below and
choose another independently. Prepare a matrix  with the criteria as rows
and the businesses as columns. Assign scores (fill the matrix) and rank the
on-line businesses.

www.rei.com
www.amazon.com
www.nordstrom.com
www.coldwatercreek.com

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Explain the feature that impressed you most across all of the sites,
then the second and the third most impressive features.

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Also explain the most negative feature across all sites, the next most
negative and the third most negative feature. Also, suggest any remedies
for them.