ABSTRACT
An online bookstore is an e-commerce website for selling books online. The project “design and implementation of an online bookstore” aims at providing a platform that allows a customer to search and purchase a book online based on the book’s title, author and subject. Among its functionalities include catalog management, customer accounts, inventory management, order management, product configurator and shopping cart .It provides the user with a catalog of different books available for purchase in the store categorized under the departments of Biochemistry, Engineering, Medicine, Mathematics, Pharmacy and Computer science. Through a web browser a customers can search for a book by its title or author, add to the shopping cart and finally purchase using credit card transaction or other card transactions like Master card, Visa card or Verve cards. The system is implemented using a backend database, and a web browser as the front end to the client. Making use of the following tools: Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) programming language, XAMPP (X)cross platform, Apache, MariaDB, PHP and PERL) server, MySQL database management system and PHP CURL, a user friendly, flexible and reliable website for online book sales was developed.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
With the development and improvement of computer science, internet technology and database technology are now used widely. Many people choose to shop online instead of walking down to the traditional bookshop. The enterprise IT departments have recognized advantages to the internet. E-commerce functionality is more and more powerful. People freely shop at home so easily. Nowadays, the bookstore websites are often used as medium for selling and purchasing books online. Registered customer can search for all the books they want to buy. Online bookshop is an online web application where a customer can purchase books online through a web browser. The main aim of this project is to create a website where a customer can visit and buy books online and have it delivered to his or her doorsteps. The customers can search for a book by its title, author r ISBN (International Standard Book Number) and later can add to the shopping cart and finally purchase using credit card transaction. The card transaction can be either by visa card, verve card or credit card. The administrator will have additional functionalities to the system than a common user. Buying and selling of books online is an act considered as Electronic commerce. (Dayle, 2001).
1.2 PROBLEM DEFINITION
There are many online businesses on the internet. People have many choices to buy products through the internet. These products include household equipment, electronics, clothing books and many more. Now a day’s people are so busy that they have no time to go to shopping malls and buy the things they want. This was the problem primarily intended for online shopping to solve. That’s why importance of online shopping is increasing with the passage of time and one cannot deny this fact. Online shops gives you lot of discounts that you may not find by shopping at the physical stores. Moreover many online shops not only give you huge discounts on different products but at the same time they provide free shipping. Online shopping not only save your time but it saves lots of your money by not going to visit each shop and spend money on gas and patrol. The issue of wasting time and petrol and not seeing that project you wish to purchase is another problem intended to be tackled by inventing online shopping. Online shopping gives you benefit of comparing same products at different online shops at the same time which you can’t do in a physical store. So you cannot only compare the quality of products but also their prices as well. You can order anything from the whole world and it will be delivered at your home. There are more than 90% chances that you will find your desired product whether you shop from auction online websites like eBay or a specialty store. When you go to any department store for shopping, you cannot know about customer feedback about any product but with online shopping you can read customer feedback about any product. Customer feedback can help you to buy a product with more ease.
1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF STUDY
1.3.1 AIM OF STUDY
The sole aim of this study “design and Implementation of an online bookshop” is to create a website “Madonnastore” where an individual can visit and buy books via a web browser.
1.3.2 OBJECTIVES OF STUDY
The objectives of the study are as follows:
- To save time and energy of going to the physical bookshop to buy books.
- To save money as extra money supposed to be used to get to the physical bookshop is saved
- To enlighten individuals about electronic commerce.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
The significance of this study is to enlighten people about online shopping especially on books and also help get information of customer buy behavior through online shopping. This project will help individuals get their desired books easily for they need not go far to get them but only search the internet.
1.5 SCOPE OF STUDY
This project will be focusing on customer registration and login, book browsing or search from catalog, shopping cart management, order placement and shipping of product. Online payment, E-mail marketing, multi-store management, promotion management and multi-channel will not be covered in the course of study.
1.6 LIMITATION OF STUDY
In the course of carrying out this project, there existed some constraints that could limit the performance and completion of the work. These constraints include inaccessibility to the internet to get certain information, making the right decision on which tools and methodology to be used. Insufficient finance and sickness are among the limitations affecting this project study. However, high cost of merchant account registration for payment gateway integration and also inexperience in data encryption so as to data security are included in the constraints affecting the project.
1.7 GLOSSARY
Online: This means being connected to other computers through the internet or available through the internet
Bookshop: A bookshop is a shop or store that sells books.
Internet: Internet stands for International network. It is a network that allows millions of computers around the world to exchange information
Electronic commerce (e-commerce): This is the activity of buying and selling goods and services using a computer and the internet.
Server: A server is the main computer on a network that provides special services and controls the other computers
Buy behavior: This is a process by which individuals search for, select, purchase, use and dispose of goods and services in satisfaction of their needs and wants.
1.8 ORGANISATION OF CHAPTERS
This work is organized in six chapters where chapter one introduces the topic which gives an insight analysis of the study, followed by the objectives of the topic, significance of the topic, the limitation and scope of the study. This chapter concludes with the organization of work. Chapter two discusses the review of literature of the topic, by different individuals and authors. In chapter three, the methodology used in carrying out the project, the hardware, software, functional and non- functional requirement s of the proposed work are discussed. Chapter four of this work shows the different flowchart, sequence chart, program diagram and screenshots of the processes involved in the system. While chapter five discusses the implementation and documentation of the developed system, chapter six summarizes the work and discusses the lessons learnt and the various problems encountered during the course of the project.
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