7C's of e-Commerce Customer Interface

7C's of e-Commerce Customer Interface

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

7C’s e-Commerce Customer Interface are a set of design principles for e-commerce websites, specified by Jeffrey Rayport and Bernard Jaworski in their book E-Commerce, published in 2000.

The 7C's

Rayport and Jawarski's principles, known as the 7C's, are as follows:

• Context: Site's layout and design
• Content: Text, pictures, sound and video, that the web pages contain
• Community: The ways sites enable user to user communication
• Customization: Site's ability to self-tailor to different users or to allow users to personalize the site
• Communication: The ways sites enable site-to-user communication or two way communication
• Connection: Degree site is linked to other sites.
• Commerce: Site's capabilities to enable commercial transaction

Context

This refers to the site's look and feel. The site may be

• Functionality Oriented : Where the enabling of the function of the site is the prime objective of the site
• Aesthetic Oriented: The aesthetic aspect of the web pages is given priority
• Hybrid: The site is to be both aesthetically pleasing and functionally efficient

Content

This is the offered mix of product and services on the site. This can be images, videos, documents, links and/or downloadable items about the product and services. It is also about the promotion and communication messaging offered. Some of the contents may be time sensitive, that is they have an appeal only for a limited time. For example, a news site needs to constantly update its content to remain relevant.

Community

This refers to the way the site enables user-to-user interaction.

• Non-existent: sites that have no community offer no way for users to interact with one another, on either a one-to-one basis or one-to-many basis.
• Limited: sites that offer features such as reading and posting information, stories, or opinions.
• Strong: sites that offer interactive community functions such as chat rooms and message boards.

Customization

This is the site's ability to allow the users to personalize the site. The different types of communities that the site offers fall under a few different categories

Communication

This is the site-to-user communication. Ways that the site can communicate include:

• Broadcast: This is where the site communicates the same message to a large group of users through portals such as mailings, news feeds, marketing material, or content update notification
• Interactive: This involved more of a one-on-one interaction between the site and the user through user input, e-commerce dialogue and customer-service.
• Hybrid: A combination of the above. An example can be a news site where their news is broadcasted but the user's reply to the news would be interactive.

Connection

How the site links to other sites. Sites' content can link to other sites. This new content can be placed in the same site to retain attention on site or be a path way out of the site. Example can be referrals, web rings and affiliate programs.

Commerce

This allows for the users to trade online. Typically, e-commerce sites have a registration procedure to store information, user preferences, a shopping cart to hold items, security features, instant credit card approval, order tracking, and delivery options.