DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF E-COMMERCE WEB PORTAL (ELECTRONIC MARKETPLACE)

1.1 Introduction

The Internet-based electronic commerce environment has been widespread developed, which provides consumers with a convenient platform to search for information, interact with retailers and purchase products online. According to data collected in 2013, Nigeria has owned around 8.7 million internet users. That corresponds to over 94% of the population, which makes Nigeria become one of the greatest countries in the world in terms of internet use (E-commerce News, 2016). Furthermore, the report brings up the fact that the dominating categories of products that are traded online in Nigeria are travels, clothing and shoes, but also electronics and entertainment/media and it also mentions Adlibris, Cdon, Ellos and H&M as some of the most popular stores for online shopping within the different categories. Besides, the product categories earlier mentioned as the leading ones, there are those which are not yet there due to low consumer adoption. One of those is the grocery segment, which hence makes this to an interesting area for further development.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

---

1.2 Background of Study

Although online purchasing tool should be suitable for all kinds of products, however, in terms of the worldwide aspects, online grocery purchasing still has low competition compared to other kinds of products. So also in Nigeria. Although Nigeria has a high percentage of Internet users as well as a well-developed e-commerce market there are e-commerce markets that are still lagging. Recent years, the online grocery market in Nigeria has been developing. Since 2013, an increasing number of online sales of food products starts to grow. Online grocery sales raised by 38 percent compared to previous year and there are more than one in five Swedish consumers has experienced purchasing grocery products online (E-commerce News, 2014). Besides, the leading grocery retail in Nigeria ICA launched their new online store at the end of 2014 and COOP also updated their online stores to expand product categories and range to attract more potential consumers. Although the many options given to the consumers, PostNord states in the report E-commerce in the Nordics 2016 that “While sales of daily commodities have grown very strongly in recent years, the category remains small.” Therefore, one can easily see that the online grocery industry is developing and popularizing, but still seems limited while looking at other industries (PostNord, 2016).

Internet today has a great importance in a lot of people's everyday lives, not least for pleasures such as shopping. Among Swedish consumers online shopping is something frequently used, and statistics from 2016 show that nine out of ten Internet users have at some time used Internet for a purchase (E-commerce News, 2016). A huge amount of previous research focused on some fashionable industries such as clothing, cosmetics, books, electrical appliance etc, which are frequently ordered products (Young Kim, E. & Kim, Y, 2004; Bian, Q. & Forsythe, S, 2012). Compared to these types of products, online grocery shopping has not grown so big and few previous literature has been explored in this field, which arises our interests in devoting a not so developed area. The low level of consumer adoption makes it interesting to explore different factors that could affect consumers’ choices on online grocery shopping in Nigeria. What makes people prefer going to a grocery store, pushing a trolley through the crowded aisles, stand in long queues, just to later carry their groceries home themselves? Besides, when it comes to online shopping, mostly research put emphasis on Generation Y or focused on only the female (Sullivan, P. & Heitmeyer, J, 2008; Bakewell, C. & Mitchell, V, 2003; Belleau, B.,et al, 2007), however, the range of previous research target is broad and in this study, the authors aim to narrow the range of explored group. Therefore, Swedish families with children constitute the target group for this study. The characteristics of families with children would have distinct buying intention compared to other type of groups as the desired need for them would change.

This paper seeks to understand what factors could possibly affect consumers’ purchase intention for online grocery shopping. Some studies focused on online purchasing do exist and have some helpful findings. The research conducted by Chocarro summarized that previous reviews of literature about the relationship established between situational variables and channel choice and they find out there are seven situational factors concerned with product categories affect the possibility of online/offline purchase, such as distance to store, time pressure and so on. The study by Chung-Hoon Park also revealed that product information quality, user interface quality and other three factors would influence consumer purchase behavior. General factors was studied from some previous literature, and we eventually gather several importatnt factors based on the quesrionnaire we designed. Factors influence customers’purchasing online grocery shopping are various, however, the degree of importance are different. We make use of the questionnaire to analyze the difference among each other. In our questionnaire, we set in total of 11 situational factors that we consider might be possibly influential for our targeted group to choose, most of them have the evidence to prove that there is a relationship with online grocery purchasing intention, however, the authors need to do the research to support that the relevance between Swedish consumers and Swedish online grocery environment do exist. In the end, based on interviewees’ choice result, 8 of these selected potentially situational factors are considered necessary to analyze our study (Appendix) , which are the perceived product quality, perceived product price, weather, delivery time, delivery cost, type of products, perceived potential risks and time saving. All of these factors will be respectively explained and analyzed in theoretical framework and discussion.

This study could generate relevant knowledge for grocery retailers, since offering online grocery shopping could be a new way for retailers to make money. More knowledge about what their potential customer’s value could therefore help them boosting their sales and profitability. This arouses an interest for taking the understandings about consumers’ online grocery shopping preferences one step further.

---

1.3 Statement of the Problems

Investigation reveals the following problems of the existing E-commerce Web Portal;

1. Lack of inadequate facilities for shopping, customers have to visit shops within the store premises to purchase an item and inadequate attention will be giving to them because of crowd due to the manual of selling grocery.
2. The customers have to queue for a long period of time before getting their desired product or goods from the grocery seller, which makes shopping within the store very stressful.
3. Most of the customers prefer shopping outside the grocery store, maybe where they come from they have not witness queuing to shop,
4. The customers have to spend all their time just to purchase an item in the store shop which is not right, all because of the manual approach towards grocery shopping.

---

1.4 Aim and Objective of the Study

The aim of this new design is to develop online software that will eradicate the problems or the existing E-commerce Web Portal stated above. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were considered:

1. To design application software that will be used to purchase an item online by the interested personnel.
2. To design application software that will update new products like grocery items and other related items online.
3. To design software that will be used to make series of grocery shopping online by the several personnel.
4. To design software that will be used to research about products and make purchases for desired item.
5. It will be used for automated system for the grocery store online shopping.

---

1.5 Significance of the Study

The importance of this study is to use object oriented development processes and techniques in the E-commerce Web Portal. Formal analysis and design were used to give adequate understanding to the object-oriented technique used. The major quest is to ease the problem and stress encountered in customers’ grocery shopping experience and keeping records of stock list, customer lists, sales volume, and summary report.

This project will be of benefit to:

1. Enterprises.
2. Shopping Malls/Supermarkets.

Besides, the study will serve as reference material for subsequent researcher in the field or related topics.

---

1.6 Scope of Study

This research work will concentrate on E-commerce Web Portal, marketing, and delivery of purchased products.

---

1.7 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

---

1.8 Definition of Terms

E-commerce: E-commerce can be described as the using of electronic networks, such as Internet, as a distribution channel. The involved parties can be either individuals or organizations and a common sectioning to do is to differ between business-to-consumer and business-to-business (Khosrow-Pour, M. 2006).