ABSTRACT
An online bookstore is an e-commerce website for selling books online. The project “design and implementation of an online bookstore management system” aims at providing a platform that allows a customer to search and purchase a book online or read 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 and many more. Through a web browser a customer 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, Apache, MySQL database management system and PHP CURL, a user friendly, flexible and reliable website for online book sales was developed.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
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 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. The modern world is surrounded by the technology and internet is the biggest invention of the world which is a worldwide system of computer networks. In the network users at any computer can communicate with the other if they have permission to get information from any other computer. Today hundreds of millions of people worldwide are using internet and most widely used part of the internet is the World Wide Web (www). It is basically a system of internet servers that support specially formatted documents which is formatted in a markup language called Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) that supports links to other documents, as well as graphics, audio, and video files. Web page is a document commonly written in Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) that is accessible through the internet or other network using an internet browser by entering a
URL address and many contain text, graphics and hyperlinks to other web pages and files.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
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 give 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 convenience. 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 hazzles of moving from bookshop to the other and not finding the books you need is frustrating and time/resources consuming. This system solves the issue of having to waste time and other precious resources in search of a book.
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF STUDY
The main objective of the paper is to design and implement an online Bookstore with E-commerce Payment Integrtions. The Electronic Book Shop focuses precisely on the following objectives:
- To enable readers/users have access to over 1,000 books from anywhere.
- To process data in possibly least amount of time.
- To secure the information and obstruct the access of unauthorized persons.
- To avail the information immediately in demand.
- To integrate a simple payment integration to enable users to read or purchase books without stress.
SCREEN SHOTS OF THE APPLICATION/SOFTWARE
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The study is significant in the sense that it will serve as a guide to other student researchers who may have keen interest in the subject matter. The study will also ease 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 were part of 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 DEFINITION OF TERMS
- 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.
