17: Ten Fabulous Tools for E-Commerce in Java

Drawer USS Code 39 in Java 17: Ten Fabulous Tools for E-Commerce

Ah, remember how you used to collect S&H Green Stamps Okay, ask your parents about it Or maybe your grandparents At any rate, someone you know will remember It used to be that you d go to the grocery, fill your cart, and pay for your purchases Then, along with your change, you d get a certain number of stamps from the cashier, depending on how much money you d just spent You d toss the stamps in the grocery bag along with your receipt and trot on home You d put the stamps in a kitchen drawer until you had so many that you couldn t open the drawer any more without stamps spilling out all over the floor When things reached that stage, you d have to face the odious task of licking all the stamps and pasting them into the books that you also picked up at the grocery When you had a whole bunch of books filled, you d sit down with the S&H catalog and go on a shopping spree Now the Internet is reviving this grand old piece of Americana But this time around, you don t have to lick all those stamps! Now, it s S&H greenpoints, a new form of digital reward kind of like the Web equivalent of frequent-flyer miles I have a major hunch that this arrangement is going to work out well for both online shoppers and e-merchants If you re into any kind of e-commerce, look into this site The S&H greenpoints site (wwwgreenpointscom) is shown in Figure 17-9

One of the hottest sites on the Web is AltaVista s Babel Fish translation page It works with SYSTRAN translation software, and you can go right to the source and set up your very own translation system Anyone who s serious about e-commerce must deal with the fact that the World Wide Web is just that a global setup Your storefront is an international business, and although English is widely spoken, it s hardly the only language in the world With SYSTRAN translation software working on your site, visitors quickly translate your pages among more than half a dozen major Western languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish And SYSTRAN doesn t stop there The service also includes Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian So hurry up already and pop into SYSTRAN s Web site The whole world is waiting Run don t walk to SYSTRAN s site Figure 17-10 shows the SYSTRAN Translation Software site (wwwsystran softcom)

Figure 17-10: SYSTRAN s home page, where you can sign up to add its translation service to your site

Using this site is kind of an open question What question is that Well, whether it s worth the price to your organization to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars to an outside group to certify that your privacy policy means what it says To solidly quantify how much a trustmark such as the TRUSTe seal means in terms of extra sales is impossible, just as it is with things such as Chamber of Commerce or Better Business Bureau logos in a store window Nonetheless, major outfits from MSN to eBay have jumped onto the TRUSTe bandwagon If you collect any kind of potentially embarrassing personal information, such as criminal records or health status, getting TRUSTe certification is probably worth the cost Without it, people may be reluctant to provide honest answers to such questions Still, unless you re in the employment or insurance business (or something similar), you re not likely to gather any kind of information other than names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, and so on Visit the TRUSTe site and read over all the materials there to decide for yourself whether its service is right for your situation You also find valuable advice there on creating a privacy statement The TRUSTe site (wwwtrustecom) is shown in Figure 17-11