E-commerce

There was once a time when consumers had to join long lines to acquire products they needed to
make their lives better. As time went by, retailers and marketers came with innovative ways to
get their customers what they want. Along the way various technological advances guided the
evolution of commerce. News papers, radio and television provided this opportunity to
customers of knowing what they wanted to purchase and where can they purchase. Catalogs,
postal service and telephone made it possible for the public to shop while at the comfort of their
own home. This was not the end: ultimate shopping experience was yet to come and it wasn’t
until year 1994 that businesses found most ideal way to serve their valued customers. They
combined the two technologies viz. personal computer and internet and laid foundation for the
whole new era of retail marketing.

And today in developed countries almost every business has its website. E-commerce has
enormously affected the business and buyers.

Impact on Businesses
E-commerce gave birth to new channel of communication. It facilitates the business to directly
approach the customer and bi-directional communication has made it easy for the business and
customers to understand each other. Giving the information through the internet and targeted
advertising trough emails has fundamentally reduced the marketing cost. Businesses are now
able to reach many a times more customers than they could in conventional marketing.

Impact on customers
Customers nowadays have huge verity available to choose from and they can order goods and
services from their home office or even from on the go. Customer today is very intelligent and
much more aware of his rights than he used to be. Things like credit card, PayPal account have
become necessities nowadays.

Factors influencing E-Commerce

Security
Security nowadays is one of the main concern customers.
Security can be physical security of the customer or the Security of information of the customers.
One reason customers choose buying online is that they do not feel safe to physically go in the
market to buy goods.
When they come to e-commerce they are facing another kind of security threat and that is their
personal information (credit card No. and Online payment accounts) can be hacked.

Business need to take fool proof security measures to get the confident of the customers.

Our website is as safe as they come. Are the online payments are insured and the security of the
website is outsourced to the company which is best in business.
Competition
Nowadays competition between businesses is fierce. A business with just physical outlet or
office can no longer compete with the business with both physical outlet and also an e-commerce
venture.
Keeping this in mind we have opened a physical outlet as well as an online shop.

Weather
Weather is one of the main factors why people don’t go to market and prefer buying on the
internet. Severely cold weather this year in Europe and America caused phenomenal increase in
online business.

Heaven Look gardening services

Heaven Look Gardening service provides customers with complete solution of indoor and
outdoor plantation. As the name suggest we will give your site a look of heaven.

Heaven look gardening services is not a conventional gardening store. It is rather a e-business
(although we have a display center and an office) the customers log into our website and choose
from various services and our representatives can go to their door steps to provide goods and
services. Our services include.

1. Landscape designing and installation.

Our landscape planners and gardening design team of experts can help customers
with any type of landscape development projects. Customers can either choose
any of the hundreds of templates available on the website or custom design it with
the help of our consultants.
2. Watering System installation
Introducing water new watering systems ensuring minimal loss of water
3. Brick walls and pathway construction.
Construct elegant, stylish and solid walls and pathways.
4. Hedging and Fencing
Deal in all type of hedging and fencing including hedging plants, wood fencing
Steal bars fencing.
5. Plant rentals
We also rent exclusive plant on rent for homes and offices or for different
occasions. Our staff will be responsible for the maintenance of the plants.

6. Plants and pots

Apart from above services Heaven look gardening services also deals in plants
and pots. We have large verity of planting pots and we can also build pots on the
customer provided designs.
About the website
The website truly communicates the brand. When you surf through the pages you will feel
nothing but originality and authenticity. We have developed the website keeping in view the type
of customers that will come to visit our website and put in it all that a customer expect from a
gardening service website.

The webpage is easy to update. Even a person with a little know how of internet can update price
and stock information. This is very important because not every time you can tell your website
host to do it for you.

Layout
The layout of the website is very simple but elegant. There are no more than five main tabs.

Home page gives information about the business. The profiles of owner and the workers
are on the home page with some pictures of plants and lawns in the background.

Products and services tab takes you to the list of products and services with brief details.

In Contact Us tab the physical office location and the emails of different officials of the
company are mentioned.

Usability

Directories have bars on the top of every page which let visitors to select a category or perform a
search for products.

Drop down menus on every page further saves the user from hassle.

There is a search box which allows user to search from our hundreds of products, services and
galleries.

Colors and Stylei

Our corporate colors consist of green, orange and Black. White is used for negative spacing. The
website is designed in corporate colors.

Green is natural color and represents lush fields, grass, and plants also a sense of peace and
happiness. For this reason the green is the basic color of our website. To make it more vibrant
we have pooled green with black.

Black is although symbol of gloom in many parts of the world but here we have used black with
green to enhance the green also most of the text is in black which is easy to read.
Orange is a natural color we used orange in our website to give a sense of changing seasons.

Text fonts used in the website are all legible. Headings are use with shades to make even more
distinct.

Platforms
The website is designed to open in nearly all the platforms including Window pc, Apple
workstation, iphone, ipad, and other mobile devices.

Tools and techniques

One of the major decisions that a new programmer can make is that which programs to use in
creating and building websites. The minimal one will need a graphics program to create site
graphics and an HTML editor to edit the site’s code. Using the right tools one can make you
more efficient, ensure the quality of content and help to create a workflow according to one’s
personal preferences and strengths. Using wrong tools on the other hand can cause frustration for
both owner and the visitor.
We used MS publisher for HTML editing. It is very simple to use application with verity of
options.
Adobe Dreamweaver is recognized standard in web design application. This programs integrates
very well with Photoshop, Fireworks and Illustrator. This makes it user friendly and many
programmers are migrating towards Dreamweaver. Features in Dreamweaver not matched by
any programs in the market. Advance file support, powerful code editing software, Support for
work Standards, integrated CSS workflow and Multilanguage support makes dreamweaver
almost perfect program for web designing.

Legislation
Website is in compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act of UK. There are no greens and
blues used together which makes it easy for the color blind visitor to go through the contents. We
are continuously trying to make site friendly for visitors with visual and hearing impairment. ii

Our e-commerce business is going under the guidelines of THE ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
(EC DIRECTIVE) REGULATIONS 2002 (SI 2002/2013).iii
Terms & conditionsiv
The Internet can be a delicate place to trade in, and many businesses have suffered very major
losses by making simple mistakes during short period of time. It is therefore very important that
the businesses are well alert of their legal obligations and stick to relevant laws.

Keeping the importance of legal matters we have designed a set of terms and conditions for our
website. These terms and conditions are included in the website.

These terms and conditions are,

1. Interpretations

1. 1. Definitions

'BUYER' means the person who accepts a citation of the Seller and buys or agrees to buy
goods and services sold by the company.

'GOODS' means the merchandise which the Seller supply in accordance with the Conditions.
‘Services’ means any gardening services provided by the company and this also include any
kind of advice.

'SELLER' means “Heaven Look Gardening” Services   (registered in England & Scotland
under registration No. XXXXXX)

'CONDITIONS' means the standard terms and conditions of sale begin in this document and
include any out of the ordinary terms and conditions agreed in writing between the Buyer and
the Seller.

'CONTRACT' means the contract for the purchase and sale of the Goods.

1.2. Headings
The headings of the terms and conditions are just for ease of the reader and have no effect on the
interpretation of conditions.

2. Orders and specifications

2.1
No order submitted by the Buyer be accepted by the Seller unless and until confirmed in
 Writing by the Seller's authorized representative.

2.2
The amount, quality and description of and any specification for the Goods shall be those
mentioned in the quotation by the Seller (and accepted by the Buyer) or the Buyer's order
(and accepted by the Seller).

2.3
The Seller reserves the right to make any changes in the specification of the Goods which
are required to conform to legal requirements where the Goods are to be supplied to the
Seller's specification, which will not have any effect on quality and performance of the
goods.
2.4
No order can be cancelled by the buyer after it is accepted by the seller unless the seller
gives his written consent and the buyer will be bound to pay any loss ( including the loss
in the profit ) bared by the seller as the result of cancelation of order.

3. Price of the goods and Services

3.1
The price of the Goods and services shall be the Seller's quoted price unless Seller agrees
on the price quoted by the buyer and the price of goods and services does not include the
transportation or delivery costs.
3.2
Quoted prices of goods and services does not include Value added tax which is 15% of
the quoted price.

4. Payment
4.1
Unless there are special agreed conditions in Writing between the Buyer and the Seller,
the Seller shall be entitled to bill the Buyer for the cost of the Goods and/or Services on
the time of delivery or at any time after delivery of the Goods and services.

4.2
If the Buyer is unable to make full payment on the due date then, Seller reserves the right
to:

4.2. a. Call off the contract or defer any further deliveries to the Buyer.

4.2. b. Charge the Buyer interest on the due amount at the rate of 2 per cent per
annum (and any Number of days of month will be treated as a full month for the
purpose of calculation of interest)
5. Delivery

5.1 Delivery of Goods

Delivery of the goods can either be made by buyer by collecting the goods from the seller’s
premises or the seller can get the goods to the buyer at the date agreed upon in the written
contract.

5.2 Delivery of Services

Gardening services can be given at the buyer’s nominated place ( lawn or indoors) and the buyer
holds full responsibility if any individual, a group of individual or a company claims its right on
the property and interfere with the contracted job. The consultancy services can be provided at
the premises of the buyer or any place mutually agreed upon by the Buyer and seller.

5.3 Seller is not responsible if the goods or services cannot be delivered on the due date
because of circumstances beyond the control of seller.

6. Products and services

6.1 products (only includes plants) can be different in size and shapes from those on
display on the webpage. However seller takes the responsibility if there is any defect in plant or
different species of plant is delivered to the buyer.

6.2 Changes can be made in the selected design of the lawn according to the availability
of space and sunlight.

7. General Clauses
The contract shall be governed by the Laws of England and it includes number of other
conditions of common contract.
i
Boulton Mark 2009 A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web page 135-165

ii
http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505/#Conformance

iii
http://www.dti.gov.uk/files/file14635.pdf
iv
http://www.businessitguide.com/guides/view-guide/64/

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/882-Legal-Terms-and-Conditions-Protect-Your-Online-Business