An XML model for small business e-commerce

This paper proposes a model based on the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) for small businesses e-commerce. The ideas behind this paper grew from the authors' and other Southern Oregon University students' experiences working with lesser-funded, technically unsophisticated small businesses wishing to jump onto the e-commerce bandwagon. The model stems from an observed fundamental disconnect between the needs of companies who come to small colleges for advice and talent in e-commerce ventures and the solutions small college students are typically trained to deploy. Small businesses (for our purposes, businesses with no Information Technology staff) typically seek an e-commerce solution that requires no investment in infrastructure (no dedicated RDBMS server, no T1 line) and no increase in staffing (no Oracle DBA or Unix system administrator.) Yet, these are precisely the e-commerce solutions most small college graduates feel confident deploying. Our XML model promises to act as a kind of poor man's web enabled database, enabling small businesses to automate web content revision, order processing and fulfillment, and credit card charge verification without disconnecting themselves from the Internet or letting go of the dream of new revenue generated by low cost, digital solutions.