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www.ecommerce-guide.com/news/trends/article.php/137791
By June 14, 1999 Shopping online is about to become a whole lot easier -- for consumers as well as merchants -- thanks to a new, universal, open specification for digital wallets called Electronic Commerce Modeling Language (ECML). The new standard is backed by a slew e-tailers, credit card providers and online payment providers, including American Express, Visa and Mastercard. Previously there was no set standard for information exchanges involving consumers and merchants concerning credit cards, billing addresses and shipping addresses. ECML works by employing a set of uniform field names, buried in the HTML code on online order forms, which streamlines the process Internet retailers use to gather electronic data for shipping, billing and payment. Instead of having to re-enter information over and over again at every e-tail destination, a consumer would just have to input the data once, which is then coded into a digital wallet and is stored on a secure server. Digital wallets use software tools that are built into browsers in various ways, such as helper applications to browsers, stand-alone applications, browser plug-ins, and server-based applications. Most wallets reside on the user's PC, but recent versions, called "thin" wallets, are placed on the credit card issuer's server. ECML works with both client-side wallets, such as ewallet and server-side wallets, such as CyberCash. Netscape and Microsoft have announced that upcoming releases will support wallet technology on their browsers. Consumers can benefit from digital wallets because information is encrypted against piracy and the wallets will automatically input shipping information at the merchant's site and will give the consumer several options for payment. Merchants benefit by receiving protection against fraud and the process for order placement has been simplified. "Up until now, there has not been a standard method for capturing information about which credit card, billing or shipping address consumers want to use in any given online transaction," said Steve Ryan, senior vice president, emerging technologies, Visa U.S.A. "Increasing interoperability across the Web through initiatives, such as ECML, is a major step to achieving widespread adoption of e-commerce." Additional ECML participants include: America Online, American Express, Compaq, CyberCash, IBM, MasterCard, Microsoft, SETCo, Sun Microsystems, Transactor Networks, Trintech, and Visa U.S.A.. "The ECML standard is a win-win-win proposition," said Russell Stevenson, senior vice president, CyberCash, Inc. "It will make shopping easier for consumers, increase sales for merchants, and enable providers of electronic commerce software and services, like CyberCash, to improve their offerings at reduced costs. Because there are no losers, we hope to see rapid widespread adoption." Online merchants backing ECML include: Beyond.com, Dell Computer Corp., fashionmall.com, healthshop.com, Nordstrom.com, Omaha Steaks, Reel.com, and 1-800-Batteries. The organization said that by establishing uniform fields for data collection, and thereby simplifying the form-filling process, online shopping will become more convenient and may trigger an increase in the number of completed transactions on merchant sites. The group cites a February 1999 report from Jupiter Communications that found that 27 percent of online buyers abandon orders before check-out because of the hassle of filling out forms. Online retailers have been in search of methods that close the gap between abandoned shopping carts and a completed transaction. The Jupiter survey said, "76 percent of merchants surveyed indicated they are willing to participate in a multi-site wallet enterprise," indicating that "multi-site wallets offer reduced acquisition costs that far outweigh the risk to merchants of losing an existing customer." "Dell is always looking for new ways to take the customer experience to the next level," said Janet Mountain, vice president of Dell Home Systems. "The implementation of ECML will help Dell customers easily complete their online transaction and further strengthen our direct one-on-one relationship with them." A bone of contention may be the privacy issue pertaining to information collected by digital wallets, which could in turn, be sold to consumer data collection companies. It remains to be seen how the consortium will deal with this potential consumer hazard. Right now ECML is publicly available and can be implemented by online merchants and technology vendors. The new format can be used with existing data privacy and security solutions, including SSL and SET protocols, but ECML is not a replacement or alternative for SSL, SET, XML or IOTP. Merchants can find more information about using ECML at the ECML Web site. Merchants need to make changes to incorporate the ECML field names into the checkout pages of its Web site and/or the CGI/ASP scripts that process order requests. This means re-naming existing form field names to the ECML field names. An implementation guide is available for programmers and system developers at ECML Implementation Guide. Meanwhile, the group said more initiatives will soon be added to the specification to further enhance the exchange of information. Future plans call for the organization to transfer management responsibilities for ECML to a recognized standards body so that it can be maintained and promoted. |
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