The project is divided into different steps, at first, the requirements and the acceptance criteria of all parties involved (from the buyers via the online shop providers to logistics and payment providers) are determined. The aim is to consider the needs and the processes involved already in the early phase of the architecture development. The next stage is represented by the determination of the impact of the anonymous online shopping architecture on the existing business models. Next phase will be the creation of a model in order to indentify the processes and the responsibilities among the stakeholders involved. After this step, starting from the architecture definition of high scalability and by implementing secure interfaces, all the stakeholders such as businesses which use identification solutions can be connected allowing the management of virtual identities. The last crucial step in the development of the architecture is the testing of the project in a realist scenario.
First (1) the user needs to register at the identity service providing his real ID and getting as many virtual IDs as needed. With one of these virtual IDs the user is able to login to an online shop (2). When the user has finished shopping, during the checkout process, the payment provider (3) gets the user’s virtual ID and the identity service resolves it, so that the payment provider is able to match it with the user’s payment. When the payment was successful, the logistics provider gets the user’s virtual ID. Again, the identity service resolves it and the goods can be shipped to the user’s address. Any confirmation mail or later desired marketing mails or newsletters also need to be proxied by the identity service (5).
A practical solution, which models a complete anonymized online shopping process chain, needs a solid e-commerce platform as base that in turn is able to orchestrate the interaction of complex and relevant components. One of the most important requirements is the flexible customization of existing parts of the platform and the easy integration of new functionality or systems. OXID eSales AG is one of the leaeding providers of e-commerce solutions, whose e-shop fulfills these requirements offering characteristics like scalability, modularity and high quality of the OXID platform. With the described concept the OXID e-shop solution is excellently suited to integrate anonymous online shopping in an easy, efficient and cost-effective way.