1. One of the biggest challenges of building e-commerce sites has been the ability to quickly deliver merchandise ordered by customers over the Web. From what you read in the book so far or using your own experience with ordering merchandise over the web, why do you think companies are turning to database solutions to help them improve their supply chain management and ordering capabilities for the customer?
2. The entity relationship model is in wide use as a design tool for relational databases. Why do you think designers have chosen this model, and what makes it an effective design tool?