Stores in WebSphere Commerce

WebSphere Commerce supports several different types of entities that are defined as stores. The assets of these store entities may be edited using the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator.

Customer-facing store

An online site where users may obtain information regarding products, and conduct business transactions over these products. Business transactions may include retail purchases, transactions between businesses and transactions between a government organization and citizens or businesses. WebSphere Commerce uses the generic term 'store' to describe the online space where all of these business transactions take place. WebSphere Commerce supports the following customer-facing stores:

Direct sales store

A store that supports the exchange of products, services, or information directly between businesses and consumers, or between two businesses or parties.

Hub

A site that enables partners or clients.

 Extended site store, supplier store, or reseller store

A store that is created by the site operator for the owner of the store. The store owner may have the option of administering the store.

Asset store

A store that contains a collection of sharable resources (business artifacts, business processes, and storefront assets) that can be leveraged in other types of stores. For example, a catalog asset store is a collection of catalog artifacts that creates a virtual catalog. A storefront asset store is a collection of JSP files, commands, business processes (for example order processing), business policies and access control policies that create a virtual storefront. Asset stores do not perform or record business transactions. They are simply holders of assets that can be used by other stores.

Proxy store

A store that represents a business partner's operational assets. This store also handles the business logic that allows a WebSphere Commerce site to interact with an external business partner. For example, a proxy store may capture the orders transferred to a remote order capture system, as well as capturing the suppliers' inventory information or the information sent to a supplier's fulfillment centers. A proxy store does not include a storefront and cannot be accessed by users. Administrators working on behalf of the external business may have administrative access to the proxy store through the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator.