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User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in a newer section.WebSphere Commerce is a single, unified e-commerce platform that offers the ability to do business directly with consumers (B2C), directly with businesses (B2B), and indirectly through channel partners (indirect business models). WebSphere Commerce is designed to be a customizable, scalable, and high availability solution that is built to leverage open standards. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels.
Samples
Extended sites starter store
Use an extended sites starter store to get started on setting up an extended sites solution that will allow your selling organization to provide unique storefronts for different enterprise customers or showcase a number of branded storefronts.
Hosting support
Support for the hosting business is provided in WebSphere Commerce through the extended sites business model. You may publish the ExtendedSitesHub.sar store archive with your ExtendedSites.sar in order to see an example of a hosting site provided with WebSphere Commerce. Use this sample to get started on setting up a hosting site where you will be able to host sellers with a partitioned catalog (that is, independent catalog).

User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in a newer section.WebSphere Commerce is a single, unified e-commerce platform that offers the ability to do business directly with consumers (B2C), directly with businesses (B2B), and indirectly through channel partners (indirect business models). WebSphere Commerce is designed to be a customizable, scalable, and high availability solution that is built to leverage open standards. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels.
- Planning
  Creating a custom implementation of a WebSphere Commerce store requires a significant amount of planning. From gathering client needs, to deploying the live solution, much work is needed to successfully deploy a custom client store. Use the resources in here to help you plan every phase of store creation.
- Installing
  Review the following sections for information about installing the WebSphere Commerce product, associated maintenance, and WebSphere Commerce enhancements.
- Migrating
  Before you migrate to WebSphere Commerce Version 8.0, review this information to help plan and execute your migration.
- Deploying
  The topics in this section describe how to publish stores to either a test or production environment, and how to deploy customized code.
- Operating
- Integrating
  Topics in the Integrating category highlight the tasks that are commonly performed for using WebSphere Commerce in combination with other products.
- Administering
- Tutorials
  WebSphere Commerce provides many tutorials to help you customize and understand your WebSphere Commerce instance and stores.
- Samples
  - Aurora starter store
    The Aurora starter store showcases the latest in storefront features, and models best practices in store development, demonstrating a wide scope of retail scenarios. Simplify your responsive B2C or B2B direct web store implementation and reduce your time-to-market by using the Aurora starter store as your development base.
  - Extended sites starter store
    Use an extended sites starter store to get started on setting up an extended sites solution that will allow your selling organization to provide unique storefronts for different enterprise customers or showcase a number of branded storefronts.
    - Setting up the Extended Sites environment
      To setup an Extended Sites environment you must publish the required Extended Sites starter store archives and enable inventory tracking for your Extended Sites. You can then schedule site-level jobs, configure e-Mail notifications, load your Extended Site catalog data, and modify your Extended Site and asset store archive flows to share and deploy the assets for your Extended Sites.
    - Creating and configuring an Extended Sites store
      You can create an Extended Site by creating the site stores with WebSphere Commerce Accelerator. Then, you can use the Management Center to configure store information and flows to have the store serve as an extension of your asset store. You can then upload catalog data and catalog filters for the Extended Sites store.
    - Creating a new asset store
      You can create a new storefront asset store by customizing an existing asset store and then publishing the new asset store.
    - Opening and closing stores
      Use the Store Management tool to open or close a store. For example, if you want to perform maintenance on a store, you might want to close the store so that shoppers cannot shop in the store until the maintenance work is complete Then you can open the store once this work is complete so that shoppers can shop in the store.
    - Hosting support
      Support for the hosting business is provided in WebSphere Commerce through the extended sites business model. You may publish the ExtendedSitesHub.sar store archive with your ExtendedSites.sar in order to see an example of a hosting site provided with WebSphere Commerce. Use this sample to get started on setting up a hosting site where you will be able to host sellers with a partitioned catalog (that is, independent catalog).
      - Extended sites hub site flow
        The extended sites hub (available only if ExtendedSitesHub.sar has been published) is an e-commerce site where prospective Sellers can register and set up a store. Seller is a role defined in WebSphere Commerce to supervise the overall store objectives and management, in addition to tracking the store sales.
  - Sample stores
    A sample store is for learning purposes and some tutorials can use a sample store. Do not use a sample store as the base for building your site. Sample stores might not be accessible or translated.
- Developing
  The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
- Compliance
  The following section describes how you can leverage WebSphere Commerce features and functionality to help your site be compliant with different privacy and security standards.
- Securing
  These topics describe the security features of WebSphere Commerce and how to configure these features.
- Performance
- Troubleshooting

WebSphere Commerce Enterprise

Hosting support

Support for the hosting business is provided in WebSphere Commerce through the extended sites business model. You may publish the ExtendedSitesHub.sar store archive with your ExtendedSites.sar in order to see an example of a hosting site provided with WebSphere Commerce. Use this sample to get started on setting up a hosting site where you will be able to host sellers with a partitioned catalog (that is, independent catalog).

This sample illustrates the following features:

Self-provisioning features:
- Sellers self-register from the hosting hub.
- Once approved, Sellers can create a store using the Store Creation wizard.
- Sellers have store management capabilities such as changing store look and feel, marketing, product management, and others.
- Sellers have organization and user management capabilities.
Store locator features from the store directory site:
- Seller-created stores are automatically added to the store directory.
- Customers can locate stores based on store category.
- Customers can locate stores based on products.
Catalog management features:
- Partitioned catalog (for hosting independent stores)
  - No shared catalog data preloaded for the stores.
  - Sellers load their own store-specific products for sales in the hosted stores.

Extended sites hub provides all the pages and features necessary for a functioning B2B indirect Hosting online site. It is packaged with WebSphere Commerce as a store archive. All that is required to view the starter store is to publish the archive to the WebSphere Commerce Server using the publishing tool provided in the Administration Console. It is based on a typical hosting flow. The starter store pages can be customized. All Commerce Hosting Hub starter store pages use JavaServer Pages and XML to load the necessary data.