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.
Use the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to maintain online stores.
The Seller sets up store-level functions within the site. The Seller can access all menu items under the Store menu.
You can set up shipping at a store-level by using WebSphere Commerce Accelerator.
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.
Review the following sections for information about installing the WebSphere Commerce product, associated maintenance, and WebSphere Commerce enhancements.
Before you migrate to WebSphere Commerce Version 8.0, review this information to help plan and execute your migration.
The topics in this section describe how to publish stores to either a test or production environment, and how to deploy customized code.
The IBM Management Center for WebSphere Commerce, or Management Center, is a suite of tools to support store management, merchandising, and marketing tasks for business users (Sellers, Marketing Managers, Product Managers, Catalog Managers, and others).
The WebSphere Commerce Accelerator interface consists of several notebooks, wizards, dialogs, and lists to help you complete your tasks.
Use WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to maintain online stores by completing various store operations such as creating and maintaining orders and tracking store activities.
If you have the appropriate authority, you can change the WebSphere Commerce logon password for a WebSphere Commerce user or for yourself from any of these tools.
You can add various shipping charges to your orders. For example, you can create shipping charges based on the weight of the order or the number of items in the order and charges independent of weight or quantity (fixed-rate charges). You can apply any combination of the three types of charges to an order.
Use the Shipping notebook to calculate shipping charges by using any of the following methods individually, or by adding the results of several of these methods together.
When shipping charges are based on weight ranges, the item weight is multiplied by the shipping charge for the range under which the weight falls. This is because the default setup in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator is to use a per unit amount calculation range as opposed to a fixed amount calculation range.
Create your shipping charges, and all of the associated information by using the Shipping notebook.
Change the shipping settings for your store by using the Shipping notebook.
You can delete shipping charges, shipping modes, jurisdictions, and shipping codes.
You can set up taxes at a store-level by using the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator.
Inventory adjustments are made when the amount of inventory in the fulfillment center is not the same as the amount of inventory that is recorded in the system. You can also add, change, or delete inventory adjustment codes.
Fulfillment is inventory activity that happens in a fulfillment center or warehouse, including picking, packing, and shipping. Picking is the selection of products in one or more releases from a fulfillment center, packing is putting these products into shipping containers, and shipping is sending them to customers. A number of people work in a fulfillment center at one time, each with a different task or tasks to perform. The WebSphere Commerce Accelerator divides the most common tasks into roles, and these roles are assigned to users.
A store defines its own reasons for returning a product. Return reasons are based on the perspective of either the customer or the merchant.
Customer service representatives (CSRs) can negotiate product prices with customers, if necessary, to complete a transaction. CSRs override product prices by specifying the price agreed upon by both the customer and the CSR.
Submitters and administrators with the appropriate access can view approval requests and verify the status of their associated approval decisions. When an approvable action enters the approval process, the submitter sees it as an approval submission or submission in the user interface. The approver responsible for approving the action sees it referred to as an approval request or request in the user interface.
After a customer places an order, an order notification can be automatically e-mailed to the customer or an administrator.
New message types cannot be added to the system nor existing ones deleted. Instead, you can configure a predefined set of message types that use the email transport.
The Site Administrator can send a broadcast e-mail to a certain category of stores, such as all open stores, or all closed stores.
You can create stores quickly and easily by using the Store Creation wizard. The wizard asks a customer to provide some basic data about their store (name, description, and so on), allows the customer to select the storefront or catalog they want to use, and then creates the store. The resulting store has some unique data, but uses the storefront and catalog data from existing asset stores.
If customers register with the store, you can maintain their registration profiles to track information. Maintain information such as the customer's logon ID, logon password, authentication information, store account status, title, name, preferred language, or currency.
A typical order includes one or more products, billing and shipping addresses, payment details, and the total cost (including shipping charges and taxes, as applicable). Comments or price adjustments can also be included in an order.
Inventory includes anything that can be physically accounted for in a fulfillment center such as items, products, SKUs, bundles, and prebuilt kits.
Customers return products to a fulfillment center for many different reasons. Returned inventory might be reintegrated into the pool of inventory available for order, or it might be discarded. This process is called disposition.
A return is a record of a customer's request for a refund, to return merchandise, or both. The term is used whether an RMA is issued in advance of merchandise receipt or the transaction is begun at the time of merchandise receipt. You can use the return merchandise authorization (RMA) function in both available to promise (ATP) and non-ATP inventory-enabled stores.
A buyer can create a Request for Quote (RFQ), by using the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator, for unique variations of goods and services that are offered in a catalog. If buyers cannot find a product or category that match their needs within a catalog, they can select attributes from the personalized dictionary to precisely define the product specifications. A buyer can also create an RFQ by using the contents in their shopping cart, or add a shopping cart to an existing RFQ.
To customize what a customer can do in a store use the business relationship management system. By using this system, you can entitle customers to various aspects of a store such as what products they can purchase, the price they pay, and what payment methods a store accepts.
Topics in the Integrating category highlight the tasks that are commonly performed for using WebSphere Commerce in combination with other products.
WebSphere Commerce provides many tutorials to help you customize and understand your WebSphere Commerce instance and stores.
The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
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.
These topics describe the security features of WebSphere Commerce and how to configure these features.