Madisons starter store enhancements increase customer interactions
Configure complex products with IBM Sterling Configurator
Sterling Configurator integration is available for both WebSphere Commerce Professional and WebSphere Commerce Enterprise editions.
Use Sterling
Configurator to create special offers, with personalized pricing for
configured products and services. To create dynamic kits with the
IBM Sterling Configurator when your WebSphere Commerce instance has
a newer feature pack installed, refer to the IBM Sterling Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Suite V9.2.0 documentation.
This integration offers the following benefits:- Support for Dynamic kit pricing and customizable options in the storefront through the IBM Sterling Configurator
- Prices can be set and price locked on Dynamic kits through the IBM Sterling Visual Modeler. The price lock property is respected and the locked price cannot be overridden.
Account managers can set contract pricing
on dynamic kits, so that customers can see a negotiated price.- Product managers can create configurable products, so that customers can configure their own products.
- Shoppers can configure products to build a customized product from the available choices.
WebSphere Commerce search
- Rich set of search functionality for shoppers in starter stores, allowing shoppers to quickly and easily find products and services using simple keyword search and faceted navigation.
- Support for unstructured content in search results.
- Lowers the total cost of implementation, deployment and ownership.
IBM Digital Analytics integration enhancements
- View analytics reports designed specifically for WebSphere Commerce. These reports include a Campaigns report, an e-Marketing Spot report, a Marketing Experiments report, a Promotions report, and a B2B Contracts report.
- Create and export customer segments that are built from analytical data that is gathered for IBM Digital Analytics, and use the segments in WebSphere Commerce campaigns.
- Display personalized product recommendations on store pages by using
IBM Product Recommendations, formerly
known as Coremetrics Intelligent Offer. IBM Product Recommendations is an IBM Enterprise Marketing Management application that can be integrated with
WebSphere Commerce using the IBM Digital Analytics integration.
Coshopping
Coshopping enhances the customer shopping experience by enabling two shoppers to explore a store, view products, and chat about product details. Attract more shoppers to your store by delivering a smarter shopping experience. Coshopping also enhances an existing contact center chat solution to allow a customer service representative (CSR) to guide the customer through product browsing and selection on the site. Explore coshopping by installing an add-on store archive on the Madisons starter store.Extend your brand reach with remote widgets
Extend your brand reach to social networks, blogs, affiliates, and partner sites with remote widgets. A remote widget is a portable container for store content that you and your customers can share on web pages outside of WebSphere Commerce. By promoting your brand on these external sites, you can capture the attention of existing and new customers, and drive traffic back to your site. You can centrally control remote widget and feed content by using the Management Center Marketing tool, saving you time and money.By installing an add-on store archive on the Madisons starter store, you can explore remote widget implementation examples for e-Marketing Spots and wish lists.
Gift registry solution
Help your customers celebrate weddings, baby showers, birthdays, and anniversaries by incorporating a gift registry solution into your Madisons-based store. You can install a new sample add-on store archive on top of the Madisons starter store that contains fully functional gift registry pages. Included with this solution is a set of web services that provide seamless integration of gift registry functions on the Madisons storefront.This gift registry solution is similar to IBM Gift Center for the Consumer direct sample store. However, the Madisons version uses web services for the runtime Gift Center functions rather than data beans and URL commands.
Increase conversions by using product rankings
The Madisons starter store includes product rankings such as best sellers and top browsed products in the storefront.Product rankings lists can encourage customers to purchase products that are based on their popularity with other customers, and helps compare those products with other similar products they might be interested in. The number of products that are stored in the product rankings is configurable.
The Madisons starter store uses the Marketing Management Center tool to set up web activities. These activities can display product rankings for best sellers and top browsed lists in e-Marketing Spots in the storefront.
The e-Marketing Spot is displayed with a selection of two tabs: best sellers and top browsed products. The product rankings lists are dynamically updated as the customer switches between the tabs. The product rankings are filtered per category by default. That is, for example, when a customer is browsing the Furniture category, the best sellers and top browsed products in the list are products that belong to the Furniture category.
Punch-out payments enables third-party payment service providers
The Madisons starter store includes support for punch-out payments, enabling a payment model where a third-party payment service provider processes payments for orders. Punch-out payments use the SimplePunchout plug-in and a punch-out payment service simulator, where the payment is in the form of a pop-up window during checkout.Subscribe to categories in the Madisons starter store
The Madisons starter store includes support for category subscriptions, enabling customers to subscribe to categories and subcategories that interest them.The option to subscribe to a category can be enabled in the left sidebar of Madisons starter store category pages by using its change flow option. It is displayed by using an e-Marketing Spot. When subscribed, the customer receives an email when the category contains product updates. Customers can unsubscribe by navigating to the subscribed category page, where the e-Marketing Spot displays a link to unsubscribe.
Track recently viewed products with browsing history
The Madisons starter store includes browsing history, where customers can track their recently viewed products.Recently viewed product lists can encourage customers to purchase items they might be interested in, and helps compare those items with other similar products in the store. The number of items stored in the browsing history is configurable using Management Center, and contains navigation support when viewing many items in the browsing history. Registered customers can also view their browsing history in My Account. Browsing history can be accessed by customers in two ways: in an e-Marketing Spot displayed on the left sidebar, and through the browsing history page in My Account. Guest customers can see only their browsing history in the e-Marketing Spot, while registered customers can also view their browsing history page in My Account.
Digital wallets improve customer loyalty and conversion ratios
A digital wallet, a starter store enhancement available in the Madisons, and Madisons mobile stores, is a container for coupons. Customers use the digital wallet to store, access, manage, and organize coupon assets. Typically, customers redeem or remove digital coupons from their digital wallet in the storefront before they checkout. Digital wallets contain references to coupon definitions stored for promotions.WebSphere Commerce starter stores can take advantage of the advanced digital wallet functionality. For example, the Madisons starter store displays a customer's coupon details in the storefront by default using the My Account: My coupons page.
The digital wallet functionality includes the following key features and benefits:- Improve customer loyalty and conversion ratio
- Seamlessly manage coupons across channels
- Attract new customers with coupon campaigns
- Ability to store digital coupons in online coupon wallet
- Import and export of coupon codes
- Redeem digital coupons in a web store and in a physical store by using a mobile device
If your starter store issues coupons to shoppers, you can migrate existing coupon data to digital wallets so that customers can retain their coupon assets when they implement digital wallets.
Distributed Order Management (DOM) integration provides comprehensive coverage of the order lifecycle
DOM integration enhances backend system integration with WebSphere Commerce.The backend system integration provides comprehensive coverage of the order lifecycle across channels, from capture to fulfillment, by connecting to DOM systems.
An integration module, supporting
a subset of integration scenarios, is provided to enable the use of
Sterling Commerce as a Distributed Order Management System that is
compatible with WebSphere Commerce.
SMS transport integration offers mobile device capabilities
WebSphere Commerce Version 7 provides a Java 2 Enterprise Edition Connector Architecture (JCA) adapter in the WebSphere Commerce messaging subsystem for Short Message Service (SMS) enablement and functionality.Providing an SMS transport extends cross-channel access by offering mobile device capabilities in WebSphere Commerce. Mobile messaging enhances the shopper's access to information by providing access through their mobile device.