Feature Pack 8: The Madisons store is deprecated. Most features demonstrated in the Madisons store are available in the Aurora store.

Madisons starter store

The Madisons starter store provides all the pages and features necessary for a functioning consumer direct online store. The starter store is packaged with WebSphere Commerce as a store archive.

Note: The name of the Madisons starter store archive depends on the Feature Pack level that is installed:
  • WebSphere Commerce Version 7.0.0.0Madisons.sar
  • Introduced in Feature Pack 1Madisons-FEP.sar

Feature Pack 5 or laterThe Aurora starter store replaces the Madisons 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.

The Madisons starter store demonstrates best practices in store development with WebSphere Commerce, and can act as a base for implementing storefronts. It uses Rich Internet Application (RIA) technologies such as Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) and Dojo widgets to provide customers with an interactive and rich shopping experience. It addresses many common web customization issues by using CSS and DIV tags for page layout, design and styling, rather than overusing table elements throughout the page. The store can be used as a stand-alone store by using the consumer direct business model or as an asset store in Extended Sites or Demand Chain business models.

The Madisons starter store delivers feature-rich and interactive web applications that are compatible across platforms and browsers by taking advantage of Ajax and Dojo widget technologies. Ajax technologies enable web applications to retrieve data from the server asynchronously, while the browsing session remains intact. That is, refresh areas are present in pages for areas where content can be changed on the page, such as a shopping cart. Dojo widgets enable the store users to dynamically interact with the pages, such as adding the ability to quickly view product information, rather than navigating to the specific individual product pages.

WebSphere Commerce services are used in the Madisons starter store for all marketing, member, and order component interactions. Product attributes are retrieved with catalog services. The starter store uses data beans and commands when required, as all runtime functionality is not available by using services alone.

Madisons starter store feature set

The following feature comparison tables illustrate how store features are added or improved to subsequent versions and feature packs of WebSphere Commerce.

Notes:
  • Madisons starter store applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 6 Feature Pack 5, and Version 7 and its feature packs
  • Web 2.0 sample store applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 6 Feature Pack 2
  • Consumer direct sample store applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 6

Catalogs

Feature Madisons starter store Web 2.0 sample store Consumer direct sample store
Administrative tooling Management Center Management Center WebSphere Commerce Accelerator
Master and sales catalogs
Categories, products, SKUs, bundles, and prebuilt kits
Support for multiple images per product
Pop-up windows that contain additional product details for store items Product Quick Info Hover help
Merchandising associations, defining and descriptive attributes, list prices, and offer prices
Simple and advanced search
Product fast finder, where customers can quickly filter products that are based on attributes such as brand or price range Housewares catalog data Housewares catalog data
Tiered pricing policy (offer price)
Attachment assets
Note: The store does not show attachment assets for a category.
Note: The store does not show attachment assets for a category.
Product ranking
Browsing history

Marketing

Feature Madisons starter store Web 2.0 sample store Consumer direct sample store
Administrative tooling Management Center Management Center WebSphere Commerce Accelerator
e-Marketing Spots containing scrollable items, products, categories, and merchandising associations.

Promotions

Feature Madisons starter store Web 2.0 sample store Consumer direct sample store
Administrative tooling Management Center Management Center WebSphere Commerce Accelerator
Promotion code entry
Product-level promotions
Order-level promotions
Shipping-level promotions
Support for personal coupon management by using a coupon wallet

Registration

Feature Madisons starter store Web 2.0 sample store Consumer direct sample store
Support for guest and registered customers
Support for persistent sessions (Remember Me)
My Account flows

Orders

Feature Madisons starter store Web 2.0 sample store Consumer direct sample store
Quick order
Scheduled orders
Inventory availability
Shopping cart and mini shopping cart
Shopping cart pagination, providing paging controls for large shopping carts
Wish lists
Shipping charges and taxes

Checkout

Feature Madisons starter store Web 2.0 sample store Consumer direct sample store
Checkout flow implementation Step-by-step checkout using multiple pages Single page checkout using refresh areas Step-by-step checkout using multiple pages
Payments
  • Payments subsystem
  • Introduced in Feature Pack 1Punch-out payment
Payments subsystem WebSphere Commerce Payments
Support for guest and registered checkout
Support for multiple shipping addresses
Quick checkout
Ship as complete or partial shipments
Shipping instructions
Multiple payments per order
Buy online, pick up in-store
Multiple entry points, with customizable integration points on the store locator page
Order status and tracking

Store locator

Feature Madisons starter store Web 2.0 sample store Consumer direct sample store
Multiple entry points, with customizable integration points on the store locator page

Order status

Feature Madisons starter store Web 2.0 sample store Consumer direct sample store
Order status and tracking

Technology

Feature Madisons starter store Web 2.0 sample store Consumer direct sample store
Required Dojo toolkit version 1.3.1

Introduced in Feature Pack 31.5

0.41
Support for web 2.0 technologies, using Ajax and Dojo widgets
Support for web 1.0 technologies
Drag-and-drop support for the mini shopping cart and compare zone
Support for changing product attributes directly on the shopping cart, such as color or fabric changes
Options to customize the storefront and shopping experience
Progress indicators on store pages, displayed while operations are in progress. For example, displayed when an Ajax request is triggered and removed when the request completes
Default double-click handling implemented using JavaScript on store pages that benefit from blocking multiple requests, such as adding items to the shopping cart or completing an order at the end of the checkout process
Support for IBM Digital Analytics, formerly known as Coremetrics Analytics
Support for SMS order status notifications and marketing messages
Search engine optimization
Globalization support for stores displaying bi-directional languages. The store uses a locale-specific common1_1iw_iL.css Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) file where the directionality attribute can be specified
Fully translated into multiple languages to support globalization 13 languages
Note: Full Arabic support (ar_EG) is also available for the Madisons starter store.
10 languages
Support for accessibility standards, enabling those customers with disabilities to interact with web content by using assistive technologies