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.
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.
Managing a business account involves tasks that create and modify business accounts. The various tasks that are involved in managing a business account are performed by different roles.
Use the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to change business accounts.
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.
The Seller sets up store-level functions within the site. The Seller can access all menu items under the Store menu.
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.
The key elements in the business relationship model include the different kinds of contracts, the various buying units, and the distinct customers who have access to your site.
WebSphere Commerce contracts are the foundation for determining what customers can purchase in an online store, and at what price. The contracts functions are flexible in that it can support many types of e-commerce business models and their complex business requirements. This flexibility is powerful, and an optimal contract design can minimize the amount of effort that is required to manage business accounts and contracts. As well, an optimal design can minimize the amount of system resources that are required and thus enhance system performance.
To create a business account, use the Business Relationship Management tools in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator. The seller administrator creates a buyer organization by using the Organization Administration Console before a new business account can be created. Ensure that at least one person who is associated with the buyer organization is a registered customer (a contact at the buyer organization is required).
Use the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to view contracts for a business account.
Use WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to delete business accounts.
Use the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to add a purchase order to an existing business account.
Use WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to change details about an existing purchase order that is associated with a business account.
Use the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to delete a purchase order that is already associated with a business account.
Use the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to view orders for a business account.
Use the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to view a business account summary.
Use the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to change the shipping charges for a business account.
Use the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to find business accounts.
You can use the Catalog Filter.
Contracts enable a customer organization or a customer group to purchase products from a store at a specified price for a specified time under specific conditions.
You can filter the catalog to a specific set of users and exclude any products in the master catalog that you do not want to sell at your store. Use the Catalog Filter on B2B contracts and hosting contracts.
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.
