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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.
Operating
WebSphere Commerce Accelerator
Use the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to maintain online stores.
Business relationship management
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.
Contracts
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.
Creating contracts
There are two methods to create contracts in WebSphere Commerce. You can use WebSphere Commerce Accelerator or XML format to create contracts.

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
  - IBM Management Center for WebSphere Commerce
    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).
  - WebSphere Commerce Accelerator
    Use the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to maintain online stores.
    - WebSphere Commerce Accelerator user interface
      The WebSphere Commerce Accelerator interface consists of several notebooks, wizards, dialogs, and lists to help you complete your tasks.
    - Opening WebSphere Commerce Accelerator
      Use WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to maintain online stores by completing various store operations such as creating and maintaining orders and tracking store activities.
    - Changing a WebSphere Commerce password
      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.
    - Managing the store
      The Seller sets up store-level functions within the site. The Seller can access all menu items under the Store menu.
    - Customer information
      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.
    - Order management
      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
      Inventory includes anything that can be physically accounted for in a fulfillment center such as items, products, SKUs, bundles, and prebuilt kits.
    - Inventory returns and dispositions
      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.
    - Returns and refunds
      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.
    - Viewing account reports
    - Viewing contract reports
    - Request for Quote (RFQ)
      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.
    - Business relationship management
      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.
      - Business relationship model
        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.
      - Case Study: WebSphere Commerce contract modeling
        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.
      - Managing business accounts: an overview
        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.
      - Contracts
        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.
        Contract states
        A contract passes various states from the time it is created until the time it is deleted. In most cases, the change of state is triggered by actions you take. Some state changes occur automatically.
        Contract referral
        A base contract is a contract that can be referred to by other contracts. For example, contract B refers to (base) contract A. Thus, a buyer who is entitled to the terms and conditions in contract B is also entitled to all the terms and conditions in contract A. Multiple customer contracts can refer to the same base contract so that all the customer contracts can share a set of terms and conditions.
        Display customization
        Through the WebSphere Commerce you can change the look of display pages in your store for every business customer by specifying the DisplayCustomizationTC term and condition in the business account definition. This display customization can be as simple as adding a different logo, or as complex as having a custom store name and message, for each customer.
        Creating contracts
        There are two methods to create contracts in WebSphere Commerce. You can use WebSphere Commerce Accelerator or XML format to create contracts.
        Creating a contract by using WebSphere Commerce Accelerator
        Create a contract by using the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator creates a contract in the draft state. The contract then goes through any approval process that is defined for your store. If you want to create a new contract in either the approved or active state, you must import the contract from an XML file.
        Creating a new version of a contract
        Creating a new version of a contract creates a draft version of an existing contract. This new version has the same name as the original contract, but the version number is incremented. When you deploy a new version of a contract, the existing contract is moved to the closed state. You can create a new version of a contract for contracts that are in the approved, active, or suspended states. You can duplicate a contract if you want to create a new version of an existing contract with a different name. Duplicating a contract does not move the existing contract into the closed state.
        Creating a contract that can be referred by other contracts
        A contract can refer to another contract. For example, contract A can refer to contract B. Thus, a buyer who is entitled to contract A is entitled to all the terms and conditions from contract A and contract B. A base contract must be in active state to allow customer contracts to refer to the base contract. You might not suspend or cancel a base contract if active customer contracts refer to the base contract. After you specify that a contract refers to another contract, you can change the reference, but not the fact that the contract refers to another contract.
        Examples: Contract product selection and pricing
        The following examples show how to define the products available for sale under a contract and the prices that are charged for the products.
        Managing contracts
        Managing a contract involves tasks that take the contract from creation to the end of the contract's lifecycle. The various tasks that are involved in managing a contract are performed by different roles.
      - Catalog filtering
        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.
- 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
- 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

Creating contracts

There are two methods to create contracts in WebSphere Commerce. You can use WebSphere Commerce Accelerator or XML format to create contracts.