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.
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.
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.
There are three RFQ notification messages: The RFQ was submitted successfully; The RFQ was closed successfully; and The RFQ was completed successfully.
When a buyer activates an RFQ, the seller can respond to the terms and conditions and product descriptions that are specified by the buyer. The seller can either accept the RFQ as received, or the seller can present a counterproposal in their response, if the terms or conditions are designated as changeable. For example, they might want to propose another delivery date or change the value of a changeable product specification.
Once buyers submit RFQ requests, you can respond to the request.
You can check the status of any RFQ response to see its current stage in the workflow. This method determines whether RFQ responses are awaiting approval.
You can retract a response instead of canceling it. This option is available when the response was submitted but was not accepted by the buyer. The response is then placed in an intermediary state where the response can either be canceled or modified.
Responses might be changed if they are in a draft or retracted state. The processes differ slightly.
The seller can cancel a response when it is in a retracted or draft state. Once a response is canceled, it can no longer be changed. It can be canceled while it is in a draft state or when it is submitted to, but was not accepted by the buyer.
To submit an RFQ response to the buyer, you can use two processes. The difference between the two is an approvals process.
If approvals are enabled for your organization, responses must be approved before they are sent to the buyer.
You can substitute a product in your RFQ response. This task is especially useful for a made to order item. The buyer might include a made to order item in the RFQ and the seller then reviews the RFQ. The seller then substitutes the item that the buyer had for the item in the seller's catalog. The seller can substitute an order if the buyer states that the product can be substituted. Refer to the RFQ Summary page, and click category to see whether the product can be substituted.
You might occasionally want to add remarks to your RFQ response.
A configurator determines which group of items can be sold together. The configurator might also supply a price for the configuration. The report lists all the specifications and values that are specified by the buyer.
Attributes, sometimes referred to as specifications, describe characteristics of objects. Specifications such as height, color, weight, and size distinguish one product from another. A personalized dictionary provides a list of attributes that buyers use to define the specifications that they want a product to have. Buyers use the dictionary to prepare an RFQ request.
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.
