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HCL Commerce is a high-availability, highly scalable and customizable e-commerce platform. Able to support hundreds of thousands of transactions per day, HCL Commerce allows you to do business with consumers (B2C) or directly with businesses (B2B). HCL Commerce uses cloud friendly technology to make deployment and operation both easy and efficient. 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. Business users can also use AI enabled content management capabilities.
Operating
Topics in the Operating category highlight tasks that are typically performed by business users, customer support representatives, to complete their day-to-day tasks in the operation of the HCL Commerce site.
Management Center for HCL Commerce
The Management Center for HCL Commerce, is a suite of tools to support store management, merchandising, and marketing tasks for business users (Sellers, Marketing Managers, Product Managers, Catalog Managers, Buyer Administrator, Customer Service Supervisor and others).
Marketing tool
Use the Marketing tool in Management Center to create and manage marketing campaigns and other store content, excluding catalog content. You can use the extensive precision marketing features in the tool to deliver targeted marketing messages to customers.
Managing marketing experiments
Marketing experiments are managed by Marketing Managers. They are used to test the effectiveness of brand or promotional messages on the web.
Marketing experiments
Marketing experiments enable Marketing Managers to run alternative paths within existing web activities to determine whether small changes might improve the effectiveness of a web activity.

Documentation
HCL Commerce is a high-availability, highly scalable and customizable e-commerce platform. Able to support hundreds of thousands of transactions per day, HCL Commerce allows you to do business with consumers (B2C) or directly with businesses (B2B). HCL Commerce uses cloud friendly technology to make deployment and operation both easy and efficient. 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. Business users can also use AI enabled content management capabilities.
- Getting started
  HCL Commerce has different advantages for business users, administrators and developers. HCL Commerce targets each of these roles with a tailored set of offerings so that each of your users can get maximum benefit.
- Installing and deploying
  Learn how to install and deploy HCL Commerce development environments and HCL Commerce production environments.
- Migrating
  Before you migrate to HCL Commerce Version 9.1, review this information to help plan and execute your migration.
- Operating
  Topics in the Operating category highlight tasks that are typically performed by business users, customer support representatives, to complete their day-to-day tasks in the operation of the HCL Commerce site.
  - Management Center for HCL Commerce
    The Management Center for HCL Commerce, is a suite of tools to support store management, merchandising, and marketing tasks for business users (Sellers, Marketing Managers, Product Managers, Catalog Managers, Buyer Administrator, Customer Service Supervisor and others).
    - Management Center keyboard shortcuts
      Use the Management Center keyboard shortcuts to access user interface functions or complete tasks, using a single key or combination of keys.
    - Working in extended site stores in Management Center
      If your company operates an extended site, you can perform certain tasks directly from your extended site store within Management Center.
    - Manage content externally for use in Management Center
      If content management capabilities other than the functionality that is provided by default with HCL Commerce is required, HCL Commerce can be integrated with IBM Web Content Manager. If HCL Commerce is integrated with IBM Web Content Manager, you can use content from IBM Web Content Manager content libraries with Management Center objects.
    - Management Center user interface
      The Management Center user interface provides a usable, intuitive, and efficient way to complete your business tasks.
    - Using the Management Center
      The starting point for all Management Center tasks is to open the tooling. Afterward, you can use several methods to complete a task: by selecting menu options, by clicking toolbar buttons, by right-clicking and selecting menus, or by keyboard shortcuts.
    - HCL Commerce License Metrics
      A Resource Value Unit (RVU) is a proof of entitlement based on the number of units of a specific resource that are used or managed. HCL Commerce License Metrics is an order line resource where you are able to produce a report of the count of any completed order lines for auditing purposes. For your specific RVU entitlement, refer to your license.
    - Catalogs tool
      Use the Catalogs tool in Management Center to manage catalogs, categories, catalog entries, merchandising associations, product attributes, and attachments in your store. The Catalogs tool lets business users create, and manage online catalogs. Catalogs provide a way of organizing the products that you want to sell. You define catalog data in groups of categories and products. Catalog data contains descriptions and pricing information for products and services.
    - Marketing tool
      Use the Marketing tool in Management Center to create and manage marketing campaigns and other store content, excluding catalog content. You can use the extensive precision marketing features in the tool to deliver targeted marketing messages to customers.
      - Managing web and dialog activities
        Web and dialog activities are used to deliver brand or promotional messages to customers through a variety of methods.
      - Managing email activities
        Email activities are managed by Marketing Managers to keep a site's targeted marketing efforts organized.
      - Managing marketing experiments
        Marketing experiments are managed by Marketing Managers. They are used to test the effectiveness of brand or promotional messages on the web.
        Creating marketing experiments
        Marketing experiments ensure that your brand and promotional messages are as effective as possible. You can create experiments in different places in a web activity flow to test different elements.
        Viewing the statistics of an experiment
        You can view the statistics for experiments while they are running, to determine how the experiment is progressing. You can also view the statistics for completed experiments.
        Selecting the winning path for an experiment
        When your experiment is complete, you must select the most successful path in the web activity to use going forward. You can determine the winning path based on the default statistics that WebSphere Commerce collects, or based on data from some other analytics provider.
        Changing marketing experiments
        You can update a marketing experiment to correct errors or adjust strategy.
        Deleting marketing experiments
        Deleting your marketing experiments removes completed or inactive experiments from their parent activities in the Management Center.
        Suspending and resuming experiments
        Experiments can exist in the store in two states: running or suspended. You can suspend an experiment if you want the experiment paths in the web activity to become inactive.
        Listing activities with experiments
        You can add a column to the Activities - List that shows which activities contain experiments. This column is hidden by default.
        Listing activity versions
        You can view any of the versions of a web activity that are stored in a database. This helps keep track of changes that have been made as a result of an experiment.
        Marketing experiments
        Marketing experiments enable Marketing Managers to run alternative paths within existing web activities to determine whether small changes might improve the effectiveness of a web activity.
        Experiment statistics collection and calculation
        Understanding how the server collects and calculates statistics for the test elements in your marketing experiments can help you evaluate the results of the experiment.
      - Managing custom activity templates
        To save time, create custom activity templates to use as a starting point for creating web and dialog activities.
      - Managing activity statistics
        The Marketing tool gathers and displays various types of statistical data about your web, dialog, and email activities.
      - Managing marketing content
        Marketing content is managed by marketing managers. It is used to deliver marketing messages to customers, as part of campaign activities.
      - Managing customer segments
        Marketing Managers create customer segments to use as targets for marketing campaigns and promotions.
      - Managing e-Marketing Spots
        Marketing Managers create and manage e-Marketing Spots, to ensure that store pages are filled with relevant and compelling images and information.
      - Managing feeds for e-Marketing Spots
        For e-Marketing Spots, feeds provide a means to syndicate marketing information for display in feed readers.
      - Managing email templates
        Email templates, managed by Marketing Managers, are the basis of email activities delivered to customers.
      - Working with campaigns
        Campaigns are managed by Marketing Managers, in order to keep a store's marketing activities organized.
      - Managing search rules
        Search rules provide a means to deliver customized search results and ordering when customers search the storefront.
      - Managing search rule experiments
        Search rule experiments are managed by Marketing Managers. They are used to test the effectiveness of search rules.
      - Organizing marketing objects with folders
        You can use the Management Center Marketing tool to create and manage folders for organizing your marketing content, customer segments, activities, and e-Marketing Spots. By using marketing folders to group and organize your marketing objects you can simplify browsing for and managing your marketing objects.
      - Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
        Find answers to some frequently asked questions about using key features of the Marketing tool and completing tasks.
      - Troubleshooting
        If you encounter issues while you are using the Marketing tool, review troubleshooting information to solve common problems.
    - Promotions tool
      Use the Promotions tool in Management Center to create and manage promotions that support the marketing campaigns for your site.
    - Attachments tool
      As a Product Manager, Marketing Manager, or Category Manager, you can use the Attachments tool to manage URLs that point to marketing image files, catalog image files, PDF documents, and multimedia files that you use in marketing campaigns.
    - Catalog Filter and Pricing tool
      Use the Catalog Filter and Pricing tool in Management Center to create and manage catalog filters, price lists, and price rules. Sellers, Sales Managers, and Account Representatives can use the tool's flexible features to implement catalog filtering and pricing strategies that meet the site's business needs over time.
    - Installments tool
      Use the Installments tool in Management Center to create and manage installment rules that support the payment methods for your site.
    - Commerce Composer tool
      Create pages and build layouts for your store directly in Management Center without involving IT by using the Commerce Composer tool. Take advantage of the tool's page design and management functions to improve your productivity and give you more control over the customer experience.
    - Store Management tool
      As a Seller, Site Administrator, or Channel Manager, you can use the Store Management tool in Management Center to manage your stores. The Store Management tool in Management Center replaces all of the store management features in HCL Commerce Accelerator, except store creation and the ability to suspend and resume stores. Use the Store Creation wizard in Management Center to create new stores.
    - Workspace Management tool
      The Workspace Management tool is a graphical user interface tool that is used to manage workspaces and workspace-related activities. It provides a single view across all workspaces and all tasks in the workspaces where managers can see how work is progressing.
    - Organizations
      An organizational entity is a type of member in HCL Commerce. An organizational entity is classified into one of three types: an organization, an organization unit, or an authorization domain. For site administrators, one of your first tasks after installing and configuring HCL Commerce is setting up and managing access to your e-commerce site. This process involves creating organizations that participate at your site, and defining users that are members of those organizations. After an instance is created, you can publish a starter store that defines the organization structure. Sometimes, organizations joining your site might be buyer organizations. In other cases, you might have customers registering at your site who are engaged in a business-to-consumer relationship with your business. Defining the organizational structure of site is an important step in managing the types of access that members have to your system.
    - Assets tool
      As Attachment Manager, Product Manager, Marketing Manager, Marketing Director, or Category Manager, you can use the Assets tool to manage URLs that point to marketing image files, catalog image files, PDF documents, and multimedia files that you use in marketing campaigns.
    - Analytics Tool
      Management Center now has a new tool called Analytics listed at the top of the menu.
    - Approvals
      Accurate, secure transactions require that a second individual approve some electronic marketplace actions before they proceed. This individual, called an approver, can accept or reject requests to perform a specific action. During the organization registration process, the organization administrator selects the business processes for which they want to enable approval. This is done by signing up for the appropriate approval member group during membership registration. The organization administrator also populates the approver member groups. Only users within these groups have the authority to accept or reject requests to perform those actions for which approval has been enabled.
    - Approving requests
      Submitters and administrators with the appropriate access can view approval requests and verify the status of their associated approval decisions. When an approvable action enters the approval process, the submitter sees it as an approval submission or submission in the user interface. The approver responsible for approving the action sees it referred to as an approval request or request in the user interface.
    - Security Policies
      For enhanced security of your site, ensure that you are aware and up to date on all account related policies.
    - Registries
      The Registries tool allows site administrators to update a registry without requiring a server restart. The Registry Manager maintains a set of registries for catching HCL Commerce runtime data. Each registry provides methods to enable adding, deleting, and refreshing of the registry content. These methods are available to the URL interface by using the ListRegistry and the RefreshRegistry commands.
    - Search Tool
      Management Center now has a new Search tool listed in the hamburger menu.
    - Page Composer tool
      Like the Commerce Composer tool in Management Center, the Page Composer tool lets business users manage store pages. The Page Composer tool is available only on Auth environment and specifically for use with React stores. This tool allows users to create store pages and assign SEO URLs to them.
    - Marketplace
      A marketplace is a web storefront that enables third-party sellers to sell their products on your platform.
    - Managing shipping
      You can set up shipping at a store-level by using Management Center.
    - Managing taxes
      You can set up taxes at a store-level by using the Management Center.
    - Users
      When a user first accesses an e-commerce site and is browsing product pages, the user is running as a generic user. The generic user has a common user ID (-1002) that is used across the entire system. The use of a common user ID on the site minimizes system resource usage. Once the user performs an operation that requires a unique identity, for example, adding a product to the shopping cart, the user is converted from a generic user to a unique guest user. A guest user has a unique user ID, but no password. This user implicitly belongs to the Default Organization and does not have any roles in the site. Depending on the business model of the store, and the access control policies, the user may be able to do other operations on the site, for example, placing an order. Both the generic user and a unique guest user have the registration type of "G" (Guest user). If the guest user registers to the current store, then the user is converted to a registered user, and any assets that the guest user owned will now be owned by the registered user.
    - Messages
      Site Administrators can use the resend function in HCL Commerce to resend messages that are stored in the HCL Commerce system.
    - Member groups
      A member group is a grouping of members - users, organizations, or other member groups - used for various business purposes. Two kinds of member groups exist: implicit and explicit. An implicit member group contains users that share common attributes and are therefore considered members of a specific member group. An implicit member group specifies criteria or attributes that users must satisfy in order to be considered members of that member group. You can also explicitly exclude certain users although they satisfy the criteria. An explicit member group contains explicitly assigned users, who may or may not share common attributes. A member group can be both implicit and explicit at the same time.
    - Extended Sites Store Management
      You can create store quickly and easily from Management Center Tools. The wizard asks a customer to provide some basic data about their store (name, description, and so on), allows the customer to select the storefront or catalog they want to use, and then creates the store. The resulting store has some unique data, but uses the storefront and catalog data from existing asset stores.
    - Scheduler
      A job is HCL Commerce command that is scheduled to run on behalf of a site or store at a specified time or interval. The three types of jobs are: site level jobs, store level jobs, and broadcast jobs.
    - Message types
      HCL Commerce predefines several message types and sets them as active. You can create or change the parameters for message types from Management Center.
    - Transport methods
      HCL Commerce provides several transport methods. By default, the e-mail transport method is configured and active. You can also use these transport methods: File, IBM MQ, or a sample adapter. You can configure transport methods for the site, or for particular stores.
    - Accounts
      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.
    - Previewing a store
      Preview your store to ensure that changes made in Management Center show up in your store as expected. You can use store preview in production, authoring, and staging environments.You can use store preview within the authoring instances for any of your environments. Do not use store preview within the live instance of your HCL Commerce on Cloud environments.
    - Management Center frequently asked questions (FAQ)
      Find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the Management Center.
    - Management Center Troubleshooting
      If you encounter issues with the Management Center that are not related to any specific tool, review this troubleshooting topic to solve common problems.
  - HCL Commerce Accelerator
    Use the HCL Commerce Accelerator to maintain online stores.
  - HCL Customer Service for HCL Commerce JSP stores
    HCL Customer Service for HCL Commerce provides customer service enhancements that enable a customer service representative (CSR) to resolve common issues and capture orders. These capabilities are built into the HCL Commerce Aurora storefront and enable a CSR to complete key tasks on behalf of a guest and registered customers for both B2B and B2C stores. Customer Service for HCL Commerce is offered for Enterprise edition.
  - HCL Customer Service Hub for HCL Commerce React stores
    HCL Customer Service Hub for HCL Commerce provides customer service enhancements that enable a customer service representative (CSR) to resolve common issues and capture orders. These capabilities are built into the HCL Commerce Reference Store application and enable a CSR to complete key tasks on behalf of guest and registered customers for headless stores that are built based on the Emerald and Sapphire reference stores. Customer Service Hub for HCL Commerce is offered for Enterprise edition.
- Integrating
  Topics in the Integrating category highlight the tasks that are commonly performed for using HCL Commerce in combination with other products.
- Administering
  Topics in the Administering category highlight tasks that are typically performed by the Site Administrator, to support daily operations of the HCL Commerce site.
- Customizing
  The topics in the Customizing section describe tasks performed by an application developer to customize HCL Commerce.
- Tutorials
  HCL Commerce provides many tutorials to help you customize and understand your HCL Commerce instance and stores.
- Samples
  Topics in the Samples category highlight the various samples that are provided with HCL Commerce.
- Compliance
  The following section describes how you can leverage HCL Commerce features and functionality to help your site be compliant with different privacy and security standards.
- Securing
  These topics describe the security features of HCL Commerce and how to configure these features.
- Performance
  Topics in the Performance section describe the means by which to plan, implement, test, and re-visit the optimization of HCL Commerce site performance.
- Troubleshooting
  Topics in the Troubleshooting section highlight common issues that are encountered with HCL Commerce, and how they can be addressed or mitigated.
- Reference
  Topics in the Reference section contain all of the HCL Commerce reference documentation.

Marketing experiments

Marketing experiments enable Marketing Managers to run alternative paths within existing web activities to determine whether small changes might improve the effectiveness of a web activity.

You can add an experiment to a web activity to deliver an alternative marketing message. An experiment can include an experimental version of any marketing element, such as a target customer segment, an e-Marketing Spot used to deliver the marketing message, or the marketing content. You create experiments by editing existing web activities. By changing a single element on an experimental branch, you can experiment with these aspects:

The content or recommendations that the web activity displays
The target customer segment
The e-Marketing Spot in which the web activity displays
The web activity displayed in a particular e-Marketing Spot

In the Management Center, experiments are created in the Activity Builder, and are represented as optional paths through the web activity.
Screen capture of a simple content experiment

Screen capture of a simple content experiment

The optional paths are called experiment paths, while the original path is called the control path. A web activity can have more than one experiment path.

After the experiment is complete, you can compare results between the experiment path and the control path using the Statistics tab in the properties view for the experiment:
Experiment statistics screen capture

Experiment statistics screen capture

These results help determine whether the current marketing effort is effectively maximizing revenue by targeting the right audience with the most appropriate message. If not, incorporating the experiment path into the control activity might improve the efficiency of the marketing message.

HCL Commerce Enterprise In an extended site model, the statistics reflect the results in the current store. If the activity is defined in the asset store, then each store accumulates its individual statistics. In this way, you can evaluate the effectiveness of the same experiment in different stores.