This chapter covers the following topics:
Oracle iStore allows businesses from all industries to establish business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) electronic commerce (e-commerce). Oracle iStore provides merchants with an easy-to-use interface for setting up Internet-based sites that capture and process customer orders. In addition, integration with other Oracle applications provides a broad range of e-commerce capabilities.
Implementing Oracle iStore lets you:
Build, test, and launch sophisticated online stores in multiple languages and currencies
Provide a full range of online purchasing capabilities, including flexible pricing, sales assistance, storage of customer data, shared carts, shopping lists, warranties, order tracking and returns, and more
Deploy sites in business partner, business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) scenarios
Target different customer segments and/or organizations
Capture and track customer information and activities
View reports about the activities in the online stores
The friendly interface of the Site Administration Application (or Site Administration UI) allows you to configure sites which are then presented as specialty sites in the Internet-enabled, customer-facing application known as the Customer Application or Customer UI.
The Site Administration UI allows you to perform the following main functions:
Create and maintain of any number of sites
Easily duplicate sites, catalogs, and content
In Preview mode, immediately preview the sites
Configure the display order of site names as they are presented in the Customer UI
Utilize powerful search utilities built into each main page
Target different customer segments with different sites and catalogs
Support globalization features, such as multiple languages and currencies
Brand each site differently
Provide different content for the same product on different sites
Enable different payment and shipping methods for each site
Set different price lists on each site for each user type (guest, B2C, B2B, partner)
Set attributes at the site level (such as allowing guest users, allowing ATP checks, etc.)
Restrict sites via user responsibilities
Set organization-level access controls
Leveraging a unified, central application and repository of products and content, each site can have its own:
Name
Product catalog
Section hierarchy
Target users
Currencies
Languages
Price lists
Payment types
Payment type thresholds
Shipping methods
Access restrictions
Product and section exclusion rules
Effective dates
Site creation is covered in the chapter, Implementing Site Management.
Oracle iStore provides a full catalog management application in the Site Administration UI, giving merchants a highly configurable, Internet catalog presentation tool. Leveraging the powerful Oracle Inventory on the back-end and Oracle iStore's catalog building tool in the Site Administration UI, the catalog is a flexible tool which supports multiple languages and currencies. Highlights include:
A section (catalog) hierarchy that can be as simple or complex as your business requirements necessitate. Sections are created in parent-child relationships. Products "hang" on nodes of the section hierarchy.
Ability to control the browsing experience of the customer through section and subsection presentation.
Cross-sell capabilities using the seeded Related items relationship, as well as support for a variety of other relationships between products, sections, and Inventory categories.
A built-in search utility which allows you to locate a product by entering several criteria, including product name, number, category, description, as well as searching by sites that contain the product.
A Customer Application product search that can support both Section Search and Category Search.
Optional integration with Oracle interMedia that allows you to set up a powerful product search in the specialty sites.
A Display Template gallery which lets you quickly pick, in WYSIWYG fashion, the layout of individual or groups of sections and products.
Configurable bins to which you can map your own JSPs and position along the sides, tops, and bottoms of catalog, shopping cart, site selection, and user registration pages. Several of the bins are pre-seeded with content.
Concurrent programs that allow you to copy sections with 1,000-plus children and to cascade layout mappings to child sections.
Ability to construct targeted catalogs accessible to segments of customers.
Ability to exclude catalog portions from specific sites.
Product autoplacement feature that allows the populating of sections with products through a single concurrent program.
Support for several product types, including serviceable items, configured items, telecommunications service items, and model bundles.
Flexible pricing support, including promotional goods modifiers and sites and customers as pricing qualifiers.
Optional integration with Oracle Marketing allows you to create and maintain Inventory products, product templates, and several other product parameters.
For more information, see the chapter, Implementing the Catalog.
Oracle iStore's Content Repository and reusable content components allow you to store, easily retrieve, and configure content to display in your sites. Highlights include:
Hundreds of configurable Display Templates present the Customer UI. This rich catalog display environment presents a multitude of possibilities for mapping content files to alter the look and feel of the specialty sites.
Re-usable content components and media objects.
Easy-to-use interface for mapping source files to media objects.
Components and objects that are organized by type of display they effect.
Framework for reusing a single source file in any number of site catalog pages.
Ability to map content to specific sites and languages combinations.
Easily update files that display in the specialty sites.
Ability to integrate with third-party catalogs to facilitate a Procurement Punchout implementation.
Optional integration with Oracle Content Manager to provide content item creation, versioning, approvals, and a translation interface.
For more information, see the chapters, Implementing the Catalog, and Implementing Content.
Oracle iStore automatically delivers e-mail notification messages to the appropriate users for such events as:
Orders placed or cancelled
Contract negotiations
Shared carts
Forgotten passwords and login assistance
Registration confirmation
Sales assistance requests
In addition, e-mail messages can be configured by organization, site, and user type, giving you immense flexibility in communicating with your customers.
This functionality is provided through Oracle iStore's integration with Oracle Workflow. See the chapter, Integrating Oracle iStore with Oracle Workflow, for more information.
Several supplied concurrent programs in Oracle iStore automatically refresh data between business objects. For example:
The Lead Import concurrent program pulls customer data from orders and expired carts into database tables for use in other Oracle applications.
The Product Search concurrent program automatically populates necessary tables with product updates for use in the Customer Application product search.
Reports Fact Tables Refresh supplies automatic updates of transactional and operational data about the sites.
Concurrent programs exists that duplicate large sections and cascade section layout mappings to child sections.
The Express Checkout concurrent program converts Express Checkout shopping carts into orders.
Two concurrent programs export or import Display Template mappings using XML files.
The iStore Autoplacement concurrent program can be used to populate leaf sections with products from Oracle Inventory categories.
A summary of these concurrent programs is provided in the chapter, Concurrent Programs. You can find details about individual concurrent programs in the chapters which cover their core functionality.
Oracle iStore offers a full user registration and management framework in the Customer Application. For organizational users, seeded roles let you offer personalized features for different customer segments and business partners. Automatic user registration enables self-service access to the sites. Highlights include:
Business-to-business (B2B) functionality allows management of complex relationships with corporate customers in a self-service environment, including the ability to restrict access by organization. The seeded Primary User role allows organizational users to set up and manage a community of business users.
Ability to prevent primary users from creating other users by setting a profile option.
Online Access to Existing Account functionality provides quick online access for users who have placed orders through channels other than Oracle iStore.
Support for customers integrated with Oracle iSupport and Oracle Partner Management.
Business-to-consumer (B2C) functionality allows you to quickly launch an online presence to the buying public.
Supplied integration with the Oracle customer data storage model, Oracle Trading Community Architecture (TCA), provides the ability to maintain customer information and complex party relationships.
Address Book and Payment Book functionality in the Customer Application allows users to maintain their own data.
Ability to mandate the entry of B2B user contact information.
Optional integration with Oracle Quoting allows interactive selling and online user assistance.
See the chapters, Implementing User Management, and Implementing Carts and Orders, for more information.
Oracle iStore supports a global product catalog and infrastructure, allowing you to launch and maintain an international online presence. Highlights include:
Global accounting through Oracle General Ledger allows you to set up multiple sets of books and business calendars.
Oracle Multiple Organization Architecture gives you the ability to create and manage multiple organizations, inventory units, and warehouses internationally.
Multiple currency support allows you to deploy sites --- with targeted products and prices --- in any country.
The globally-oriented Site Selection Page is the default landing page for the Customer UI. It displays all sites in your implementation, with separate links for each supported language.
Seeded media objects for specific languages, allowing you to display country-specific images for each language.
Templates that can show taxes, payment and shipping methods, and address formats which are particular to a country for which the site has been set up.
E-mail notification messages leveraging Oracle Workflow can be provided in all languages, and configured by organization, user type, and site.
See the chapters, Implementing Initial Customer Application Pages, and Implementing Globalization and Multi-Org Architecture, for more information.
Oracle iStore provides numerous features for interactive selling, user assistance, and ordering options for customers in the Customer Application. Highlights include:
Sales assistance
Online contract negotiation (terms and conditions)
Collaborative quoting
Call-me-back functionality
Sophisticated pricing
Shared shopping carts
Returns
Guided selling and product configuration online
Product model bundles
Ability to capture end customer data during checkout
Order tracking and integration to Oracle Install Base
Opt in/opt out capabilities
Real-time inventory checks and reservations
Shopping lists
Order cancellation
Shipping priority, instructions, and ship to multiple locations
Billing to multiple locations
Automatic e-mail notifications
Express checkout
Note that some of these features require integration with other Oracle applications. For more information, see the chapters, Implementing Pricing, Implementing Carts and Orders, and Implementing Customer Assistance, as well as other chapters which detail integrating with Oracle iStore.
Supplied integration with the Oracle Order Management Suite's powerful combination of order processing tools provide a complete range of order management and fulfillment functions. Highlights include:
Instant order transmission and fulfillment through Oracle Order Management
Shipping and shipment tracking capabilities through Oracle Shipping
Online automated payment processing
Order cancellation abilities
Order returns
Integration with Oracle Financials applications can provide accounting support
Order tracking, including the ability to view invoice, shipping, and payment details
Published quotes, sales assistance, and Terms and Conditions fully integrated with Oracle Quoting
For more information, see the chapters, Implementing Payment Types and Shipping Methods, and Implementing Carts and Orders.
Oracle iStore features a number of marketing and customer tracking options through its integration with other Oracle applications. These options include:
Lead import functionality that allows the capture of valuable customer information from Oracle iStore shopping carts. Oracle Sales applications then can use the data in marketing efforts. See the chapter, Integrating Oracle iStore with Oracle Sales Applications, for more information.
Ability to post advertisements into Oracle iStore Customer Application bins, an option which leverages integration with Oracle Marketing.
Personalized customer event tracking through the integration with Oracle Marketing integration. See the chapter, Integrating Oracle iStore with Oracle Marketing, for more information.
Ability to create deep link advertisements to the Customer Application in other Web pages. See the chapter, Advanced Display, for details.
Oracle iStore includes the following business objects, components and processes, which allow it to store data, process information, and communicate with the Oracle database and other Oracle applications:
Business Objects: The schema for representing and storing customers, orders, product catalog and presentation elements. These entities are persistent, shared across all Oracle applications, and manipulated by Java Application Programming Interfaces (API) provided within Oracle iStore's runtime services.
Runtime Services and APIs: The coupling of certain common services available within all e-commerce applications (Oracle Foundation) and Java-based APIs (includes some PL/SQL APIs). This combination queries Oracle iStore's persistent storage of objects and relationships and enables update operations.
Configurable Customer Application Display Templates: All Customer UI menus and pages are customizable using logical template names.
Processing and Routing Templates: Working in combination with the Display Templates, the processing and routing templates contain the logic and appropriate business flows through the sites.
Oracle BLAF: Both the Site Administration and Customer user interfaces offer the Oracle BLAF (browser look and feel) compliant user interfaces (UI). The Oracle BLAF UI provides consistent look and feel and similar task flows across the Oracle E-Business Suite applications. All section and item runtime templates are BLAF compliant.
Multicustomer Access: With the Multicustomer Access feature, an iStore B2B user can view and place orders on behalf of multiple customers using a single login ID. The B2B user can view or place orders for their default customer, and search for customers or accounts in the Welcome Bin and select a different customer-account context. iStore implementations can establish access to multiple customers and the associated accounts of business users through a series of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) that can create or delete multiple customer access for a B2B user.
In addition to the APIs, iStore implementations can establish relationships between the B2B user and multiple customer accounts by leveraging existing Oracle E-Business Suite application modules (e.g. Oracle Receivables, Oracle Customers Online).