uCommerce consists of three foundations for handling e-commerce: Catalog Foundation; for handling catalogs, assortment, product pricing Transaction Foundation; for handling baskets, orders, customers, payments Analytics Foundation; for handling custom reporting needs, doesn’t replace products like Google Analytics or Site Catalyst
A fourth foundation is under development. More on that later.
Designers work with the Commerce Library to produce the styling of a site using XSLT .NET developers may employ the LINQ basked Foundation API to plug into uCommerce A uCommerce site can be built using only XSLT, XSLT and .NET, or plain .NET, your choice
The uCommerce administrative UIs are integrated into the Umbraco Back Office Makes e-commerce and CMS a seamless experience for end users
uCommerce Store is a supplement to the uCommerce platform Built completely using XSLT a web designer can reskin uCommerce Store and have a completely different look and feel, no code required A reference implementation designer to show developers how to build a site based on uCommerce Can be used as a foundation for custom sites Available as a separate download
Installing uCommerce is the same process as installing any Umbraco package Takes less than 2 minutes to complete the install
Updates are installed the same way as a clean install uCommerce figures out what needs to be updated and does the work for you
Walkthrough of the Catalog Foundation features
The catalog foundation is multi lingual Familiar language handling with a new tab popping up for each configured language Configured languages in Umbraco are automatically picked up Product are maintained in as many language version you need Even product properties themselves are multi lingual if you choose
Product definitions are templates for creating products in the catalogs The definition determines the data stored for each product Custom fields may be added for specific needs Fields can be set to be maintained either for the product or variants of the product, eg. Size, Color Unlimited variant dimensions available Unlimited product images for products and variants Data types ensure data quality, e.g. selection lists, images, numbers, strings
Products may be created with or without variants Each solution may have some products with variants and some without. Your choice uCommerce adopts to the reality found at the client
Most e-commerce systems support related products uCommerce supports related products too but with a twist: Product relationship are named Create the kinds of product relationships needed for your store Use them in different contexts, eg. Upsell, Cross Sell, Replacement Item, Order Confirmation
Categories can be created as wide and deep as needed Products can live in multiple categories. You won’t need to mess around with shadow SKUs Add the product to as many categories as you need Having products in multiple categories also means that you can have products live in multiple catalogs Product may even reside in multiple stores
The pricing strategy in uCommerce is inspired by price groups found in ERP Each product can have as many prices as you need, e.g. MSRP, list price, discount price Multi currency scenarios supported Differentiated pricing scenarios, e.g. gold customers get a better price than anonymous customers You’re not limited to know currencies You can make up your own currencies and use them natively, e.g. price your products using advantage points earned by making other purchases
Multiple catalogs enable store owners to create various assortments, e.g. seasonal catalog, spring, summer, fall Reorganize catalogs for different uses, e.g. an internal catalog using the same structure as a backend ERP and an external catalog with a consumer friendly structure Create campaign sites with a small highlighted product selection
Multiple stores are supported with Umbraco driving the sites Each site can have its own layout, checkout flow For stores with both B2B and B2C branches can be supported in a single install Examples include: - B2B would require login to browse and buy, B2C would not - B2C would support credit cards, B2B would not Common uses include - Site for each major brand - Campaign sites - Regional sites, e.g. one for Britain and another for France
Summary - Products with or without variants - Product definitions for templates - Named product relationships - Multi lingual on every level as far down as data types - Categorization as wide and deep as needed - Multiple prices per product - Multiple catalogs for differentiated assortments - Multiple stores
The Transaction Foundation is all about ordering, shipping, and payments
One basket per customer API can be leveraged to create multiple baskets per customer enabling scenarios like gift registries, wish lists, and more Baskets are automatically matched to the customer to make sure that the customer can continue on shopping if she leaves the site and comes back later Baskets are migrated to the user account once the user logs in
A complete order management system is included with uCommerce Complete overview of the order including payments, shipments, and order details Various order statuses are configurable to match the reality of the business, default statuses include New, Paid, Invoiced, Cancelled, Returned, Shipped Audit trails are maintained for each action performed on the order, ie. what happened, who did it, and when did it occur
Custom properties can be added on the order level and for individual order lines to store custom user specific values, e.g. a reference number for the order, a special option for the order line Examples of how store owners can use the feature: - to add custom reference numbers to orders - to record customer selections during checkout, e.g. gift wrapping - if the store sells products which need customizations such as windows, curtains custom dimensions can be recorded as well
uCommerce can be integrated with almost any payment provider, e.g. Sage, WorldPay, PayPal, DIBS, Clickpay, etc. Two modes of integration are supported: 1) Two-step authorization, i.e. redirect the customer to a page on the payment provider’s service, 2) Native API integration for PCI compliant scenarios Multiple payment methods can be configured using the backend .NET developers can build their own payment methods, e.g. integrating with back-end services such as an ERP Multiple payment methods may be used on a single order, e.g. 50% gift certificate, 50% credit card Payment methods can be configured for accessibility from specific stores, e.g. Sage only available in the UK store, DIBS only available in the DK store Payment fee are calculated during checkout to allow store owners to pass on the expense of clearing the credit card to the customer
uCommerce Store supports the most common scenario of separate billing and shipping address uCommerce itself supports as many shipments per order as needed, useful for B2B scenarios where customers might have the order sent to multiple sites of operation Shipping methods
Simple order processing scenarios are supported Order statuses can be configured to match the clients’s business requirements Order flow is configurable to ensure that the order flows through the system in a predetermined way, e.g. first to “New order”, then to “Ready for shipment”, then to “Ready for payment”, and finally to “Invoiced” Each status may define a number of valid next steps, e.g. “New Order” might move to “Cancelled” or “Ready for shipment” Business logic (Pipelines) can be applied to the order whenever an order status changes, e.g. e-mail the customer with shipment information, send a text, withdraw money from account
Pipelines lets develops hook into uCommerce almost anywhere to extend, modify, or even completely replace the default behavior found in the product Included in the box is a basket and checkout pipeline, which lets you hook into the process of adding items to the cart and when the user completes her checkout A pipeline is executed whenever an order changes status in the backend supporting rich business logic around order processing Pipelines operate on a data object, e.g. an order, which is passed between configuration steps (PipelineTasks) Each step may modify the order in some way Developers can build their own pipelines from scratch to support custom scenarios
Persistent baskets Orders Multiple shipments Multiple shipping metods Multiple payment method, which can integrate to almost any payment provider Dynamic Order Properties for storing user selections during cheeckout Order flow in the backend to support simple order processing Pipelines supports custom business logic
Analytics Foundation is meant for custom reporting on business data collected by uCommerce It’s not meant as a replacement for products like Google Analytics and Site Catalyst Developers can build custom reports to suit the needs of the client Two reports are included in the box: Product Top 10 and Total Revenue by Store
Updates for uCommerce 1.x releases are free of charge Partners suggests new features and vote to determine what goes into new versions of uCommerce by using the UserVoice forum at http://ucommerce.uservoice.com
The fourth foundation
Marketing Foundation is under development currently and will be available as a free update to uCommerce 1.0 Marketing will support common discounting scenarios It will be extendable as with the rest of uCommerce enabling .NET developers to create custom discount types
Simple inventory can be created with uCommerce today using custom product field, i.e. StockOnHand, and a pipeline task, i.e. DecreaseInventoryTask Richer inventory features are on the roadmap
All uCommerce functionality is available via the APIs To leverage the APIs from another system today you have to create a thin wrapping layer which exposes uCommerce APIs via webservice A RESTful API will be added to uCommerce in the future so partners don’t have to create this layer themselves
Multiple baskets are useful to support scenarios such as gift registries, wish lists, and more Multiple baskets can be created today using the API
Full-text searching will be added Resembles the search functionality found in Umbraco itself Search can be performed using the uCommerce LINQ API to perform queries against any object in the system
Production sites include: www.highonlife.dk www.filabel.dk www.nti.dk www.nu mbers1.com www.alleti dersantik.dk htt p://www.renniesga llery.co.uk msb.tfsweb shop.dk With more on the way
Sites are under construction in these countries
uCommerce is completely free for partners to build sites on A license is only required when you’re ready to deploy your new site to a production environment Starter Edition is upgradable to Pro simply by acquiring a new license key, no data migration or reinstalls necessary
Download it at www.ucommerce.dk/en/get-it-now.aspx