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Some of the high-level features of the @package_name@:
Products
- Products are divided into categories (like books, journals,
...), subcategories (computer, fiction, ...), and
subsubcategories (operating systems, web publishing, ...) which
are set by the site administrator (if desired). Products can
belong to as many categories / subcategories / subsubcategories
as needed. Users can search by category / subcategory /
subsubcategory and the site administrator can make product
recommendations by category / subcategory / subsubcategory.
- The site administrator can upload any
desired information about products either into the database or
into the file system. Standard product information such as
product name, regular price, etc., and admin-defined custom
fields are collected in the database. Pictures of the product
and other formatted info like sample chapters, for instance, are
uploaded into the file system.
- Users can input comments and ratings of products. The site
administrator can choose to:
- allow all comments,
- allow comments after administrator approval, or
- disallow allow comments.
- The site administrator can input professional reviews of the
products.
- The site administrator can specify whether the product should
be displayed when the user does a search. For example, they
might not want the product to display if the product is part of
a series or if the product is the hardcover version of a book
that also exists in paperback.
- Links between products: the site administrator can specify
that one product always links to other product(s) on the
product-display page.
- Products can be listed before they are available for sale.
The site administrator decides whether customers are allowed to
preorder items or if they are not allowed to order until the
date that the products become available.
- A product can have a lower, introductory price. It can also
have a limited-time sale price, and a limited-time special offer
price which is given only to those who have the special offer
code in their URL.
- The site administrator determines the geographical regions in
which tax should be charged.
- Shipping costs are determined by the site administrator as a
base cost + a certain amount per additional item, or the cost
can be based on weight. Additional amounts are charged for
express shipping, if allowed. Alternatively, the shipping costs
can be obtained from an implementation of the Shipping Service Contract.
Personalization
- Users are recognized, if possible, when they enter the site.
- Users can be placed into user classes (student, publisher,
...) either by themselves (with site administrator approval) or
by the site administrator.
- Members of user classes can be given different views of the
site, different prices for each product, and different product
recommendations.
- A user's purchasing history as well as browsing history is
stored. Product recommendations can be made based on both
histories.
- Frequent buyers can be recognized and rewarded.
- The site will automatically calculate what other products were
most popular among people who bought a given product.
Ordering
- Shopping cart interface: users select items to put into their
shopping cart and then go to their cart when they want to "check
out". The shopping cart is editable (similar to Amazon.com).
- If a user is not ready to order yet, they can store their
order and come back to it later (similar to Dell.com).
- User receives an acknowledgement web page and email when their
order is confirmed.
- The user can reuse an address for billing or shipping that
they previously entered on the site and, if the site
administrator has chosen to store credit card data, they can
reuse previous credit cards.
- The user's credit card is authorized at the time that they
confirm their order. The card is billed automatically only
after the site administrator marks that the order has been
shipped. With the exception of items that do not require
shipping (so called 'soft goods'). Soft goods are billed
immediately after the card has been authorized for the soft good
total amount.
- The site administrator can issue electronic gift certificates
to users.
- The site administrator is able to give refunds to a user if
the user returns all or part of their order.
- Customers can view their order history and track their
packages.
- Customers can purchase gift certificates for other people. A
random claim check is generated at the time of purchase and
emailed to the recipient. The recipient is then able to use
their gift certificate when they make purchases on the site
(until the certificate expires).
Community
- Users can sign up for mailing lists based on the product
categories they are interested in.
- Most importantly, since the @package_name@ is tied in with the
rest of the Open Architecture Community System, a more complete
picture of the customer (Q & A forum postings, Classified
Ads, etc.) is known than in a stand-alone ecommerce
system.
Customer Service
- A complete customer service submodule which allows customer
service reps to:
- Receive and respond to customer inquiries via email (includes
a spell-checker!).
- Record all customer interactions and issues (whether by
phone/fax/email/etc.).
- Categorize issues.
- View complete customer interaction and purchase
histories.
- Send email using the "canned text" system which allows them to
automatically insert commonly-used paragraphs into their
emails.
- Contact groups of users based on various criteria (date of last
visit, number of purchases, pages they've visited, mailing lists
they've signed up for, etc.)
- Edit email templates that the system uses when sending
automatic email to users (e.g. "Dear <insert name>, thank
you for your order. We received your order on <insert
date>, etc.").
- View statistics and reports on issues/interactions
(e.g. interactions by customer service rep, issues by issue
type).
Other
- Data entered or modified by site administrators is audited, so
you can see:
- who made the changes
- when the changes were made
- what changed
- the history of all states the data have been in (so your data are never lost)
- All of the user display pages are templated. This allows
designers to change the look and feel of the site without
mucking around in Tcl or SQL code.
- The system logs potential problems it encounters (e.g. failed
credit card transactions) and allows site administrators to view
the problems and mark them "resolved".