Stores in WebSphere Commerce

WebSphere Commerce supports several different types of entities that are defined as stores. The assets of these store entities may be edited using the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator.

Customer facing store
An online site where users may obtain information regarding products, and conduct business transactions over these products. Business transactions may include retail purchases, transactions between businesses and transactions between a government organization and citizens or businesses. WebSphere Commerce uses the generic term 'store' to describe the online space where all of these business transactions take place. WebSphere Commerce supports the following customer facing stores:
Hub store
A store that enables partners or clients.
Direct sales store
A store that supports the exchange of products, services, or information directly between businesses and consumers, or between two businesses or parties.
Hosted store
A store that is hosted by the site operator for the owner of the store. The store owner may have the option of administering the store.
Asset store
A store that contains a collection of sharable resources (business artifacts, business processes, and storefront assets) that can be leveraged in other types of stores. For example, a catalog asset store is a collection of catalog artifacts that creates a virtual catalog. A storefront asset store is a collection of JSP files, commands, business processes (for example order processing), business policies and access control policies that create a virtual storefront. 

Asset stores do not perform or record business transactions. They are simply holders of assets that can be used by other stores.

Proxy store
A store that represents a business partner's operational assets. This store also handles the business logic that allows a WebSphere Commerce site to interact with an external business partner. For example, a proxy store may capture the orders transferred to a remote order capture system, as well as capturing the suppliers' inventory information or the information sent to a supplier's fulfillment centers. A proxy store does not include a storefront and can not be accessed by users. Administrators working on behalf of the external business may have administrative access to the proxy store through the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator.

The type of store you are working with as well as your user role determines what functions of the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator you can use to edit it.  For more information, see WebSphere Commerce Accelerator.

All sites or stores developed with WebSphere Commerce are an instance of one of the following supported business models:

For more information on each business model, see Business models supported by WebSphere Commerce.

Supported store type by business model

Business model Type of supported stores Sample
Consumer directStoreFashionFlow
B2B directStoreToolTech
HostingHub storeCommerce Hosting Hub
Store directoryStore directory
Asset storeCatalog asset store
Hosted storefront asset store
Hosted storenot available
Value chain (Demand)Hub storeCommerce Plaza
 
Asset storeCatalog asset store Reseller storefront asset store  
Hosted store

(reseller store)

not available
Proxy storeDistributorProxy.sar
Value chain
(Supply)
StoreCommerce Supplier Hub
Asset storeCatalog asset store
Supplier storefront asset store
Hosted store (supplier store)not available

Sample stores provided with WebSphere Commerce, with the exception of hosted stores, are packaged as store archives. For a list of sample store archives provided with WebSphere Commerce, see Business Edition onlySample store archives andSample store archives. To view a sample store, simply publish it using the Administration Console or the command line. For more information, see Publishing a store archive from the Administration Console.

For more information on creating stores, including regular stores and asset stores, see the WebSphere Commerce Store Development Guide. For more information on creating hosted stores, see Creating a hosted store with the Store Creation wizard. For more information on creating proxy stores, see Creating a proxy store (distributor) service agreement (Business Edition).

Note: Hosted stores (both reseller and supplier) are not provided as samples as they can be created quickly using the Store Creation wizard.