The WebSphere Commerce messaging system gives WebSphere Commerce the ability to communicate with its external environment. This communication includes sending messages to and receiving messages from back-end systems or external systems, as well as sending notification to customers and administrators that events have occurred within WebSphere Commerce. This is accomplished through two subsystems: an inbound system that manages inbound messages coming from back-end and external systems, and an outbound messaging system that allows you to send notification to users as well as outbound messages to back-end systems and external systems.
For example, you can set up the messaging system to send e-mail messages notifying your customers that their orders have been shipped. The messaging system provides a mechanism for integrating WebSphere Commerce with back-end systems. You can configure WebSphere Commerce to send an outbound message to a back-end system whenever an order is created at your store. This order information can be used by the back-end system to do necessary order fulfillment processing. The back-end system can later send order status messages back to WebSphere Commerce indicating that order delivery has taken place or an order invoice has been issued. An e-mail can also be sent to update the customer.