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:
- Direct sales
- Consumer direct
- B2B direct
- Hosting
- Value chain
- Demand chain
- Supply chain
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 direct | Store | FashionFlow |
B2B direct | Store | ToolTech |
Hosting | Hub store | Commerce Hosting Hub |
Store directory | Store directory | |
Asset store | Catalog asset store Hosted storefront asset store | |
Hosted store | not available | |
Value chain (Demand) | Hub store | Commerce Plaza |
Asset store | Catalog asset store Reseller storefront asset store | |
Hosted store
(reseller store) | not available | |
Proxy store | DistributorProxy.sar | |
Value chain (Supply) | Store | Commerce Supplier Hub |
Asset store | Catalog 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 Sample 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.