Solution for Manufacturer E-Commerce, Computer Hardware Reseller E-Commerce, SupplyExpert Platform Features

E-Commerce Site Features

· Custom storefront design
All e-commerce storefront pages are custom designed in accordance with your company design requirements.

· Shopping cart for guests, permanent shopping cart for logged in customers
The cart supports the following actions: add a product, remove any or all products, update the quantity, email cart, print cart contents, apply promos.

· Customer registration
Customers can register by specifying their full name, e-mail address, and password. The registration information and contents of the shopping cart is stored in the SupplyExpert database. Customer login and logout is supported.

· “Quick Search” and “Advanced Search”
Search with additional constraints on category, manufacturer, price, availability and other custom criteria.

· Product Specials / Featured Products
Popular products, along with their images and description, are show in a rotation on the Home page and category pages.

· Global and per-category bestseller lists
The e-commerce site category pages feature top selling items drawn from the actual receipts over the last 30 days.

· Support for the Distributor and native store product categories
Distributor categories can be used, or mapped to native store categories.

· Shopping List / Wish List
A customer can create lists of products that they frequently or intend to order. A customer can easily transfer products from their personal shopping list to the shopping cart for quick purchase.

· Real-time availability information
Inventory queried from distribution and displayed in real-time. Also, inventory information from a local warehouse can be entered or imported.

· Optionally disable backordered items
Allow the customer to enter their email address for an “in stock” notification.

· E-mail password option
In case the customer forgets their password, it can be requested via email.

· Online Return of Merchandise Authorization (RMA) request form
Allows the customer to submit a detailed RMA request online.

· Online Order tracking
The customer can view the list of all their orders, shipping tracking info, and print invoices for these orders.

· Vendor Showcases / Stores
Special showcases that spotlight on products from specific Vendors

· Enhanced product pages
Support for HTML and image upload on product pages with the following content elements:

o Multiple Photos / Product Images

o Product Reviews

o Product Manufacturer Rebate information

o Product Info, with integration of Distributor Tech Specs / Notes

o Product Manual

o Software and Support Files / Drivers

o Frequently Asked Questions

o Warranty and Custom Support Information

o Up-sell, Cross-sell products & Accessories

o Customers “Also Bought” list of products

· Online credit application
An online credit application form can be filled out by the customer and submitted. The information goes into a database where it cannot be edited, and is linked to the customer record. The credit department is emailed with a link to the credit application record.

· Online ordering with easy, secure checkout procedure
This involves the following stages:

o Get shipping and billing information;

o Get shipping method (UPS Ground, FedEx… );

o Prepay, Credit Card, & PO support. Get customer credit card information (name, type, number, expiration date, bank phone, CVV/CID); Or, for qualified customers, get PO billing information.

o Validate billing, shipping and credit card information; real-time credit card authorization is supported from the e-commerce Site.

§ CyberSource or Authorize.net components are used for credit card authorization, billing, and credit operations.

o Calculate the total receipt amount that involves product subtotal, shipping and taxes;

o Create a receipt, send the receipt to the customer by e-mail, store the order information in the database.

o Customers can subscribe to receive related emails/newsletters, and order status & tracking information.

o All sensitive payment information is encrypted during secure Internet transmission and in the SupplyExpert database.

· Account maintenance and online customer service features
A personalized account menu has options for maintaining personal login, payment, shipping, and active quote information; also, links to store terms, policy and frequently asked questions.

Site Admin Tool (SAT) Features

· Site Administration Tool general functions:

o Order management to view and edit all order information.

o Customer management to view and edit registered customer information.

o Product management. Conversion of the information from the Distributor product data feed into the SupplyExpert database, viewing / editing most of the available product attributes (list price, description, category and so on), tools for mapping Distributor product catalog to the native store product categories.

o Returns management to create and maintain RMA records and credits.

o Quote management to create and maintain customer quotes.

o Statistical, auditing, and reconciliation reports about registered customers, processed orders, orders by period, orders under cost, etc.

o Content management to edit templates for notification emails and e-commerce site content.

o Admin and security settings. Configure the SupplyExpert setup options, fraud detection options, fulfillment rules, SAT user security, and much more.

· Promotions management
This gives certain buyers a range of promotional dollar and percentage discounts, free shipment options, and keeps track of them.

· Product Reviews management
Approve or edit customer product reviews.

· SAT user security
The SAT Administration area is secured with a username and password. Per user security settings control what users can see and do.

· Affiliate and Shopping Guide Discounts (SGD)
A unique marketing features that gives the customer a % discount based on the click origin of the customer.

· Product Returns (RMA) management
RMA creation with notes, email, and card credit integration. Manage “return reason” options/codes which appear at the Web site. Also, an RA search utility ensures efficient RMA maintenance.

· Order origin tracking
Order click origin can be encoded into the store page marketing URLs, and then tracked. The tracking report shows the number of orders, sales total, product cost total by origin.

· Banner Ad Management
An application to manage, display and count clicks of various sorts of “banner ads.”

· Advanced Fraud Prevention functions
14 weighted criteria are applied against each order so that each order receives a credit score; automated order processing will only submit approved orders to distribution.

· Distribution fulfillment rules for advanced multi-source support
Some same items are fulfilled by multiple distributors. SupplyExpert rules can be set to fulfill from distribution based on order total product cost, free freight contract thresholds, and product availability. Per item rules can be set to favor a distributor based on item part number. And items belonging to certain product categories can be fulfilled by a specific distributor.

· Web-based catalog editor
Add/Edit/Remove unlimited categories/subcategories, and unlimited products.

· Email template and site content editor
Notification email texts can be edited online, for example: order confirmation, order processing confirmation, shipment confirmation, backordered item notification. Site HTML content and images can be also be created and edited by means of an online interface.

· e-Commerce, SAT, and Global configuration variables
The platform related store-specific information can be easily edited from an interface at the SAT. For example: company name and address, email contact info, payment processor and distribution login information, and much more.

· Advanced product price management
Price scheme management allows setting of cost-based product markup by manufacturer, category, or SKU. Also, per SKU “absolute” prices can be set, for non-cost-based markup requirements.

· Tax rate editor
Setup tax rates for each state that will automatically be applied to each customer order if the customer is not tax exempt.

· Shipping rate editor
Shipping methods and per pound rates can be edited. Also, each store shipping method has a default mapped distributor shipping method selection.

· Credit card transaction search
All card transactions are stored in the local database and card information is encrypted in the database. A search function allows searching and viewing of related transactions by order #, auth code, transaction #, customer name, date range, amount, transaction type and status.

· Customer Group editor
Groups such as “corporate”, “federal”, “state” can be created and assigned a price scheme. Customer logins can be assigned to one Customer Group.

· Platform event viewer
Platform application related events are logged and viewable via the SAT-based event viewer. Events can be searched by type, severity, and time interval.

· Online Quote Manager
An advanced quoting tool allows customer quotes to be generated and emailed to the customer. Also, the customer can view and accept or decline the quote from the e-commerce site. The sales rep can keep internal notes, provide custom product and shipping pricing, and write public notes for each quote. A quote search utility allows convenient quote maintenance for each sales rep or manager.

· Store advertisements manager
A client contract editor stores client contact and basic contract info include CPC or CPT rates. Featured products (specials) are linked to a contract, and views, clicks, and transactions are tracked for each featured product. Brand store buttons and any banner advertisement views and clicks are tracked.

· Additional Customer Info field flags:

o Tax Exempt. A list of states can be specified, for which the tax exemption applies.

o Credit OK. The fraud sieve can be disabled for individual customers/logins.

o Blacklisted. Customers can be blacklisted so that their orders are always held for manual processing. Blacklist notifications appear on the customer and order view pages.

o FREE Freight. Option to give free ground shipping to certain customers.

o Customer Type. Selection of the shopper group – end user, reseller, corporate, federal, state, etc.

· Predefined Messages
Save time and establish consistent customer communications with order status change, order maintenance, RMA and other customer interactions.

· PO delinquency report
List unpaid POs over 15,30,45,60,90 days old.

· SAT-based product data import via Excel spreadsheet

· Data feed import and manual entry capability for shipping tracking and serial #s

· Support links directly to Distributor product and invoice pages

· User e-commerce site navigation tracking

· Auditing tools:

o List products under cost.

o List products with no content (image, description, or other selected field)

o List orders under cost, by selected date range

o List distributor duplicated shipped orders

o Reconciliation of distributor invoices from FTP or Excel formatted file

o All order edit events are fully audited

Automation Support Utilities
Scheduled Tasks running on Windows Server

· Order placing and tracking for Distributor items
XML Distributor integration to submit/view orders, product availability, etc. This valuable application will regularly connect with the Distributor Host Server and track orders automatically.

· Customer order shipment notification
Populates the local database with shipping tracking info and notifies the customer via email. Customers are also notified if backordered items remain on the order.

· Billing of eligible (shipped) orders
Items marked as shipped are billed automatically, and partially shipped orders are partially billed with tax and shipping cost apportioned per item.

· Backordered item “in stock” notification
If customers opted to be notified on the e-commerce site product page, then they will receive a notification email when an item becomes available.