Overview on Oracle iStore

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What is Oracle iStore?

Oracle iStore allows businesses from all industries to establish a comprehensive business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) electronic commerce (e-commerce) presence.

Oracle iStore provides merchants with an easy-to-use interface for setting up Internet stores that capture and process customer orders.

In addition, integration with other Oracle applications provides a broad range of e-commerce capabilities. Fully integrated with the Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle iStore is a powerful tool that allows businesses to create and manage online stores.

Oracle iStore Key Features

Implementing Oracle iStore lets you:

•          Build, test, and launch sophisticated online stores in multiple languages  and currencies with multiple price lists

•          Leverage powerful Oracle Inventory and Oracle Order Management on  the back-end

•         Target different customer segments and/or organizations, including or  excluding customers by organization affiliation

•          Deploy stores in both B2B and B2C scenarios

•          Capture and track customer information and activities

•          Provide a full range of online purchasing capabilities for customers,  including shopping carts and lists, quote retrieval, shared carts and  quotes, express checkout, order tracking, and customer information  storage

Store Administration UI and Customer UI

Oracle iStore key features include the friendly interface of the Store Administration application allows you to configure stores which are then presented as specialty stores in the Internet-enabled, customer-facing application known as the Customer UI.

Highlights include:

•           Create and maintain of any number of online stores

•           Easily duplicate stores, catalogs, and content

•           In Preview mode, immediately preview the stores

•           Set the display order of Customer UI store names

•           Utilize powerful search utilities

•           Access business and operational reports

•           Set store-related rules

•           Set up e-mail notifications

•           Configure content and display templates

•           Each store can have its own: Name ~ Product catalog ~ Section      hierarchy ~ Target users ~ Currency ~ Language ~ Price lists ~  Payment types ~ Shipping terms ~ Access restrictions ~                Effective dates ~ Product and section exclusion rules

Catalog Management

A full catalog management application is provided in the Store Administration UI, giving you a highly configurable Internet product presentation. Leveraging the powerful Oracle Inventory on the back-end and Oracle iStore’s section building tool in the Store Administration UI, the Catalog is a flexible tool which supports multiple languages and currencies.

Highlights include:

•          A section hierarchy that can be as simple or complex as your business requirements necessitate. Sections are created in parent-child relationships. Products "hang" on nodes of the section hierarchy.

•        Ability to control the browsing experience of the customer through section and subsection presentation.

•        Cross-sell capabilities using the seeded Related items relationship, as well as support for a variety of other relationships between products, sections, and Inventory categories.

•        A built-in search utility which allows you to locate a product by entering several criteria, including product name, number, category, description, as well as searching by stores that contain the product.

•        Product search can support both Section Search and Category Search for different applications, simultaneously. 

•        Optional integration with Oracle interMedia allows you to set up a powerful product search in the speciality stores.

•        A Display Template gallery which lets you quickly pick, in WYSIWYG fashion, the layout of sections and products.

•        Targeted catalogs in the form of speciality stores for unique customers.

•        The ability to exclude products and sections from specific stores.

•        Product auto-placement feature which allows the populating of sections with products through a single batch job.

Content Management

A content repository and reusable content components allow you to store, easily retrieve, and configure content to display in the online stores.

Highlights include:

•         Hundreds of configurable Display Templates present the Customer UI. This rich display environment presents a multitude of possibilities for altering the look and feel of the speciality stores.

•        Re-usable content components and media objects.

•        Easy-to-use interface for mapping source files to the media objects.

•        Components and objects that are organized by type of display they effect.

•        Display a single source file in any number of speciality stores.

•        Easily update files which display in the speciality stores.

•        Optional integration with Oracle Content Manager to provide content item creation, versioning, approvals, and a translation interface.

Store Reports and Bins

Within the Store Administration application, business and operational reports give you valuable real-time data about your stores. Updated through a concurrent program, operational reports provide a variety of information about published and unpublished products and sections, while the business reports give you important financial and customer data.

Highlights include:

Business Reports and Bins present the following data:

•          Number of orders placed for a given time period

•          The types of users making purchases and the top customers

•          Top product sales for specific time periods

•          Number of shopping carts converted to orders

Operational Reports and Bins present the following data:

•          Product assignment and published/unpublished status reports

•          Section assignment and published/unpublished status reports

Automated User Communications

Users automatically receive e-mail notification of various events, such as:

•          Registration

•          Orders placed or cancelled

•          Contract negotiations

•          Shared carts and shared quotes

•          Forgotten passwords and login assistance

In addition, e-mail messages can be configured by organization, store, and user type, giving you immense flexibility in communicating with your customers. This functionality is provided through iStore’s integration with Oracle Workflow.

Background Data Management

Several supplied concurrent programs in Oracle iStore automatically refresh data between business objects. These include:

•          Lead import concurrent program pulls customer data from orders and expired carts into database tables for use in other Oracle applications

•          Product search concurrent program automatically populates necessary tables with product updates for use in the Customer UI product search

•          Reports refresh concurrent program supplies automatic updates of transactional and operational data about the stores

•          Express Checkout concurrent program converts Express Checkout shopping carts into orders.

User Management, Registration and Customer Information

Oracle iStore offers a full user management and registration interface in the Customer UI.

Highlights include:

•          For B2B users, seeded roles and permissions offer personalized features for different customer segments and business partners. Automatic user registration enables self-service access to the stores. Highlights include:

•          Business-to-Business (B2B) functionality allows management of complex relationships with corporate customers in a self-service environment, including the ability to restrict access by organization. The seeded Primary User role allows organizational users to set up and manage a community of business users.

•          Business-to-Consumer (B2C) functionality allows you to quickly launch an online presence to the buying public.

•          Supplied integration with Oracle’s customer data storage model, the Trading Community Architecture (TCA), provides the ability to maintain customer information and complex party relationships.

•          Address Book and Payment Book functionality in the Customer UI allows users to maintain their own data.

•          Ability to mandate the entry of B2B user contact information.

•          Optional integration with Oracle Quoting allows interactive selling and online user assistance.

Globalization and Localization Support

Oracle iStore supports a global product catalog and infrastructure, allowing you to launch and maintain an international online presence.

Highlights include:

•          Global accounting through Oracle General Ledger allows you to set up multiple sets of books and business calendars.

•          Oracle Multiple Organization Architecture gives you the ability to create and manage multiple organizations, inventory units, and warehouses internationally.

•          Multiple currency support allows you to deploy stores --- with targeted products and prices --- in any country.

•          The globally-oriented Specialty Stores Page is the default landing page for the Customer UI. It displays all stores in your implementation, with separate links for each supported language.

•          Seeded media objects for specific languages, allowing you to display country-specific images for each language.

•          Templates which can show taxes, payment and shipping methods, and address formats which are particular to a country for which the store has been set up.

•          E-mail notification messages leveraging Oracle Workflow can be provided in all languages, and configured by organization, user type, and store.

Interactive Selling and Ordering Options

Oracle iStore provides numerous options for interactive selling, user assistance, and ordering options for customers in the Customer UI application.

Highlights include:

•          Sales assistance

•          Online contract negotiation

•          Collaborative quoting

•          Call-me-back functionality

•          Sophisticated pricing

•          Shared shopping carts

•          Guided selling and product configuration online

•          Order tracking

•          Opt in/opt out capabilities

•          Real-time inventory checks and reservations

•          Shopping lists

•          Order cancellation

•          Automatic e-mail notifications

•          Express checkout

Order Management and Fulfillment

Integration with the Oracle Order Management Suite’s powerful combination of order processing tools provide a complete range of order management and fulfillment functions.

Highlights include:

•          Instant order transmission and fulfillment through Oracle Order Management

•          Online automated payment processing through supplied integration with Oracle Order Capture

•          Order cancellation abilities

•          Optional integration with Oracle Financial applications can provide accounting support

•          Order tracking, including the ability to view invoice, shipping, and payment details

Marketing and Customer Tracking

Oracle iStore features a number of marketing and customer tracking options through its integration with other Oracle applications.

These options include:

•          Lead import functionality which allows the capture of valuable customer information from Oracle iStore shopping carts. Oracle Sales applications then can use the data in marketing efforts.

•          Ability to post advertisements into Oracle iStore Customer UI bins, an option which leverages integration with Oracle Marketing.

•          Customer event tracking through the optional Oracle Marketing integration.

•          Ability to create deep link advertisements to the iStore Customer UI in other web pages.