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About cm3
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Shopping Cart / Catalogue Manager / Order Manager
The cm3 online store module provides a robust platform for e-commerce websites. Off the shelf features include detailed product catalogue management, feature rich shopping cart, online payment plugins, and flexible order handling.
Built Using cm3 Core
Since the store module is based on the standard cm3 content management platform, it comes with all the associated CMS features, including but not limited to:
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Easy and robust content authoring tools including WYSIWYG page editing
- Digital asset management for store files such as images, brochures, and downloads
- Full control over every part of your online store
- Distributed permissions and workflow for small or large site management teams
- Powerful product search tools
- User and groups management to handle store logins, group pricing, private sales, and much more
- Personalisation, advanced form handling, and a wide range of data management tools including backups, imports, exports, and reports
Learn more about cm3 core here.
Quick and Easy Deployment
A fully functional starting point store web site makes the deployment project quick and easy. Whether implementing the store on top of an existing installation of cm3 content manager, or starting from scratch, the "white site" store enables all the standard e-commerce features.
Configuration options made available through the CMS administration system allow non technical users to set up different payment options, modify store settings, enter products, and manage orders.
A Modular, Extensible, Scaleable Platform for Development and Integration
Whether you're starting with 10 products and growing to 10,000, or you have a good set of 100 core products, the cm3 store provides a series of flexible off-the-shelf templates to present your catalogue online. The module has been deployed within large retail chains (including Godfreys and Civic Video), and non profit organisations (including Cancer Council and Australian Drug Foundation) ,as well as small businesses.
The cm3 store is designed to grow with your business.
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For smaller projects, a fully functional starting point store web site makes the deployment project quick and easy.
Yet customisation options are left wide open for larger projects through the cm3 development platform.
For large or growing projects, one of the most important aspects of the cm3 store is its ability to be extended as need demands.
Standard CMS Integration Features
Many of the standard cm3 integration features are commonly used to extend online stores with extra functionality, including but not limited to:
- Email and event scheduling for special store functions
- Programmable templates for advanced product displays
- Mailout facilities
- Intricate searching options using structured metadata
- Forms and validation features to connect to other modules including online bookings, membership renewals, subscriptions, and more
XML and Relational Data Handling
All data managed or collected by the cm3 store module is stored as relational metadata. Built-in XML features expose data for products, orders, and shop settings through a range of technology interfaces. For those who are not technical, this means that getting data in and out of the cm3 store is a cinch!
Real Time Integration With External Systems Using the cm3 XML Web Service
For projects requiring full automation or real time communication with third party systems, the cm3 XML Web Service provides a direct integration gateway. All store data is exposed through the web service, including orders, products, store users and accounts. Some common applications for the XML Web Service are:
- Automatically submit orders to your internal operations database when they are collected on the website
- Automatically upload product data to the website when it is entered on your internal systems
- Real time sharing of stock control and inventory functions
- Automatically deliver product data or inventory updates to suppliers, customers, and partners for re-purposing or integration with their own systems
Store Features & Screens
The full features of the online store are far too extensive to list in this brochure. The screens below are intended to provide an overview of what is offered. Please feel free to contact us for further information or an online demonstration.
The Store Front End
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The Store Administration System
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What Features Are Not Shown?
The following features are included in the shop module but not necessarily outlined below.
- User account management including logins, order histories, and shop personalisation
- Member and supplier pricing by group or customer
- Product variations, cross sells, and up sells
- Workflow for multiple store managers
- Developer tools such as template modification, advanced customisation, and product extensions
- Integration with extended modules including booking, subscriptions, memberships
- Real time automation/communication with other systems
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Please contact us to arrange an online demonstration
Store Features & Screens - The Store Front End
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Product Browsing and Searching
An example of a product search screen showing product names, thumbnail images, summary information, pricing, and shopping cart management buttons.
Standard product display templates allow a wide range of information to be displayed. Both summary and detailed views of products are usually made available, with the ability for customers to click an "add to cart" button from anywhere they can see a product.
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Advanced Search
An advanced search screen from the ADF book store. Note the provision of a range of different search options.
This particular search screen has been customised from the standard store module. It provides more detailed product locating options based on additional product information that is available in the ADF resource library. In this case, customers can search by various combinations of catalogue number, keyword, drug type, age group, format, and intended audience.
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Shopping Cart Management
The shopping cart management screen. As customers browse the store products are added to the cart much like a real world super market. The cart management screen provides price summaries, quantity options, and the ability to refine the product selection before the final order is submitted.
Take note of the visible shipping information. The store module provides a number of dynamic freight and handling calculation options, including but not limited to combinations of:
- Freight based on total order price
- Freight based on customer account details
- Freight based on product weight
- Freight based on geographical location (organised by postcode)
At the top of the page, a helpful progress meter clearly shows the user where they are within the shopping cart management procedure.
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Payment Options
The secure ordering system provides SSL and server encryption of sensitive ordering details on the website. The store module automatically checks for valid credit card numbers.
A number of payment options can be configured by the store owner (using the cm3 admin system), including:
- Order on invoice, or C.O.D.
- Purchase order, or instructions for any offline payment option
- Secure credit card collection
- Real time payment into the vendor bank account
A number of payment integration modules are provided including Verisign, Mastercard, Camtech, CommSecure, and others. Integration of additional payment modules is handled via a standardised methodology, which means that new payment modules can be quickly added by an experienced developer.
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Store Features & Screens - The Store Administration System
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Order Management
The order management system provides online management and reporting of orders collected via the shop.
Orders can be reported, printed, and export by date range, order number, shipping or delivery status, payment status, and more.
Flexible status and payment options are dynamically configured by the store owner. Whether orders are being managed by the cm3 system or exported for management in an external system, these options assure integration with custom business rules that differ from store to store.
Order notification messages (emails) are set up by the store owner. Delivery can be made to multiple parties or options changed at any time.
All order data is available in the CMS database, but also exposed as XML data for flexible communication with other systems.
Flexible templates allow quick output of shipping slips, or print or email ready customer messages.
Payment information is logged in detail, assigned to unique transaction IDs, and stored in a relational format. If real time bank payments are enabled no credit card information is stored in the store database, otherwise a server encryption option is available for secure temporary storage of credit card details.
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Product Management
The product information management system provided with the store module is extensive. Only some of the metadata fields are shown in this diagram.
Product management features include but are not limited to:
- Pricing by group or by customer
- Special pricing
- Switch freight on/off per product
- Detailed stock management options
- Product variations
- Cross sells
- Up sells
- Template options
- Product types including print coupons, online sales, digital products, subscriptions, bookings
- Delivery types including pick-up, online delivery, and back order
- Scheduling of product launches and price changes
- Custom metadata fields for just about any purpose - e.g. dates, audiences, product types
- Asset management for brochures, product images, and related information
- Top sellers, hot products, feature products, popular products
- Search engine optimisation / meta tags / search keywords
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Freight and Handling Price Management
Freight and handling charges can be configured in a number of ways.
The screen on the left shows zone management for the postcode and product weight based cost calculation system. Each zone can optionally be set up with a base charge, a fixed handling fee, a per kilo product weight charge, and a dynamically assigned handling fee.
In addition to geographical zone pricing, other freight calculation options include fixed cost, cost based on total order value.
Discounts can be applied to registered customers.
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Shop Settings
Shop settings are dynamically configured via the CMS administration console. This gives store owners the ability to customise almost every aspect of the store without any programming at all - from pricing, to email messages, to payment options, product categorisations, delivery types, and much more.
When stores are extended with additional functionality, the developer assures that all settings are available via this flexible interface.
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Store Implementation FAQs
Q: How much does it cost to set up a cm3-based online store?
A: The cost ranges depending on your business requirements. A list of cm3 licence costs is available on this website. Apart from the product licence, you may need some help from a web developer to design, launch, and host your website. Different development firms charge different prices. A simple implementation of the standard store module may cost about as much as the cm3 licence (or possibly a little less, if you don't need to get your site designed). Costs go upwards from there, depending on your requirements.
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Q: Do I need to pay extra for the online store module?
A: Not any more. With the release of version 4 of cm3 in January 2006, the store module licence is now included as part of the core cm3 licence. (This is for the enterprise version only. The professional edition of cm3 is not compatible with the store module.)
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Q: How much customisation will I need?
A: That really depends on your business requirements. The default "white site" store that is provided with cm3 has been set up so that it works the way most stores on the web work, and it provides a very detailed list of standard functions. If this default website meets your requirements, the only customisation you need is the implementation of suitably styled templates for your store to fit your organisation's brand. (Of course, website design is a separate process to store implementation. If you need design services, we can provide them or direct you to a cm3 partner if you don't have your own designer already.)
A useful way to get a better understanding of the online store features, how they might apply to your business, and whether or not you need to customise the store, is to contact us to arrange an online demo.
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Q: Can I get an online demonstration of the store module?
A: Yes, of course. If you're already in touch with a cm3 partner or reseller, ask them for a demo. Otherwise contact us to arrange an online demo.
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Q: Is there a template to do X or Y?
A: Probably, but if there isn't then it is a simple matter for you or your web developer to extend the store module using standard web development methods. This is the beauty of using a modular platform such as cm3 content manager.
Please feel free to ask us about your specific requirement.
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Q: Is there a report that shows X or Y?
A: Probably / possibly, but if there isn't then it is a simple matter you or your web developer to extend the store reports using standard web development methods. This is the beauty of using a modular platform such as cm3 content manager. A number of standard order and product reports are provided with the store module, but if you have quite specific reporting needs it is quite possible that you will want to develop additional reports. Note that cm3 provides easy export of data in the system, so it is also possible to use spreadhsheets and external reporting tools to get the information you need.
Please feel free to ask us about your specific requirement.
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Q: What if I want a new feature developed?
A: There are two options. Firstly, if you have access to a web developer with moderate experience, they can easily extend the store in an almost limitless fashion using the development platform that underlies cm3.
Secondly, we rejoice in making our products better. If you contact us with your feature requirements, we can develop the feature for you. If it is a feature that is likely to be used by other customers, it is most likely that we will create the feature as an off the shelf feature. This approach ensures future platform support for your new feature, and the cost is sometimes subsidised by our own investment in extended development.
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Q: How do I design an attractive online store?
A: The default store templates are constructed in such a way that they can easily slot into most existing website designs. Thus, unless you want to customise the store design heavily, you don't really need to design the store separately, just "drop it in" to your website design. If you don't have a design for your website:
- We can create one for you; or
- We can put you in touch with other qualified cm3 developers; or
- There are even a number of professional off the shelf store templates available for free or cheap on the Internet these days. Feel free to ask for more info.
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Q: Can my website designer or developer handle the templates?
A: Yes, easily. The store templates are developed using industry standard methods that any qualified web developer will understand.
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