Context

IT-Commerce is a range of tools (a toolbox or a framework) ensures the management of capabilities of an online commerce website.

The way this product has been developed also enables an extension of the basic capabilities (product catalogue, basket, etc... see below) by adding a level of customization necessary to every commercial website.

Who can benefit from this solution?

The solution has been developed for several years and is now used on a range of sites in production. It is aimed at meeting the standard needs of a medium-scale online commerce website.

This solution does not come with a configuration screen and is not a ready to use site, but rather a toolbox, that requires development in order to be introduced in a ASP.NET site. For this reason it addresses to a public of integrators that will do the setting work and use the "class tools" to build a site that meets their needs.

How does IT-Commerce work?

IT-Commerce was designed to integrate into a classic, multi-layered development architecture. We can therefore see this product as the business layer of an online commerce site, the presentation layer being left to the integrator who uses the solution.

IT-Commerce also disposes of its own proprietary data model that is not planned to be modified by the integrator (today the pattern is compatible only for SQL server 2000 and 2005 ).

Technology

IT-Commerce package has first been designed in Microsoft .NET C# 1.1. Since the release of version 2.0 of the Microsoft .NET framework, IT-Commerce has been rewritten as to capitalize the advantages of this new version: usage of the generic types, anonymous methods, extension of the basic framework.

At present, IT-Commerce version 1.1, is a toolbox containing about a hundred C# classes and handling a wide range of capabilities, as wide as to meet the needs of a middle-scale online commerce website.

In charge with the development of this product is a team with large experience in the field of online commerce and in using Microsoft Commerce Server (3.0, 2000, 2002 and 2007) solution. There is a resemblance between the IT-Commerce architecture and the capabilities proposed.

Standard capabilities

In general, IT-Commerce enables the management of almost the entire needs of a classic online commerce website. Here is what we find in the 1.1 version :

• Integration with SQL Server 2000 or 2005,
• Management of the persistence via a performant proprietary framework.

Advanced catalogue management capabilities

• Organisation by category (1 product, N categories),
• Cross-selling possibility (intra or extra catalogues),
• Integration of multilingual issues,
• Product/category definition (strong typing),
• Full-text search.

Advanced shopping basket/order management capabilities

• Persistence of the shopping basket,
• List of desired or favourite products,
• Address management with multiple sending ("split" delivery),
• Search engine of the orders
• Progressive orders (non established after the purchase).

Shopping basket/orders validation pipelines

• Automation of the stocks, prices, availabilities, control tasks, etc,
• Extensibility of the pattern if needed (basis classes),
• Taking into account of the D3E (eco-participation tax).

Management of the voucher codes and of the various special offers

Cache management according to capabilities (based on ASP.NET cache)

Extensibility of the API through the inheritance of the object model

The version 2.0 of the IT-Commerce solution will bring new capabilities such as :

• A completely new data model ( particularly its alignment to ITELIOS standards),
• Extension of the persistence framework as to support other databases than SQL Server 2000 and 2005 (planned integration with Oracle and MySQL),
• Advanced configuration of the management of user roles and profiles via ASP.NET providers,
• Firs draft of IT-Commerce configuration interfaces,
  • Configuration of the software package (centralized database, etc.),
  • Back-office management tool (management of the catalogue, of the special offers and of orders).
• Optimization of the resource management (deployment of SQL scripts, error messages, etc.),
• User software license management,
• Programming API exposed in the shape of web service.

Examples of applications:

Up to this date, there are three sites in production that use the IT-Commerce toolbox, version 1.1 to manage their needs in terms of online commerce.

www.visioplaine.com

Visioplaine online shop is entirely designed with IT-Commerce. The acquisition of Neoglobe license is done via virtual products (subscription-based products). The online credit card payment and the integration of API SIPS ATOS within IT-Commerce (specific development) render the transaction secure.

www.materielpedagogique.com

First implementation, based on IT-Commerce version 1.0 then 1.1, it is a presentation site of a multi-providers product catalogue, without online payment possibilities.

www.wantuno.com

Online selling site of Web 2.0 type, with a different product to be sold each day. All the capabilities of this site have been created by using the solution IT-Commerce, version 1.1. It particularly comprises managing a one-product shopping basket, using special offers code in the shopping basket, orders history and back-office of product catalogue, orders and special offers management.