Mainstreet Commerce – Application Development Case Study
EXPERIENCE WITH MAINSTREET COMMERCE SDK:
Mainstreet Commerce provides the following major components which facilitate developing complete eCommerce solutions quickly.
Mainstreet Commerce BusinessFlow
Mainstreet Commerce BusinessFlow, being a flexible web interface to the database, allows configuring products, categories, catalogs, etc. BusinessFlow allows creating and managing inventory, customers and orders. Users can configure any number of custom attributes (which can be string, numeric, range, XML, attachments and multi-values) for products, orders, customers, invoices, etc. It is a back office which can be configured to fit to the workflow of a company.
Mainstreet Commerce SDK
Mainstreet Commerce SDK provides a standard collection of class library that allows easy interaction with the database. Mainstreet SDK provides a flexible way of querying products, categories, orders, etc. It also allows calling custom created stored procedures.
VB.NET Web-user controls
Mainstreet Commerce web user controls are very generic controls which allow fast development of eCommerce websites by simply dragging into web-pages and setting minimal properties or writing minimal code. These web user controls have enough events, handling which will allow controlling the display as desired.
Dot Com Infoway has utilized Mainstreet Commerce SDK and user controls to develop/maintain more than 12 websites. We provide basic eCommerce features such as.
Dot Com Infoway has utilized Mainstreet Commerce SDK and user controls to develop/maintain more than 12 websites. We provide basic eCommerce features such as.
- Listing categories and sub-categories
- Product listing and searching
- Viewing details (product name, code, price, description and custom attributes) of a selected product with its images
- Adding products to Cart
- Listing and managing Cart
- Checkout selected products by providing address, shipping and payment details
- Maintaining order history and details of each order and their status
We also provide additional/advanced features such as
- Listing products with promotional offers (Promotional offers can be configured for a specific period of time)
- Product listing by attributes such as Brand name, Functionality, Manufacturer etc. and by Categories
- Listing newly arrived products
- Configuring and managing Layout, Kit, Master-Child and Individual items
- Configuring products for Cross-Selling and Up-Selling
- Configure products with custom associations
- Providing Comparison Matrix that compares various attributes of products lying under same category or any customized group
- Complex search using multiple attributes, keywords and category
- Configuring and managing multiple user types and access levels
- Configuring and managing multiple catalogs so that for different websites/situations, you can list a different collection of products. For example, you can configure a special collection of products only displayed for members.
- Configuring and managing multiple images of a product
- Maintaining wish list
We have developed websites that get integrated with other third party components or services that utilize details fetched using Mainstreet Commerce SDK. Following are the components we have worked on
Integration with eBay SDK
Mainstreet Commerce BusinessFlow can provide seamless integration with eBay by automatically uploading inventory to it. We have utilized eBay SDK to retrieve eBay Feedback score.
Interface with Mercado bFIRST
Mercado bFIRST provides intelligent searching and intuitive navigation. Each product configured in Mainstreet Commerce BusinessFlow is also maintained at Mercado database. Our application will utilize all advanced search and navigation features of Mercado bFIRST – right from the Checkout process, it starts referring to same products configured in BusinessFlow.
FlashMap, Google Map, Yahoo Map and MapQuest integration
Geographically locating stores have become a demanding process. To increase customer’s physical accessibility, we have configured all store locations’ addresses in Mainstreet Commerce BusinessFlow, querying Yahoo Map & Google Map API to get latitude/longitude and finally plot in FlashMap, Google Map, Yahoo Map and MapQuest
Google and Coremetrics Web Analytics
Web analytics is a solution for understanding visitors’ behaviors. It helps to find which page turned a visitor into a customer. We have good experience in integrating a website with Google and Coremetric analytics. Mainstreet Commerce provides a web user control specially designed for Google Analytics which can be readily used in a website.
Dynamic Imaging feature from Scene7
We can place all product images at Scene7 and display them on our website. Scene7 provides us with a flash component that allows displaying image in a way that attracts the customer. It allows zoom in/out and view same products in other available colors, etc.
Rewriting URL using ISAPI-Rewrite
The URLs in the address bar that lead to a page in the website can be made readable irrespective of the actual location or the name of the webpage itself. This is mostly done to optimize a website for search engines. This brings your site in top search engine positions while searching for a product that is available at your website. We also provide SEO enabled website development by utilizing Mainstreet Commerce BusinessFlow product configurations appropriately.