Product overview > What's new summary > New features and functionality > What's new for business users > Starter stores
Madisons starter store enhancements
The Madisons starter store contains enhanced functionality in Fix Pack 1. The new functionality encourages increased customer interactions in the storefront, with enhanced catalog browsing features and flexible checkout functionality.
Category subscriptions support
The Madisons starter store includes support for category subscriptions, enabling customers to subscribe to categories and subcategories that interest them.
Extend the brand reach with remote widgets
Extend the brand reach to social networks, blogs, affiliates, and partner sites with remote widgets. A remote widget is a portable container for store content that you and the customers can share on Web pages outside of WebSphere Commerce. By promoting the brand on these external sites, you can capture the attention of existing and new customers, and drive traffic back to the site. You can centrally control remote widget and feed content using the Management Center Marketing tool, saving you time and money.
By installing an add-on store archive on the Madisons starter store, you can explore remote widget implementation examples for e-Marketing Spots and wish lists.
Gift registry solution
Help the customers celebrate weddings, baby showers, birthdays, and anniversaries by incorporating a gift registry solution into the Madisons-based store. You can install a new sample add-on store archive on top of the Madisons starter store containing fully functional gift registry pages. Included with this solution is a set of Web services that provide seamless integration of gift registry functions on the Madisons storefront.
This gift registry solution is similar to IBM Gift Center for the Consumer direct sample store, except that the Madisons version uses Web services for the runtime Gift Center functions rather than data beans and URL commands. The Madisons version offers an additional feature: gift registry remote widgets.
Increase conversions using product rankings
The Madisons starter store includes product rankings such as best sellers and top browsed products in the storefront.
Product rankings lists can encourage customers to purchase products based on their popularity with other customers, and helps compare those products with other similar products they might be interested in. The number of products stored in the product rankings is configurable.
The Madisons starter store uses the Marketing Management Center tool to set up web activities that can display product rankings for best sellers and top browsed lists in e-Marketing Spots in the storefront.
The e-Marketing Spot is displayed with a selection of two tabs: best sellers and top browsed products. The product rankings lists are dynamically updated as the customer switches between the tabs. The product rankings are filtered per category by default. That is, for example, when a customer is browsing the Furniture category, the best sellers and top browsed products in the list are products that belong to the Furniture category.
Punch-out payments enables third-party payment service providers
The Madisons starter store includes support for punch-out payments, enabling a payment model where a third-party payment service provider processes payments for orders. Punch-out payments use the SimplePunchout plug-in and a punch-out payment service simulator, where the payment is in the form of a pop-up window during checkout.
Track recently viewed products with browsing history
The Madisons starter store includes browsing history, where customers can keep track of their recently viewed products.
Recently viewed product lists can encourage customers to purchase items they might be interested in, and helps compare those items with other similar products in the store. The number of items stored in the browsing history is configurable using Management Center, and contains navigation support when viewing many items in the browsing history. Registered customers can also view their browsing history in My Account. Browsing history can be accessed by customers in two ways: in an e-Marketing Spot displayed on the left sidebar, and through the browsing history page in My Account. Guest customers can see only their browsing history in the e-Marketing Spot, while registered customers can also view their browsing history page in My Account.
- Browse history in the Madisons starter store
The Madisons starter store includes browsing history, where customers can keep track of their recently viewed products.
- Subscribe to categories in the Madisons starter store
The Madisons starter store includes support for category subscriptions, enabling customers to subscribe to categories and subcategories that interest them.
- Product Rankings in the Madisons starter store
The Madisons starter store includes product rankings such as best sellers and top browsed products in the storefront.
- Punch-out payments in the Madisons starter store
The Madisons starter store includes support for punch-out payments, enabling a payment model where a third-party payment service provider processes payments for orders. Punch-out payments use the SimplePunchout plug-in and a punch-out payment service simulator, where the payment is in the form of a pop-up window during checkout.
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