Aurora starter store
The Aurora starter store showcases storefront features and models best practices in store development. Reduce time-to-market using the Aurora starter store as the development base.
Store features
The Aurora starter store offers an extensive set of site-level, category-level, and product-level features:| Site level features | Customize the look of the storefront. Visible from multiple pages in the store. |
| Category level features | Browse categories, search the catalog, and filter product listings. |
| Product level features | Details about a specific product in the store. |
| Search features | Features include automatic search term suggestions and spelling correction. |
| B2B-optimized features | Enhance catalog browsing, order placement, and administration tasks. |
| Accessibility features | Help users who have a physical disability, such as a visual impairment, hearing impairment, or limited mobility. |
Technology
The Aurora starter store demonstrates the latest technologies for store development and includes the following features:
- Responsive web design (RWD) patterns in catalog browsing page layouts and widgets.
- Customizable REST services to facilitate the invocation of classic controller commands and the activation of data beans.
- Ability to define store functions as self-contained widgets.
- Ability to combine Ajax and jQuery widgets to build a store page layout.
- Easier styling and customization of the site.
- Use of WebSphere Commerce services for all marketing, member, and order component interactions.
- Ability to retrieve product attributes with catalog services.
Aurora starter store feature set
Catalogs
| Feature | Aurora starter store |
|---|---|
| Master and sales catalogs | X |
| Categories, products, SKUs, bundles, kits, and dynamic kits | X |
| Predefined dynamic kits | X |
| Support for swatches for attributes, such as color and size. | X |
| Merchandising associations, defining, and descriptive attributes, list, and offer prices | X |
| Simple and advanced search | X |
| Faceted navigation | X (Solr based) |
| Tiered pricing policy (offer price) | X |
| Attachment assets for products | X |
| Product ranking | X |
| Browsing history | X |
| Ribbon ads (image overlays) for catalog entry thumbnails | X |
Marketing
| Feature | Aurora starter store |
|---|---|
| E-Marketing Spots to display promotional content, products, categories, and merchandising associations | X |
Promotions
| Feature | Aurora starter store |
|---|---|
| Promotion code entry | X |
| Product-level promotions | X |
| Order-level promotions | X |
| Shipping-level promotions | X |
| Support for personal coupon management with a coupon wallet | X |
Registration
| Feature | Aurora starter store |
|---|---|
| Support for guest and registered customers | X |
| Support for persistent sessions (Remember Me) | X |
| My Account flows | X |
| Shopper registration (for B2C only) | X |
| (Enterprise) (B2B direct)Buyer registration | (Enterprise) (B2B direct)X |
| (Enterprise) (B2B direct)Organization registration | (Enterprise) (B2B direct)X |
| (Enterprise) (B2B direct)Buyer participation in multiple organizations | (Enterprise) (B2B direct)X |
Orders
| Feature | Aurora starter store |
|---|---|
| Quick order | X |
| Recurring (scheduled) orders | X |
| Inventory availability | X |
| Shopping cart/current order and mini shopping cart | X |
| Shopping cart/current order pagination | X |
| Wish lists | X |
| Shipping charges and taxes | X |
| Order status and tracking | X |
| Multiple saved orders | X |
| Expedited orders | X |
| (Enterprise) (B2B direct)Requisition lists | (Enterprise) (B2B direct)X |
| (Enterprise) (B2B direct)Requisition list uploads from CSV files | (Enterprise) (B2B direct)X |
| (Enterprise) (B2B direct)Contract-based pricing | (Enterprise) (B2B direct)X |
| (Enterprise) (B2B direct)Contract-based shipping provider and charge type | (Enterprise) (B2B direct)X |
| (Enterprise) (B2B direct)Product entitlement | (Enterprise) (B2B direct)X |
| (Enterprise) (B2B direct)Order approval process | (Enterprise) (B2B direct)X |
Checkout
| Feature | Aurora starter store |
|---|---|
| Payments |
|
| Support for guest and registered checkout | X |
| Support for multiple shipping addresses | X |
| Quick checkout | X |
| Ship as complete or partial shipments | X |
| Shipping instructions | X |
| Multiple payments per order | X |
| Buy online, pick up in-store | X |
| Multiple entry points, with customizable integration points on the store locator page | X |
| Order status and tracking | X |
| (Enterprise) (B2B direct)Purchase order number tracking | (Enterprise) (B2B direct)X |
| (Enterprise) (B2B direct)Credit line payment method | (Enterprise) (B2B direct)X |
Store locator
| Feature | Aurora starter store |
|---|---|
| Multiple entry points, with customizable integration points on the store locator page | X |
(Enterprise) (B2B direct)
Organization and buyer administration
| Feature | Aurora starter store |
|---|---|
| (Enterprise) Buyer organization administration | (Enterprise) X |
| (Enterprise) Buyer administration | (Enterprise) X |
| (Enterprise) Buyer registration and order approvals | (Enterprise) X |
(Enterprise) Buy on behalf offeature for Buyer Administrators | (Enterprise) X |
Technology
| Feature | Aurora starter store |
|---|---|
| Support for Web 2.0 technologies, with Ajax and jQuery widgets | X |
| Support for changing product attributes directly on the shopping cart/current order, such as color or fabric changes | X |
| Progress indicators on store pages, which are displayed while operations are in progress, for example, when an Ajax request is triggered. | X |
| Double-click handling on the client-side using JavaScript on store pages that benefit from blocking multiple requests. For example, adding items to the shopping cart/current order, or completing an order at the end of the checkout process | X |
| Support for IBM Digital Analytics, formerly known as Coremetrics Analytics | X |
| Support for SMS order status notifications and marketing messages | X |
| Search engine optimization | X |
| Globalization support for stores that display bidirectional languages. The store uses a locale-specific common1_1iw_iL.css Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) file where the directionality attribute can be specified | X |
| Fully translated into multiple languages to support globalization | X 13 languages |
| Support for accessibility standards, enabling persons with disabilities to interact with web content by using assistive technologies | X |
| Feeds from e-Marketing Spots and wish lists | X |
| Support for IBM Tealeaf Customer Experience | X |
| Click-to-edit function in store preview | X
Added support for Commerce Composer layouts and widgets |
| Tolerance for tablet devices | X |
Page design
| Feature | Aurora starter store |
|---|---|
| Support for designing and managing store page layouts with the Commerce Composer tool | X |
| Support for using responsive web design (RWD) techniques for store page layouts and widgets | X |
Aurora sales catalogs
The Aurora starter store uses sales catalogs to differentiate the catalog data in the B2C and B2B versions of the store.- If you publish Aurora as a B2C store, the default catalog is set to a sales catalog called Aurora B2B sample data. This sales catalog has a housewares theme, with departments that include Apparel, Electronics, Grocery, Health, Home and Furnishing, and Newsletters and Magazines.
- If you publish Aurora as a B2B store, the default catalog is set to a sales catalog called Aurora B2B sample data. This sales catalog has a hardware theme, with departments that include Fasteners and Lighting.
The default catalog setting is controlled in the Catalogs tool in Management Center. For more information, see Sales catalogs and Default catalog.
Mobile store pages
The availability of store pages that are designed for viewing on mobile devices depends on if you publish the Aurora starter store as a B2C or B2B store.
| Business model | Availability of mobile store pages |
|---|---|
| B2C |
|
B2B |
|
Limitations
- The following features are not demonstrated in the Aurora starter store:
- Gift registry (Gift Center)
- Specific social commerce features including public-facing user profiles, blogs, photo galleries, and social bookmarks.
- Bidirectional language support limitations:
- There are known limitations with the Internet Explorer 7 browser when you view the Aurora store in languages that are written from right to left. . Limitations include misalignment or exclusion of certain page elements throughout the store.
- The Aurora starter store contains default behaviors that might affect storefront performance. Changing the default behaviors might improve the storefront performance. For more information about limitations, see ../refs/rsmaurora_tsperformance.htm.
- The video/mp4 MIME type must be enabled in the WebSphere Application Server configuration. This enablement resolves potential video playback issues for Firefox and Internet Explorer 9+. See MIME type collection.
- The mini shopping cart displays a maximum of 50 items by default. If a customer reaches 50 items and adds more items to the shopping cart, the mini shopping cart does not display the new additions. We must increase the default value in the mini cart JSP file fragment when we are expecting typical shopping cart sizes to exceed 50 items.