Detailed Features List

AbleCommerce 7 Features

AbleCommerce is a complete shopping cart system designed to assist merchants with day-to-day management of customers, orders and the catalog system. Customers will find your online store easy to use and navigate with a variety of features that will captivate their interest. AbleCommerce offers a one-page checkout system which is proven to retain more customers during the ordering process. The merchant, small or large, will benefit from a certified PCI ecommerce solution. With over 15 years of ecommerce shopping cart design experience, AbleCommerce will give you the tools necessary to run your online store like a pro.

Top Features

These are some of the best overall features.

For the merchant...

• A complete solution including catalog and product management system, order, payment, and shipping management system, and customer management.
• All store administration is online using the latest versions of IE and Firefox. Create as many AbleCommerce administrators as you need.
• Intuitive administration interface with on screen help and the Merchant Dashboard where you can view popular sales reports, order statuses, totals for the day, etc.
• Unlimited store categories, products, and web pages in store. Performance tested. Unsurpassed product reliability.
• Industry Leading SEO (URL Re-writing)
• Free DataPort tool used for importing, updating, and data transfer.

Secure Visa/MC PCI certified solution

AbleCommerce software is officially PCI certified under the new, and stricter, PA-DSS v1.2 standards. AbleCommerce is one of the first shopping cart software products to be certified under the new PA-DSS certification process.

PA-DSS is the Council-managed program formerly under the supervision of the Visa Inc. program known as the Payment Application Best Practices (PABP).

For the developer...

• You can design custom ASP.NET themes for your store.
• Completely customize the layout and appearance of any page using the scriptlets framework.
• With the power of nVelocity, include dynamic variables in your page html.
• Use of ASP.NET themes means you can have a design-time preview in Visual Studio.
• Harness the power of the ComponentArt Web.UI suite within your store.
• Access a full library of controls for inserting dynamic content into your pages.

Ease of Installation

AbleCommerce can be installed in a shared hosting environment, on a virtual private server or dedicated server.

Upload the files to a web-accessible folder and run the web-based installation. Three easy steps to get started:

1. Read and accept the license agreement.
2. Enter a license or evaluation and choose your database type.
3. Enter basic information about your store and choose some import options. Done!

System Requirements

• A working website that supports Asp.Net applications in either .Net 2.0 or .Net 3.5 versions.
• A database that supports MSSQL 2005/2008 or SQL 2000. SQL 2005 Express is an included database with AbleCommerce, it is the free edition of SQL 2005. The Express version requires additional software to be installed.
• AJAX 1.0 Extensions. This is only required download if you have installed .Net 2.0. It is included with .Net Framework, version 3.5.
• Runs in both full and medium trust environments. Medium trust requires WebPermissions.
• Runs in clustered or load-balanced environments. Additional licenses required.

The Merchant Dashboard

The starting page for merchant administration.

• Full text search through categories, products, web pages, links, digital goods, warehouses, and users.
• Product Popularity bar graph showing sales and user views.
• Bar graph showing Sales over Time for last 7 days and past 6 months
• Bar graph showing Page Views within last 24 hours, last hour, by day, and by month.
• Popular Categories bar graph with user views of the most popular categories.
• Order summary with number of today's orders, last 30 day's, and last 90 day's orders.
• Type in an order number and use the quick search form.
• Current User status shows your last login and the last time password was changed.
• My Alerts will automatically show you any problems in your store and
• Latest News feed from AbleCommerce to inform you about product updates and current events.
• Build-in digital clock control can display the store time zone with your local time zone.
• Easily customize the dashboard layout, add new controls, and create your own Admin theme.

Storefront Features

• Your customers will enjoy a variety of features in your store.
• A customer My Account system for individual management of orders, wishlists, subscriptions, product reviews, digital goods, mailing lists, preferred currency display.
• An Address Book to manage a customer's billing information and add unlimited shipping addresses.
• One-page checkout system to make the checkout experience as simple as possible for the customer.
• The traditional step-by-step checkout system can easily be enabled.
Mini-basket and a full shopping cart page.
• Use the PRODUCT FINDER for an 'Amazon style' shopping experience. Narrow search results by Category, Manufacturer, or Keyword. Great for large catalogs!
• Featured Products, Top Sellers, Related Products, and Recently Viewed items are all built-in controls that you can use as-is or modify.
• Sort catalog items by name, price, manufacturer, and featured.
• A Full Search catalog where all product information is used to find more results for your search term. Enable Full Text Search capabilities to improve response times for searches on your product catalog. (Supported by MS SQL 2005+)
• Use the Advanced Search page to enter specific criteria like price ranges or a product SKU. Search by category or manufacturer using keywords.
• Customer can change the display of all prices to be in their preferred currency.
• Rate a product and write a review.
• Create new Wishlists and send them to your friends and family. Wishlists can be password protected.
• For return customers, use the Reorder feature to create a duplicate of a prior order.
• Send an email to a friend with a link and a personal message.
• Use Google Checkout, Paypal Express, standard Paypal, and any other payment methods setup by the merchant like credit card, electronic check, purchase order, etc.
• Offer gift certificates, gift wrapping services, and the ability to place one order and have it shipped to multiple recipients.
• Make adjustments to a new order and the customer can return to your store to make additional payments after the order is placed.
• Shipping estimator calculates shipping rates for an individual product or the shopping cart.

Day-to-day Management

We know this is where you spend your time. We make processing orders easy!

• Order Management: View all orders from a single page that shows the payment status, shipment status, and overall order status. Use sort criteria and advanced searching to find specific orders.
  • Post-order processing of credit card payments. Capture funds from a pending authorization, enter a credit card payment, process refunds or partial payments.
  • PayPal and Google Checkout have bi-directional communication with AbleCommerce so orders are updated regardless of where the transactions are being processed.
  • Create new shipments or edit existing ones. Split a shipment, move products to different shipments, and merge shipments together.
  • Enter tracking numbers when you ship orders. Your customer can be sent an email when partial shipment or full shipments take place. They can view their tracking details through the customer account system.
  • Communicate with your customer by using the Order Note feature. Simply enter a comment and an email is automatically sent to the customer. Likewise, the customer can enter a note which would notify the merchant by email.
  • Dealing with order changes is easy when you can add, change, or delete items and shipments. Just recalculate shipping and taxes after making changes and send your customer a new invoice.
  • If a new balance is due, have your customer return to the store to make a payment on the revised order. If a credit is due, process a partial refund from your Payments page.
• Select multiple orders to batch process payments, ship, cancel, or update order statuses.
• Batch print multiple invoices, packing slips, and pull sheets for inventory selection.
• The merchant can place new orders on behalf of the customer. Works great for customers who call in to place an order.
• Image and Asset Management: Upload files directly to the server. Create new folders to keep your images organized. Use the automatic resize tool to create icons, thumbnails, and regular sized images from one large original.
• Manage your inventory levels from one page. Adjust in-stock and low-stock for each product in one simple update.
• View all gift certificates that are created when a customer orders one. You can add new gift certificates, edit existing ones, activate, deactivate, and view available balances. Each gift certificate shows detailed information about the associated orders.
• Subscriptions plans can be managed showing orders used to create the subscription.
• Review and approve product ratings and reviews. Delete and edit as needed. The merchant can configure who is able to submit a product review and whether or not it needs to be approved before listed with the product.
• Batch Editing is a powerful feature that allows you to search through products and make multiple updates to any product field from one page.
• A digital good can be delivered automatically when the order is paid, or you can manually activate the download and fulfill license keys.

Catalog System

Organization of the category and sub-categories, products, webpages, and links.

• Unlimited categories, sub-categories, products, web pages, and links. Basic content management system built-in.
• Unlimited levels of sub-categories for large product catalogs.
• Products may be assigned to more than one category for easier maintenance and better product visibility in the storefront.
• Products, categories, and webpages can be sorted, moved, and copied for quick organization and creation of your catalog.
• Categories, Products, Webpages, and Links can be "hidden" so they are only available from a direct link, or "locked" so they are inaccessible for maintenance purposes.
• Use product templates to create custom fields that can be applied to one or many products.
  • The Merchant fields of a product template can be used when custom data must be entered for a product when it is added to the catalog.
  • Customer fields can be used when you want to add a special input for the customer to enter some custom data. (e.g. personalization) You can add a text box, text area, drop down list, multiple list, radio, and checkbox.
• Enable Catalog Mode to hide the "add to cart" button for all products, so customers can browse your catalog but are unable to purchase directly online.
• You can enable Inventory Management for your store and display the number of items available. When stock is depleted, the out of stock message is displayed.
• Manage and create digital goods. Upload the file that will be associated to the digital good, and assign the digital good to a product for purchase. You can customize each digital good.
  • Download policy - set the number of downloads, timeout, and when the file becomes activated for the customer.
  • Licensing - create and assign license agreements (set when required)
  • Readme - create and assign readme's (displays with the download)
  • Serial Keys - use the built-in license module or plug-in your own.
  • Email Notifications - create and assign activation and fulfillment emails (included).
• Full text searches within your entire catalog's back end system.

Basic Product Features

Many product options for the merchant.

• Product name, summary, description, and detailed description. The product's name, price, and summary would typically be shown on a category page. The description is shown on the product page, and detailed description page is optional.
• Enter basic information for price, retail, SKU (item #), and cost of goods, manufacturer, vendor, and part number.
• Enter product weight and dimension for shipping. Select the warehouse that the product will be shipped from.
• Select the tax code which determines if the product will be taxed according to the rules you setup. Supports multiple-level taxation (Canada) and VAT.
You can disable the purchase of a product, hide the price until a customer clicks to view it, or create a product with a variable price where the customer enters the product price within a range you specify.
• Assign a gift wrap group and customer can select from the gift wrap options you setup.
• Check a box to turn the product into a gift certificate. When purchased, a unique gift certificate serial number will be created automatically. Used with the variable price feature, you can create gift certificates with a value that the customer specifies.
• Upload a large product image and let the image re-size tool automatically create three different size product images for the mini-basket, category page, and product page.
• Enter additional keywords for a product and your customer's search could include these terms.
• Turn on inventory control for individual products and track stock. Email notifications can be sent when the low stock threshold is met. Allow purchase of an
• out-of-stock product for back orders.
Set a minimum and/or maximum quantity purchase requirement. Great for business to business.
• Check a box to create a featured product. It will automatically display and rotate with other featured products.
• HTML Head section allows you to include meta keywords, meta descriptions, and javascript. This is available on all pages for excellent SEO rankings.

Advanced Product Features

Have an edge over the competition.

• Options and Variants: Add product options like color, size, style with choices for each. (e.g. Colors: red, white, blue) You can assign a small and large image to each option choice. When the customer clicks on the small image, the corresponding larger images displays.
  Options can also be managed as variants. Variants are all the possible combinations of a product with options. You can enter a unique SKU for each variant (e.g. RED-SMALL). You can set the values for price and weight specifically for each variant if it is different from the default calculated value. Inventory tracking is available for variants or the product.
• Product Kitting: Select from five different types of components for your kit. Add products to each component to create a kit.
  • Included-Shown - Products added to this component type are required to be in the kit and shown to the customer.
  • Included-Hidden - Products added to this component type are required to be in the kit but are shown only to the merchant.
  • Drop Down - These products will be displayed as a drop down list where the customer selects one, or none.
  • Radio Button - These products will be displayed in a list with a radio choice next to each. The customer can select one, or none.
  • Checkbox - These products will be displayed in a list with a checkbox next to each. The customer can select any number of products in the list, or none.
• Choose a kit style of "Bundle" or "Itemized" to indicate how the kit will be displayed. You can choose to show a kit as a single line item in the basket and invoice pages (bundle) or you can choose to itemize the contents.
• Use Pricing Rules to create special pricing for a product based on dates. (e.g. Product on special through end of month)
You can also use pricing rules to create multiple price points for user groups. (e.g. only members of the premier customer group get special product prices)
Subscription Plans: Turn a product into a subscription plan. Choose the expiration in days or months from initial plan start. Setup the billing option for a one-time charge, recurring charge, or initial charge with a recurring charge.
You can also select a "group" that the customer will be assigned to at purchase. When the subscription expires, the customer will be automatically removed from the group. For recurring billing options, you need to use a payment gateway that supports recurring billing transactions.
• Deliver all types and sizes of digital goods. Assign one digital good to a product or use options to assign different versions of digital goods to a single product. Organize your digital files into a directory structure for easy management.
• Associate products to other products so a customer will be presented with additional purchase ideas at checkout. For example, you could offer matching shoes with a dress, or recommend accessories for a main purchase.
• Associate categories to a product so customers are able to find your items through different "shop by..." options. This way, the merchant has one product to maintain and it can be shown in any number of categories.
• Cross-selling scenarios can be easily created by assigning related products to other products. When this happens, the customer is presented with some additional purchase ideas like, you may also be interested in...
• Offer incentives to purchase more by using volume discounts. You can setup discounts by quantity purchased or by value purchased. Create a discount matrix based on an amount off or a percentage off. You can even make the discount available to preferred customers by making it group specific.

Setup and Configuration

There are many store features that you control.

Configuration of the Store - These are the global settings that impact the entire store.

• Store name and internet address (URL) can be modified at any time.
• Site Disclaimer message can
• Works with SSL 3.0/2.0, medium and full trust environments.
• Adjust your next order number and change the incremental value.
• Enforce minimum and maximum order totals before customer is allowed to checkout.
• Enable Catalog mode which allows customers to preview your store but removes the ability for them to purchase online.
• Enable Full Text Search to improve the response times for searches performed on your product catalog.
• Set units of weight and measurement.
• Set the time zone for your online store.
• Enable inventory management for the store and customize the "In-Stock" and "Out-of-Stock" messages. You can still enable or disable inventory for individual products.
• Select a discount mode to determine how discounts that are assigned to categories will behave when multiplies of items from the category are purchased.
• Enforce a minimum search length to ensure that customers are not able to enter invalid search terms that may impact the performance of your website.

Maintenance - These are scheduled events that run automatically.

• Remove anonymous users and their abandoned baskets from the database. You decide how long to save the information.
• If you use affiliates, then you can select how long to save anonymous users with an affiliate association.
• Choose the number of days before a new gift certificate will expire. Or, set them to never expire.
• For scheduled or unexpected maintenance, you can immediate close your store and display a custom message to let customers know the store is temporarily unavailable.

Page Tracking and Logs

• Enable tracking of page views. You can see statistics about what categories and products are popular. It will also enable customers to see their recently viewed items. Select number of days to maintain history and archive options.
• Add Google Analytics using our built-in widget and your Google ID. You can even enable ecommerce and page tracking.
• AbleCommerce automatically records any program errors or email issues. You can view the online error logs to make sure your store is running smoothly.

Security - Configuration of security settings

• Customize the requirements for you password policies. Merchants and customers have separate password policies. Set the minimum length, required characters, length of password history, maximum age, maximum login failures, and the lockout period. You can also require CAPTCHA on the login page to prevent brute force attacks.
• Sensitive account data is encrypted within the database using a secret key. Without this key, the data cannot be read. You should change your key on a regular schedule, at least once per year but every 90 days is recommended. Easily change, backup and restore encryption keys.
• You can decide to store credit card numbers or not. Of course, the most secure option is to never save credit card information, but if you don't use a real time payment gateway, you can retain the details for post-order processing. If you choose to store credit card data, only certain user groups will be allowed to view the sensitive account data. All credit card information is encrypted in the database and can only be viewed over SSL.
• Specify your own filters when files are uploaded through the merchant menus. Valid file types can be specified for your Images, Themes, and Digital Goods, so uploading of malicious files can be prevented.
• Security audit log shows all successful login attempts, unsuccessful login attempts, audit log views, password changes, and admin user views of customer credit card number. This information is retained for a minimum of 3 months. Only super users may view this log.
• Any user account can be disabled for fraudulent activity with the option of banning the IP.
• Orders can be marked as fraud for later investigation.
• Firewall allows you to block IP's, and IP ranges to help prevent fraud or to stop unwanted search engines from visiting your store. From the orders page there is a button that allows you to add to this list with one click. IP's of all users are tracked.

Regions - define geographical areas for calculation of tax and shipping

• Countries - AbleCommerce can be installed with all countries or just USA and Canada. Countries are used to determine what locations you are going to sell or ship to. When a country is added, it will be listed in all the address forms throughout AbleCommerce. Customers from those countries will be able to place orders in your store.
• Provinces - A few countries, like USA, Canada, and Mexico, have been pre-populated with states or provinces. You can add your own states or provinces for each country that you ship to. This can make it more convenient for your customers to select from a list rather than typing the information into a form.
• Address Formatting - A country will also have an Address Format option which can be changed to display the correct address formatting on your invoices and receipts. This feature allows you to easily comply with addressing standards.
• Zones - A zone is a defined geographical area using countries, provinces, or postal codes. The zones can then be selected when you create shipping methods, setup shipping services such as UPS, FedEx, USPS, etc., or define your tax rules. When you assign a shipping method or tax to a zone, the calculation will only appear for customers who are using an address within that zone.

Shipping - setup shipping with an integrated service, create your own shipping methods, or use a combination of both.

• Built-in shipping service integrations include UPS OnLine® Tools, FedEx, U.S. Postal Service, DHL International, CanadaPost, and AustraliaPost
• Add custom shipping methods based on a fixed rate, or vary depending on order weight, order cost, or quantity purchased.
• Include a separate handling fee that you can combine into the shipping cost or invoice separately.
• With user groups, you can assign shipping methods so they are only available to specific users.
• Using zones, you can create shipping methods that apply to specific areas. Works great if you require certain types of shipping for specific areas. e.g. perishable foods, plants and animals, etc.
• For each shipping method, you can also define whether or not the shipping amount is taxable.
• Merchants can set a minimum purchase and easily offer free shipping options when the purchase amount is at or over the amount specified.

The Tax Settings menu is where the merchant selects from various tax display options. You can choose tax display options for both the catalog and also the basket and invoices. Taxes can be displayed separately or included in the product price (VAT requirement). You can also display a separate column that shows the tax rate for each item.

Create as many tax rules as needed. A tax rule contains information about the rate of taxation, rounding rule, and to what addresses (zones) it will apply to. Select the address that is taxed (billing or shipping) and apply a group filter if needed.

You assign each tax rule to tax code. Then, the tax code gets applied to the product. This allows the product to have more than one tax rule applied.

Compounding (tax on tax) is also supported for our Canadian neighbors.

Email Templates

Email system supports standard SMTP server, ports, SSL, and server authentication.

AbleCommerce comes with fifteen pre-configured email templates. Some emails are sent automatically when certain event occur, like a paid order. Other emails are sent automatically with features like electronic software delivery, mailing lists, and verification processes. You can add as many new email templates as needed, and they can all be customized.

• Customer Order Notification
• Product Review Verification
• Lost Password
• Email list signup with verification
• Low Inventory
• Email list signup notification only
• Vendor Notification
• ESD file is activated
• Gift Certificate Validated
• ESD file is fulfilled
• Order Shipped Partial
• Note Added by customer
• Order Shipped
• Note added by merchant

Each email template includes a name, From address(es), To address(es), BCC address(es), and subject. The content of your email is an html file that you can edit within AbleCommerce or with any standard html editor.

AbleCommerce incorporates the NVelocity template engine. Using NVelocity syntax, you can substitute dynamic information in your email messages when they are generated. This includes Variable Substitution, Standard Variables, .Net Syntax and Variable Formatting, Conditional Statements, and Looping.

You can also use Triggers to specify when an email should be sent. Available triggers are listed below:

In AbleCommerce, warehouses are used to create shipping origins. You can create any number of warehouses, virtual or real, and assign products and shipping methods. This association allows the merchant to provide product specific shipping methods. For example, you could create a virtual warehouse for oversized products and then assign specific shipping methods to accommodate the special shipping requirements. Warehouses, in a real physical location, can also be added for businesses that use drop-shipping.

Marketing Features

Increase sales and visibility.

Coupons - there are three types of coupons.

Order coupons - Provide a discount on the entire order. (e.g. 10% off the entire order)
Product coupons - Provide a discount for a specific line item. (e.g. Buy one get one free)
Shipping coupon - Provides a discount on shipping charges for an order. (e.g. Free UPS ground shipping)

• The coupon discount can either be a fixed value or a percent off. (e.g. $10.00 off or 20% off)
• Set a maximum amount the coupon is good for. (e.g. Save up to $100 dollars)
• Set a minimum order value for the coupon to be valid. (e.g. Purchase $200 or more, and get 20% off)
• You can specify a start date and an end date of when the coupon is valid.
• You can set the maximum number of uses for a single customer or all customers. For example, an individual customer may only use the coupon once, or, only the first 50 customers may use this coupon.
• Choose whether to allow coupons to combined with other coupons.
• Specify which products the coupon applies to. A coupon can be valid for all products, selected products, or be excluded from products.
• A coupon can be applied to a user group so only selected users are allowed to use the coupon.
• For shipping coupons, you can specify which shipping methods the shipping coupon is valid for.
• View the Coupon Usage report to see which coupons are used the most.

Discounts - there are two types of discounts

Setup volume discounts by quantity of line items or by total price of line items.

Specify multiple discount levels, creating your own custom discount matrix. See example:

Buy 1 to 10 get 10% off
Buy 11 to 20 get 15% off
Buy 21 or more, and get $50 off your order

• Discounts can be a fixed amount off or a percentage of the total.
• Create a global (store-wide) discount which affects all products in the store.
• The discounts you create can be applied to products or categories. If you apply the discount to a top-level category, it will be applied to all sub-categories and products within it.
• Discounts can be applied to selected products which override the higher level category discounts. This allows you to remove or apply a different discount structure.
• Discounts can be assigned to user groups so that only selected customers will be able to see the discount.
• Available discounts are automatically displayed on the product page to encourage the customer to purchase more.

Affiliates

• Reward partners or affiliated web sites for referring business to your store.
• Commission rate can either be a fixed amount or a percent of the products purchased. (e.g. $10.00 for each sale or 15% of the product total)
• You can specify a referral period. (e.g. 365 days would give commissions on all sales made by the customer for 1 year)
• Affiliate report shows sales, and commission amounts due to the affiliate.
• Built-in support for third party affiliate system, AffiliateWiz.
• Tracks affiliates name, address, country, city, state, zip, phone number, mobile number, fax number, email address, and web site address for easier management.

Mailing lists

• Maintain multiple email lists to encourage shoppers to return to your store or to provide helpful updates on existing products and services.
• Mail list name and description are displayed during checkout or on the customer account page.
• Maintain public and private email lists. A list that is marked private will not be shown anywhere in the store, and a public list automatically appears when created.
• Choose signup rules to require a user to opt-in by replying to an email, or just sends them a confirmation thanking them for joining.
• You can customize the signup emails for each mail list if desired.
• Tracks the last date and time an email was sent to the list.
• Easy user maintenance allows you to quickly find, add, or remove users from a list.
• Export the list in CSV format.

Product Feeds - there are three product feeds built-in.

• Google Base Feed - create and upload product feeds to Google Base.
• Yahoo! Shopping Feed - create and upload products using Yahoo!'s Product Submit.
• Shopping.com Feed - create and upload products to Shopping.com

One click creation and upload of products to supported feeds.

Integrated XML site map for Google and Yahoo submission. Increase these powerful search engines’ awareness of your site!

Sell a great product? Then turn on product reviews and let your customers tell about it. Product reviews can be monitored and approval required before they are displayed in your store.

Do you have some extra inventory you would like to move? Make a product featured to display it in the Featured Products section.

You can configure the statuses that can be assigned to orders in your store. Statuses can be assigned to orders automatically through the use of event rules, or they can be assigned manually. Create custom order statuses to streamline your fulfillment processes.

User Management

Search for users by last name, company name, email address, and by the user group their a member of. Wild cards *, and ? are supported in the search, and you can also click on a letter from A to Z to retrieve the corresponding results.
Every user has a profile which can be viewed and modified by the merchant administrator.

Each user has the following information displayed on the user profile page:

• Username/Email address, and Group membership. Customers can modify their email address and password through their own account pages.
• Billing Address or a primary address. This can also be modified by the merchant or customer.
• If a customer has items in his/her basket, these will be shown to the merchant.
• A merchant can place an order on behalf of the customer. Great feature for customers who call in to place orders!
• View the customer's Order History, Purchase History, and Page Views.
• Disable user accounts, change passwords, or require a password change on login.

Create groups to manage customers and setup administrators of the AbleCommerce system.

Pre-defined Administrator groups (roles)

• Super Users can view/edit all aspects of the store including the security settings, and audit log required for PABP.
• Admins can view/edit all aspects of the store except the security settings, and audit log.
• Jr. Admins can view/edit all aspects of the store as the Admin can but are unable to assign other users as Admin users.
• Order Admins can only access the order fulfillment areas.
• Catalog Admins can only access the edit/add categories, and products.
• Website Admins can only access the layout, and themes areas of the administration.
• Report Admins are only allowed to view the reports.

The list above are suggested roles for AbleCommerce administrators. You can create as many groups as needed with the ability to define permissions on a page by page basis.

There are many features in AbleCommerce that can be associated to user groups so that selected members will be the only ones who can use certain coupons, qualify for volume discounts, have special pricing, see special shipping options, payment methods, or tax rules.

With subscriptions, you can assign a user group to a subscription. When the subscription is purchased, the customer is automatically added to the user group. The automatic maintenance will remove users from groups when the subscription is expired.

Add Vendors to the system and associate products to each vendor. When an item is sold from an associated vendor, an email notification of the items sold and shipping information is sent automatically to the vendor.

Easily manage your vendors and products with the Find and Assign Products feature.

Add Manufacturer name and associate products to a manufacturer. This gives your customers the option to search products by Manufacturer or locate them with the Product Finder (Amazon-style) search page.

Easily manage your manufacturers and products with the Find and Assign Products feature.

Reporting

Daily sales report with easy to use next day and previous day buttons. Includes order number, sales amount, shipping cost, tax amount, discounts, and coupons. Totals for all fields shown at the bottom of the page.

Monthly sales report with easy to use next month and previous month buttons. Includes order number, sales amount, shipping cost, tax amount, discounts, and coupons. Totals for all fields shown at the bottom of the page. A graph at the top of the page shows sales by day for the month.

Product sales by time period showing product name, quantity sold, and sales total. Sort by any field, ascending or descending.

Product popularity by total number of customer views.

Category popularity by total number of customer views.

Product low inventory report showing product which are at or below the reorder level. Update reorder level and quantity in stock directly from the report page.

Top customers report showing sales volume, and number of orders placed.

Abandoned basket report by month with link to view the basket details. If the customer entered their billing information there is an opportunity to contact the customer to save the sale or identify the reason.

Browser popularity by page views with pie graph. If you are making major changes to the store layout it's important to test with the browsers your customers are likely to be using.

Sales summary by month from affiliate referrals. Includes commissions total for each affiliate.

Sales order details by month from affiliate referrals showing all affiliates or selected affiliate.

Coupon usage report shows coupon name, number of orders, and total of orders that have used the coupon. Quickly track marketing efforts that have included coupons as incentive to revisit.

Who's online report shows customers that are actively browsing the store. Links to the customer profile page where you can view their current basket contents, and more.

Tax summary report, itemized by tax rule with selectable time periods.

The Audit Log records all administrator activies like logins, successful and failed, password changes, etc. User's email and IP address is recorded. Only a super user can view the audit log.

Themes and Customizing Skins

Upload your store logo and it will automatically replace the default logo in any theme you are using.

When you upload an image, you have the option to automatically generate the icon, thumbnail, and standard image sizes. Specify the default sizes for the automatic generation of images in your store.

The Product Image Lookup by SKU feature is a great time saver for large product catalogs. When this option is enabled, product image URLs are automatically calculated using the SKU so you don't have to manually assign images to each product. Through the use of naming conventions, the images will automatically associated to the matching product.

Edit any page with ease using the on-screen editor. Change the header, footer, or instantly change the entire layout of the page. Add sidebars that can display category lists, mini-basket, recently viewed, featured, and popular products. Just browse to any store page as an administrator and you will find the editing controls at the bottom. Easily make changes without ever leaving the page!

Select from fifteen built-in store themes, professionally designed.

Copy your favorite theme with Themes Manager and customize your style even more. Upload and manage images, skin files, css, and html files.

You can change the theme in use by your store at any time. You can have any number of themes installed. Create holiday or seasonal themes and change them instantly.

Scriptlets are simply html files that are used to display pages throughout the store. They are broken down into four types.

• The Layout Scriptlets are used to control the overall layout of your page. Most Layout Scriptlets can be used with any AbleCommerce display page, however, there are a few Layout Scriptlets that are designed specifically for certain pages of the store.
• The Header and Footer Scriptlets are used to define the beginning and ending of your pages.
• The Sidebar Scriptlets are used to define the left and right columns of your display pages. They can be used together or separately.
• The Content Scriptlets are used to output the main part of a display page. The content scriptlets serve many purposes.

If you customize a scriptlet, AbleCommerce will automatically make a copy and place the html file in a \custom\ folder on the hard disk.

Almost all of the scriptlets use control objects. These controls are simply display features that can be used within the scriptlets. For example, there is a One Page Checkout control, a Shipping Estimate control, a Featured Items control and many, many more.

Every scriptlet is documented with a description of it's purpose, a screenshot, the scriptlet location, where it appears in the store, and the control(s) used.

Many of the control objects also have properties that can be used to further customize your store. A few examples are allowing anonymous checkout, handling orders with failed transactions, adding a shipping message field, using the traditional style checkout, and much more. The latest control objects and their properties are displayed through AbleCommerce Help > ConLib menu.

International Features

Add as many currency display options in your store as needed. The customer can select from the currency options available and display all prices in the customer's own monetary system with prices converted.

The store will have it's own default, or base, currency in which all transactions and prices will be displayed in the merchant administration.

For each currency, you can adjust the exchange rate manually or use one of the built-in automatic exchange rate services for free.
Foreign exchange providers:

• Bank of Canada
• European Central bank

For compounding taxes, or where tax is calculated on tax, there is an option to select another tax code that should be used to charge tax on the selected tax rule. Compounding taxes are used in Canada.

Create multiple tax tiers. (e.g. GST, PST, HST)

VAT is fully supported. There are merchant display options to show prices with tax included and enable a separate tax column showing the tax rate being applied.

Integrated shipping gateways that support international origins and destinations:

• DHL International - Ship and track packages from many countries to destinations across the world.
• AustraliaPost - Ship packages from Australia to domestic and international locations.
• CanadaPost - Ship packages from Canada to domestic and international locations.
• UPS Online Tools - Ship and track packages from many countries to destinations across the world.
• FedEx - Ship and track packages from U.S. or Canada to places around the world.

Integrated payment gateways that support international transactions:

• Sagepay (aka Protx) - One of the largest payment providers in the United Kingdom.
• Google Checkout - used worldwide
• PayPal - used worldwide
• InternetSecure - used in Canada and USA

AbleCommerce provides you the ability to specify variables in the address format so that you can control how an address will be displayed or printed for each country. This will allow you to accommodate addressing regulations for the countries that you ship to.

Locale settings

• Unit of Weights (Pounds, Ounces, Grams, or Kilograms)
• Unit of Measurement (Inches or Centimeters)
• TimeZone Offset - adjust all dates and times to the store's timezone.

Enter a list of countries that require the customer to enter a postal code at checkout.

Modify the web.config file to change the globalization culture and uiculture settings.

Integrations

We are always looking for new integrations.

AbleCommerce supports these popular Payment Gateways:

• Authorize.NET - Very simple to setup and widely used in the U.S.A.
• Chase Paymentech Orbital - certified on Salem and Tampa platforms
• Cybersource - requires additional software installation.
• Google Checkout - full level 2 integration, bi-directional payment processing
• InternetSecure - integration supports USD or CAD.
• LinkPoint - integration covers the Linkpoint Select API payment gateway.
• ParaData - Payment Processing, Inc. (PPI) acquired assets of Paradata Systems.
• PayJunction - PayJunction's Trinity Gateway Service is very simple to setup
• PayPal - supports bi-directional payment processing PayPal integration includes Website Payments Standard, Express Checkout, and Website Payment Pro
• PayPal Payflow Pro - Authorize, Authorize Capture, Capture, Void, Refund, Partial Refund, Recurring Billing
• SkipJack - The Skipjack payment gateway is very simple to setup.
• SagePay (formerly Protx) - one of the largest payment processors in the United Kingdom.

Create as many payment methods as you need using the built-in forms for American Express, e-check, Diner's Club, Discover, JCB, Maestro, postal mail, MasterCard, phone order, purchase order, Switch/Solo, Visa, and Visa debit (Delta/Electron). Match any of the credit card payment methods with one or more payment gateways for even more flexibility.

You can even assign payment methods to selected user groups. Works great for the purchase order payment method being available to approved customers.

AbleCommerce supports these popular Shipping Services:

• AustraliaPost - generate shipping rate estimates for your packages.
• CanadaPost - generate real-time shipping rates for your packages. It can also provide tracking details.
• DHL International - generate real-time shipping rates and provides tracking support for international shipments.
• FedEx - the integrated FedEx module can generate real-time shipping rates for your packages. It also can provide tracking details.
• UPS OnLine® Tools - the integrated UPS OnLine® Tools can calculate shipping rates for shipments originating from 37 countries to international destinations. It also can provide tracking details.
• U.S. Postal Service - calculate shipping rates for shipments originating in the United States, to both domestic and international destinations. It also can provide tracking details.

Shopping Feeds

AbleCommerce has three built-in feeds generators that make uploading as easy as one click of the mouse. You just provide the login credentials to AbleCommerce and then create and upload the feed files at your convenience.

• Google Base Feed - create and upload product feeds to Google Base.
• Yahoo! Shopping Feed - create and upload products using Yahoo!'s Product Submit.
• Shopping.com Feed - create and upload products to Shopping.com

All shopping feeds support file compression. Any product can be excluded from a feed.

Integration with AffiliateWiz, tracking software and affiliate marketing software for managing an affiliate marketing program. Just provide your tracking URL and we do the rest.

Website and ecommerce reporting with Google Analytics, a FREE business service. Just enter your ID and follow the implementation instructions, and soon you'll be tracking valuable information for making those important marketing budget decisions.

Third-party integrations available from our developer partners. These "plug-ins" are available for separate purchase. Find Quickbooks, mail order manager, and much more...

DATAPORT - a free tool, developed by AbleCommerce, that allows you to import data from other sources as well as other features:

• Download your entire store as an XML package.
• Upload your entire store as an XML package.
• Download Products, Categories, Users and Order in CSV or XML format.
• Upload Products, Categories, Users and Orders in CSV or XML format.
• Create templates to map CSV data from other sources to the AbleCommerce fields and save the template for later.
• Upload AbleCommerce 5.5 XML data to AbleCommerce 7

Customizing AbleCommerce

Well written and developer friendly.

Object Oriented CommerceBuilder Framework

AbleCommerce websites are built around a set of compiled libraries known as CommerceBuilder. This is a set of object oriented classes that powers the ecommerce features of the site. It isolates complex business code from your web scripts so that during custom development you can focus on the user interface.

Published Integration APIs

AbleCommerce works with many third party tools for shipping rates, payment processing, and tax calculation right out of the box, for example AuthorizeNet, Paymentech, FedEx, USPS, and many more. If by chance your desired third party provider is not represented, there is good news. The CommerceBuilder framework uses a provider model where you can integrate a new service without ANY customization to Commercebuilder itself and without the need for any of our compiled source code. All you need to do is inherit from the abstract base class and then add your provider specific code in the empty methods. For each type of integration point we publish the API documentation as well as a fully operational source example.

ASP.NET Themes

AbleCommerce makes use of ASP.NET themes for styling the look and feel of the store website. You can completely redesign the look of the website site purely by working with the skin, CSS, and image files within a theme. AbleCommerce ships with over a dozen pre-defined themes that you can use as a starting point.

Master Pages and Base Inheritance

AbleCommerce script files make use of two techniques to help implement site-wide look and feel. These include the user of master pages and a custom base class for pages to inherit from. These provide integration points where sitewide customizations can be made.

Scriptlets and nVelocity

Through the use of scriptlets, a large majority of the site content can be altered directly from the web based merchant admin site. We also leverage the nVelocity scripting language to allow dynamic content to be included. This is especially useful in the email template system where you can script virtually any content as part of an order notification or other system messages.

Easy Script Customization

If the use of themes and the built in customization tools aren't enough, AbleCommerce can be customized almost endlessly with direct script modification. The website project is compatible with Visual Studio 2005 and higher, so you can use the WYSIWYG editing features to design your site.

Source Code Available

We generally discourage changes to the source code of the CommerceBuilder framework. In general it leads to extra hassles for upgrades and almost always it is not necessary to customize the framework to achieve your goals. However we continue to make the source code available for an additional fee. If you have truly specific customization requirements, the source code will let you make changes to the framework itself.