| Subject Matter: |
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Testing, Building and Opening an Online Store |
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Merchant and Customer Security |
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Traffic Building and Third-Party Advertising |
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Customer Orders, Cash Settlement and Package Fulfillment |
|
Store Setup and Operations |
 Testing, Building and Opening
an Online Store |
|
Can I try StoresOnTheWeb at no
charge? Whether you want to experiment with a demo store or stage a
store you intend to activate, the process of building a store begins in the
same place. Only when you are ready to open your store for business will you need to
agree with a month-to-month commerce hosting agreement. CLICK
HERE to begin building a store now. |
|
What kind of agreement is needed to
open a StoresOnTheWeb commerce host account? To open a store to do
business online, you will need to review and consent to the terms of the Commerce Hosting
Agreement. When you activate your store, you will be asked to enter your name
and check a box if you agree to the terms. By acceptance, this acts as our
confirmation that your authorized representative intends to operate an online store hosted
by StoresOnTheWeb. |
|
Can I cancel my Store Account? The
Commerce Hosting Agreement is based on a month-to-month term that you can cancel at any
time without cause. |
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If I open a store using StoresOnTheWeb
services, when will I be billed? Your accounting
period begins on the day of the month you activate your store. Your credit card will be
charged on the first day of your accounting period for host fees. The transaction fee per
order from the prior month is also included on the same credit card charge. |
| Merchant and Customer Security
|
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What kind of network infrastructure is
StoresOnTheWeb using at its' Data Center? All our commerce servers are
Pentium-class machines running Windows NT sharing a common Raid Array. All orders are
backed-up at the conclusion of the transaction and all servers are backed-up
continuously. Our servers are connected to the Internet on a DS3 pipeline which is equivalent to 24 T1 lines. |
|
Is our merchant account and information
private? All information pertaining to your account is accessed
through the Store
Manager off StoresOnTheWeb's homepage. The Store Manager account is secured
using SSL
protocol. |
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Tell me about shopping and data security?
There are three principal areas where security is critical.
Anytime a credit card is entered or viewed in a browser, that browser page is secured
using SSL
protocol. This occurs in two places, the customer order form and the Store Manager
Orders and Reports section. Also, as soon as the shopper submits the credit card for
online authorization, the data is encrypted and transported to a private, highly secured
financial network where acquiring banks and processors share the necessary information to
verify and hold funds at the customer's credit card issuing bank. Because email is not
secure, credit card data is never emailed. |
| Traffic building and
third-party advertising |
|
How do I drive traffic to my store? We
provide two service options to build visibility and traffic to your store. The first
registers you with the Big 8 and and over 220 secondary Search Engines.
The second is creating a lively promotion and registering it daily with over 1,350 Free4All sites. |
|
How do I track traffic statistics through
my store? Under your Store Manager account in the Orders and Reports
section is a report that tracks traffic in, through and from your store. These
statistics will help you sharpen your marketing message across online and real world
promotions. |
|
Will any advertisements appear in my store?
StoresOnTheWeb is an advertisement-free zone. No ads appear in your
store's main directory, department sub-directories or catalog pages.
|
| Customer Orders, Payment and
Fulfillment |
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How is the store organized from a shoppers
point of view? The shopper will first see a Store
Directory that lists all departments under which products are categorized.
Clicking on any department heading displays a Department Page which consists of
product thumbnails that are links to the individual product Catalog Page.
A catalog page has a specific URL entry that can be used as a link from any HTML page.
You can exchange this catalog page URL with allied websites, create special promotion
pages that link to the product "on special" or any number of other
application. |
|
How do customers pay for products purchased
online? The Merchant will decide when Activating a store what Order
Settlement method they want to use. A customer always completes an order by
filling-out an Order
Form. At the conclusion of the order, an email alerts the merchant and customer
of the confirmed order. At the same time, the customer's invoice is placed in a
secured StoresOnTheWeb server that the merchant may access through their
password-protected Store Manager account, in order to fulfill the order. At no time
is the customer's credit card placed or transmitted in an unsecured network
environment. |
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How are credit cards processed online?
You need a Merchant
ID account with a Card Processor to deposit Sales Orders directly into your
bank account. Once the products have shipped you will go into your Store Manager
account and batch capture the sales proceeds for just those orders released to the
carrier. |
|
Do we have to process credit cards online?
There is no reason you have to accept credit cards online. However, you must have a Merchant ID for MOTO operators (Mail Order -
Telephone Orders). The customer will have an
identical shopping experience concluding with a request to complete an Order Form.
The form will include a space for typing in credit card information. When the
customer submits the order, email confirmations go to the customer and merchant.
The merchant goes to their Store Manager account. Under the Orders and
Reports section, unfilled Sales Orders are individually accessible and will
include the complete credit card number, expiration date and cardholder name. This information
is in a secured area that may only be accessed with a password. The merchant may
print each order and use the credit card information to manually enter into a card terminal
in their physical store to pre-authorize or authorize and capture products that have been
released to the shipping carrier. |
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How do I know when a customer order has
been successfully completed? You receive a confirming email that an
order has been transacted. The order detail is located under your Store Manager
account in the Orders and Reports section. When the order has been shipped, the
merchant will check a box next to the order number to indicate its release to the shipping
carrier. |
|
What is the procedure for filling an order?
When an order is completed, a confirmation email is sent to the merchant. The Sales Order
is then viewable in entirety within the password- protected Store Manager.
Each unfilled order may be printed and used as a pick list, customer invoice or as
an order form for inputting into an existing order entry system. Upon shipping the
order, the merchant receives payment according to their settlement plan. |
| Store Setup and Operations |
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Can we use our domain name as the store
address? Your domain is easily made the entry point into the hosted
web store area. |
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How many products can we stock online?
Our commerce system is designed to meet the needs of a large grocery or
department store. Products are organized by department and have a unique URL address
which may be used as a link from allied websites or internal promotion pages. |
|
How is product inventory entered into the
store? Under the Store Manager in the Inventory section is a series of
menus that allow Departments to be created as well as products to be
entered. All products are input and may be later modified in the Product
Group Editor. |
|
How are images uploaded to the store?
There are two ways to upload images for use in your online store and both methods
are accessed within the Store Manager. The first method is under the
Inventory Manager section. After selecting a product to edit you come to the Product
Group Editor. At the bottom of the editor is a pull-down menu where you may
browse your local hard drive or network drive system and submit any image file for
uploading. The picture will then appear adjacent to the Selling Copy
and Order
Console. The second method is under the Decorate section. The image file
is placed in your private image directory in Store Manager and is viewable in a pull-down
menu. These image files then are available for selection to appear in apropos
locations within the catalog. |
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Do I need to know how to create HTML pages
or software programming to work with the StoresOnTheWeb system? No
special skills are required. However, if you are adept at creating HTML pages, you
can edit Theme
& Layout templates. |
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How do I customize the look of my store or
add unique links to existing pages? You or we can modify existing Catalog
Pages or Store Directories. Custom links that are unique to a single product may be
included in a Catalog
Page. A choice of what object (text or image) to link from and the URL that the link
points to are all that are required. Contact us to learn more. |
|
If new features become available, will our
store be able to take advantage of them? You will be able to
immediately take advantage of any new feature we release. Because the software used to
create and operate your store is located on our computer system and not your
computer, there is nothing to download or install...ever! |
|
Can I open an international store?
We are now working with a few U.S. stores to provide access to foreign markets.
When these stores are successfully working, worldwide commerce features will be
added to StoresOnTheWeb services. Contact us if you have an immediate need for foreign
sales. |
