Ecommerce Platform Architecture

Ecommerce Platform Architecture
tradeit ecommerce platform architecture.

Highly capable and well proven in the field, the tradeit ecommerce platform has been strategically developed by Red to be a holistically entwined ecommerce and CMS platform providing implementation flexibility and competitive advantage to its users. tradeit is a .NET ecommerce platform and has been built using trusted Microsoft technologies including a Microsoft SQL Server database. Due to tradeit's intelligent design the platform is readily integrated with any systems which exist within your business as well as third party systems/services that extend the platform's capabilities.

DIGITAL STOREFRONTS

Robust, customisable and responsive ecommerce.

The tradeit ecommerce platform’s storefront application has been designed to work closely with the administration system giving merchants the highest levels of control. The storefront application is a toolkit of templates and components and represents what the customer can see. In order to deliver exact storefront requirements the correct templates and components are selected, designed and customised as part of the implementation process.

Browser showing the tradeit ecommerce platform's in-site editing functionality

ECOMMERCE WEBPAGE STRUCTURE

Manage everything on the page.

Use tradeit's in-site editing capability to control the layout of every page on your site and preview it as your users will see it.

Templates
tradeit uses templates to generate the HTML5 that is sent to a user’s browser each time they request a page from your site. The HTML5 is styled using a style sheet (CSS). It is the combination of HTML5 / CSS3 that is displayed to the user in their browser.
Zones
Content zones can be scoped globally, per channel, per template or per page including the ability to override anything with specific page level content. You can edit any content across your site from any page (including the headers and footer,) as well as previewing changes on the page to see exactly how, when and where they will appear.
Conditional Components
Pre-defined layouts meaning different content can be displayed in different ways using text, images, buttons, links, social feeds, carousels, banners, videos to create styled layouts. There is also a standard WYSIWYG component. Components can have conditions applied to display when they meet certain criteria such as who the user is, what they do, what's in their basket and much more.
Elements
Each component contains elements which represent something that can be edited. This might be an image, text, video, or a link for example.

ECOMMERCE ADMINISTRATION SYSTEM

The highest levels of control.

Manage storefront promotions, stock, pricing, shipping and the other elements of a sophisticated ecommerce operation.

Permissions System
The access control system ensures only users with the relevant permissions can access the parts of the administration system they are authorised to. Administrators can also set storefront permissions for users of the in-site editing feature with permissions customised to suit the business.
Customer Segments
Segment and personalise content, offers, emails and more enabling sophisticated targeting. System administrators can create as many customer segments as they want and then assign customers to them. A customer can belong to multiple segments at the same time and processes can be set up to auto-assign users to certain segments based on certain criteria.
Search & Facets
Return highly relevant & detailed results to customers, fast. Setup and control multi-faceted filtering and sorting giving users the ability to find items based on more than one dimension. Through tradeit’s administration system merchants can define and control facets against each product, and enable them within search results and category / product listing pages.
Image Resizing
Use tradeit's built-in tool to help make changes en masse meaning administrators can upload a single high-res image to the system and tradeit will resize it accordingly, across the site.
Link Management & Redirects
Manage all redirects (permanent & temporary), 404 pages, and broken links to ensure SEO integrity and a positive UX is upheld.

Browser showing the tradeit ecommerce platform's administration screens

DATA MANAGEMENT

A central repository for simple management of data for use across any channel.

tradeit's data management tools provide a centralised system for managing your product catalogue with all the tools you need to ensure that your product data is up-to-date, accurate and consistent across all your online channels.

PIM administration system

Create and manage product content on an ad-hoc basis through the PIM interface within the administration system. Through tradeit’s PIM merchants can add / edit / remove product information including pricing, images, relationships, attributes, translations and product groupings.

Category structure

The primary way that information is structured within tradeit is through the category structure, this applies to all products and content within the platform. System administrators can create an unlimited number of categories and sub-categories within the system. Administrators can also control the relationships between categories and the products / content within.

Translations

As tradeit is a highly flexible platform with capabilities in delivering multi-domain, multi-channel and international ecommerce solutions, the concept of translations are key to the system. Translations allow system admins to create, store and manage alternative content which can be displayed on the correct website(s).

Product types

The tradeit platform allows merchants to setup and sell different product types such as events, subscriptions & gift vouchers. tradeit is also setup to sell digital / downloadable products. Merchants can set up new product types through the administration system.

Attributes

A number of attributes can be set up against individual products. Depending on a merchant’s individual requirements and their system setup, attributes often drive a number of features including automation within the platform. For example attributes can be used to drive facetted navigation / search as well as various selections against a product (e.g. small, medium & large etc).

Mass import/export

Data can also be uploaded into the platform en masse using the import and export tool available through the administration system. The import / export facility uses CSV format when exporting and importing data. This is another way of making changes to the website as the existing data file can be exported, updated and then re-uploaded into the system.

Content review & publishing workflow

The in-site editing content management system has pre-built workflows that allow users of the administration system (permissions permitting) to review content for approval / editing prior to being published live. Merchants who have multiple websites and / or are selling internationally can assign rights to content editors which only allow them to edit specific sites.

ECOMMERCE ORDER PROCESSING

Flexible, secure and efficient ecommerce.

Order Workflows
tradeit’s flexible Ecommerce Order Management system enables Red to configure ecommerce solutions to fit a number of business models as well as a businesses’ existing technical infrastructure and processes. For example, tradeit’s OMS uses a configurable order workflow, through which merchants can customise each stage and the order of those stages. The configurable order workflow within tradeit enables order statuses to be automatically updated.
Multiple payment methods
The tradeit platform is highly evolved and has a number of pre-integrated payment methods. Each website managed through the administration system can have multiple payment methods. It is this flexibility that enables merchants to offer a number of options to their customers and help to ensure sales. tradeit is able to process payments on account, on credit or debit card (via a number of leading Payment Service Providers such as CyberSource, TRU//ST Payments, Worldpay, Adyen & Sage Pay), Klarna, and PayPal. New payment methods can be added via the administration system and assigned to a domain.
Shipping methods
tradeit supports multiple, international shipping methods using various calculation models based on basket items, basket weight, volumetric weight & basket price. Options can also be configured against each shipping method to set the tax rate. There are no limits as to how many shipping methods can be setup within tradeit, examples of multiple shipping methods could be next day delivery and standard delivery.

Optional surcharges can be applied to cover things such as offshore or 2-man delivery

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THIRD PARTY INTEGRATION

Connecting your ecommerce eco-system.

The Integration Hub is an integral part of the tradeit platform and controls / regulates all incoming and outgoing data feeds. The platform interfaces with other third party systems and services using common data delivery methods including, XML, TAB, CSV & Web Services. Features of the Integration Hub include: manages multi-domain data transfers, import and export of products and product data, importing packing slips and updating return statuses, exporting Google sitemaps, update product stock levels, importing product and product category translations and importing / exporting of attributes.