Microsoft .NET Server Solutions for the Enterprise

Product Catalogs

Commerce Server includes a rich catalog management system that plays a central role in defining a complex set of products that are related to each other in a variety of ways. The catalog system supports hierarchical product catalogs with a configurable schema. Products and product categories can also be defined to have relationships that are outside their hierarchical relationships, which can be useful for associating accessories with a primary product.

There are several catalog objects that provide an extensive API to the Web site developers, allowing them to create Web pages that present these relationships to shoppers in easy-to-use ways. This same API provides design-time support to the Commerce Server Business Desk, allowing the catalog-related modules to be directly accessible to business managers. When the Web pages are properly constructed, business managers can make changes to the relationships between products and categories, both hierarchical and otherwise, which are immediately reflected in the corresponding Web pages.

The following list is a summary of the primary features of the Commerce Server Product Catalog System:

• Configurable schema. The Product Catalog System allows the product characteristics maintained for each product to be modified as appropriate for a particular set of products.
• Hierarchical relationships. The Product Catalog System provides for products to be organized into a hierarchy of categories and sub-categories.
• Nonhierarchical relationships. The Product Catalog System allows non-hierarchical relationships to be defined between products, such as accessories being defined as related to the corresponding primary product.
• Product variants. The Product Catalog System allows for different variants of a given product to be defined, such as different sizes or colors of a particular product.
• Virtual catalogs. The Product Catalog System allows for new catalogs to be defined that are based on an existing catalog, but differ in a set of specific ways, such as different pricing. Such derivative catalogs are called virtual catalogs.
• Multilanguage support. The Product Catalog System allows for a catalog to contain parallel product information in two or more distinct languages and currencies.

The next three sub-sections discuss the support provided by Commerce Server for product catalogs in each of the three types of functionality: user interfaces, Web sites, and objects.