Personalizing Internet commerce
I can get on the Internet,
tell a retail store that I want to buy a new pair of sneakers, and the store
knows what color I like when I get there. Yes, and you can create this kind of
personalized shopping experience for your customers with the Microsoft Merchant
System. This new component of Microsoft's BackOffice, scheduled to be available
in the fourth quarter of 1996, is one of the Normandy suite of servers and will
make Internet shopping feasible.
Microsoft Merchant System lets retailers set up a complete store on the
Internet to sell anything. The system can even host an electronic mall where
customers can visit and use their credit cards to buy from many retailers.
Customers can use any Web browser that supports Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
or Secure Electronic Transactions (SETs), such as Netscape Navigator or
Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE--for information about SSL and SET, see the
sidebar, "Securing Commerce on the Web.") to come into the store,
either from the Internet or an intranet. Merchant System lets you customize each
customer's shopping experience to suit individual tastes. So when a customer
accesses your store, you can have Merchant System build a customer profile to
determine buying patterns and other interests.
Imagine the experience from a customer's point of view: You visit an online
store, and Merchant System greets you with information about sale items you're
interested in. The system knows about your preferences and spending habits--it
even knows your shoe size! This personal service makes you want to visit that
store again.
Setting Up Your Store
Merchant System lets you,
the merchant, install and configure a store without complicated or costly custom
application development. The system runs on Windows NT Server 3.51 or later and
uses Internet Information Server (IIS) 1.0 or later. Your customers see your
store as a series of standard Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) pages that they
can access from an SSL- or SET-capable Web browser to purchase goods and
services. With text, images, video, and audio, you can create a rich shopping
experience for your customers. You can also add ActiveX and Java components to
your Merchant System page to further enhance the shopping experience. Merchant
System includes sample starter stores to help you go on line quickly.
Customers can see and purchase merchandise from any Open Database
Connectivity (ODBC) datasource, such as a SQL Server, Sybase, or Oracle
database. The database maintains all product, pricing, shipping, tax, and
customer information. Merchant System generates Web pages dynamically to give
the shopper a customized experience. The system is both database- and table
schema-independent. This design lets you use an existing database, one of
Microsoft's sample databases, or a new database that meets your needs. You can
even leverage your existing systems by accessing information from a legacy
database. For example, by using SNA Server and an ODBC driver, you can access
existing product and price information from an AS/400. Figure 1 shows a typical
Merchant System configuration.
Merchant System can link to your existing financial management system. If
you run on a SQL Server or other ODBC-compliant database, you can easily access
the financial data. If your financial system is on a legacy system, you may need
some translation software, such as a DLL, to access this information.
You can set up Merchant System to use two databases--one for your store
information and one for your financial management information. However, if your
financial management database contains most of the information in your store
database, you can add any missing store information to the financial information
and use one integrated database to eliminate any overlapping information.
Shopping Online
Let's look at a typical shopping
experience and what happens behind the scenes. Mary uses her favorite SSL- or
SET-compatibleWeb browser to access an online sporting goods store. The catchy
opening screen shows a video clip of a runner winning a marathon underneath a
sale banner that alerts Mary to a sale on running shoes. Mary clicks the sale
information, and Merchant System accesses information in a SQL database to
generate a Web page that shows Mary the sale shoe's information and price.
Because, in a previous visit to the store, Mary showed an interest in
running apparel, Merchant System finds this information in her customer profile
and displays running shorts. Mary also sees that if she purchases both items,
she can get a 20% discount. The system dynamically generates the promotion and
sale information for the customer from the database. Mary decides to purchase
the two items and places them in an electronic shopping basket that holds her
purchases until she is ready to check out. She clicks back on the home page to
look for a runner's watch, but notices that she is late for a meeting and leaves
the store.
The next day, Mary comes back to the store. The items she put in her
shopping basket are still there. Merchant System sees the items in her shopping
basket, checks her customer profile, and asks whether she is interested in
purchasing the runner's socks that are on special for one day only. Mary looks
at and buys a few pairs of socks.
Now she decides to check out and gets a prompt for payment method, shipping
method, and shipping address. She picks a shipping company to deliver the items
overnight and enters her credit card information and shipping address. The
system then calculates her purchase total. Because Mary lives in London and the
store is in New York, the system calculates the purchase price in pounds
sterling, adds value-added taxes (VAT) if needed, and calculates shipping costs.
Mary sees the system's calculations and information and confirms the accuracy of
the information by clicking Purchase Now.
Merchant System uses VeriFone's point-of-sale (vPOS) software to send
Mary's credit card information to the merchant's financial institution for
authorization. The financial institution authorizes payment, and the merchant
shows Mary a confirmation receipt and tracking number. Merchant System then
updates the sporting goods store's inventory and customer information, based on
Mary's recent purchase.