Advanced orders Advantages of using advanced order processing

When you publish a store using advanced order processing, you enable additional and improved order processing and payments features, such as:

Multiple releases per order
A customer can place one order containing various order items, which can be fulfilled and shipped at different times. Multiple release capability allows order items to be handled differently but stay in the same order.

This method is in contrast to the way that standard order processing handles multiple releases. With standard order processing, multiple releases in one order must ship on the same day and have the same payment processing. With advanced order processing, these restrictions do not apply. An advanced order can have multiple releases that ship on different days, and each release can have a separate set of payment actions. The multiple release capabilities of advanced order also offer the following processing benefits:

Multiple order types within one order
Using multiple releases, it is possible to have the following types of order items within the same order:
Regular
Order items that are in stock are allocated and shipped as usual.
Backorder
Order items that are not in inventory can remain as part of the order, but allocated and shipped at a later date.
Expedited
A customer can request expedited handling and shipping for some order items within the order. The fulfillment center receives pick batches that contain separate releases for expedited orders at the top of the list. The fulfillment center gives priority to fulfilling the expedited orders first. Shipping is done with the priority methods provided by the carrier that is used.
Future order
A customer can specify a date in the future when he wants order items shipped. The store developer specifies an amount of time (offset) before specified future ship dates when order items will be allocated for shipment.
Current charges versus total charges
As each release within an order is allocated and shipped, the customer can view the current charges for costs and fees associated with only the order items that have been shipped up to that point. Also, the total charges are shown for the entire order, including estimates for charges for shipments that have not yet been shipped.
Easier tracking by order number
Even though an advanced order will have multiple releases, each order item is still associated with the same order identification number. A release does not receive its own identification number, making tracking of orders and order items easier. (This feature contrasts with the release process used with standard order processing where releases of an order are split into separate orders and giving new order identification numbers).
Improved supplier interaction
With advanced order processing, it is possible to aggregate order items from releases of multiple orders which will be routed to a supplier.
Cross-channel fulfillment support
Using multiple releases in an advanced order provides the capability to fulfill an order through multiple channels. For example, the order items in one release can be fulfilled at a brick-and-mortar store, the order items in a second release can be shipped from a fulfillment warehouse, and the order items from a third release can be drop-shipped from a supplier. All three releases are shipped using different methods and ship dates, yet all three releases remain part of one order.
Integration with other commerce systems
Advanced order processing reflects the real-world complexity of commercial transactions and improves the ability of stores published with WebSphere Commerce to better integrate with other commerce systems.
Event-driven payment processing
Payment processing has additional and improved capabilities within stores that use advanced order processing:
Payment rules
Payment actions are based on order business events and configurations through configurable XML files. Payment rules execute different actions at different times based on the payment methods used by your store.
Multiple payment transactions in one order
More than one payment transaction can occur in an order. For example, you can charge a credit card for the part of an order that ships immediately, and then charge the remaining items (for example, backordered items) a week later when that part of the order ships. Or, in another example, a credit card can be used to pay for part of the order and a check can be used to pay for the balance.
Refunds
Payments can be processed to issue refunds for returns for one or more orders.
Payment plug-ins
If you need to integrate a payment system into WebSphere Commerce, payment plug-ins are easier to develop and test than payment cassettes. Because it should take less time to develop a plug-in than a cassette, payment plug-ins should be significantly less expensive to implement.
Sharing of payment configuration
The payment processing configuration of one store can be shared with another store, making payment configuration more efficient and consistent.
Clustering
Unlike WebSphere Commerce Payments, the use of event-driven payments is supported in a clustered WebSphere Commerce environment.
Marketing devices
Event-driven payments allows for customization that could add the capability to a store to accept gift cards as payment, to issue gift certificates, to process discounts, and handle other similar marketing devices.

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