WebSphere Commerce now provides the architecture for a variety of relationships between stores in order to support the following:
- Multiple stores in a site having the same:
- storefront
- business logic
- store data
- any combination of shared assets
- Other types of relationships between stores in a site such as:
- one store hosting another
- transferring shopping carts from one store to another
- Relationships between stores that allow one store to provide a service to another store. For example store A may host store B, or store C may use the catalog data from store D.
In order to implement these store relationships, code that supports each store relationship is required. WebSphere Commerce includes many store relationships and the supporting code. These store relationships can be loosely grouped into the following categories:
- Relationships in which one store provides assets to another store. These types of store relationships include one store providing the following:
- URLs
- commands
- business policies
- campaigns
- promotions
- property files
- currencies
- Relationships in which one store has a business relationship with another store. These types of store relationships include:
- one store hosting another.
- one store referring orders and RFQs to another store.