Cross-Industry > E-Commerce

arvato systems and E-Commerce

The New York team of arvato systems North America, though active throughout the '90s, came into its own in 1998 while E-Commerce was still young, when it was called upon by Bertelsmann to create it's grand E-Commerce venture, Bertelsmann Online (BOL). It rose to the task, partnering with Oracle to eventually produce a rich and complex venture spanning 14 countries, carrying over 6,000,000 products shipped by over 70 vendors and in 2000-2001 grossing over $100,000,000. The knowledge gained by not only Developing the applications but also doing Operations for this multi-national enterprise makes arvato systems truly the world leader in E-Commerce.

arvato systems has built on this experience in it's creation of stores for a leading cosmetic company in Europe (Douglas), Bertelsmann's Broadcasting venture, RTL, Book Clubs in the joint venture between AOL Time Warner and Bertelsmann, Bookspan, it's subscription services in its Publishing Platform for Thompson Publishing, it's work for BMG and many others. The lessons of E-Commerce have honed asNA's skills in site usability, security, content management, asset management, campaign management, personalization, knowledge management, etc. In its work for BOL asNA was probably the first to create a fully functional Wireless Music Ordering system, integrated into the BOL sites, debuting in 2001.

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E-Commerce Partnerships

In 2000, when e-commerce and e-commerce platforms became more commoditized, BOL sought a new platform to secure their future, as Oracle was orphaning its original OAS and Istore applications. asNA conducted a study for BOL of existing E-Commerce software. In this way asNA became very familiar with ATG Dynamo and its e-commerce Suite, Intershop, Oracle 11i, BEA and others. BOL eventually chose Intershop which lead to a partnership between arvato systems and the German based company Intershop. asNY proposed ATG for Bookspan which it eventually implemented and a partnership was formed there as well, and finally with it's world wide partnership with BEA, asNA can boast of its expertise in all of the leading Java based E-Commerce Platforms. This wide-ranging expertise allows asNY a great flexibility in tailoring a solution exactly to its customers needs.

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Low-Cost, Full Featured E-Commerce

In 2002 as the economy faltered and budgets were lowered or frozen, customers began asking for lower cost E-Commerce. asNA began using Open-Source applications to allow them to encapsulate their extensive knowledge of E-Commerce in a set of J2EE compliant components that could be offered to their customers as an alternative to the high-end applications mentioned above. This resulted in what asNA calls EBP, E-Business Portal. It combines offerings in E-commerce, Portals, Knowledge Management, Content Management and Publishing, in a group of highly flexible and customizable, scalable components that can be offered without expensive license fees, satisfying budgets of all sizes.

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What is EBP? (E-Business Portal)

A modular multiple site, e-commerce solution based on open source technology, easily integrated with 3rd party functionality through simple interfaces.



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Key Components

Core EBP- Accept online orders through a configurable buyer flow; store customer account data for self-service maintenance; store order in a self sufficient order management systems (OMS) which maintains interfaces to Vendors, Transaction Processors and Customer Service. Configure business rules, Shipment Methods, Payment Methods as well as look and feel from the Configuration Administration tool. Let your Customer Service Reps, look at Order Data, process returns, refunds, etc.
EBP Content Management - Create versionable content for your Home pages and other site pages. Stage this content locally or on your production machine, then publish it to your customers. Easily revert to older version of you content if necessary. This content is stored XML, thus allowing it's presentation in multiple channels.
EBP Tool Sets - These include
  • Configuration Administration (Including LDAP)
  • Super Admin
  • Admin
  • Manager.
  • Promotion Manager
  • Customer Service Interface
  • Catalog Management
EBP Catalog - Maintain a catalog of products and automatically generate a Home page for each product type or group of product types. Categorize your products and automatically create browse by categories pages with a configurable taxonomy.
EBP Search - Search all of your catalog or 1 product type at a time quickly and easily. Return results, specially sorted and targeted to present the user with the items that best match their search criteria on the first page. Resort result on multiple criteria.
EBP Reporting and Monitoring - with EIC, the Executive Information Center, allow different site management groups to view real time application statistics as well as produce and route periodic production reports. Configure alert thresholds to allow Data Center and Operations groups to respond quickly to issues as soon as they present themselves.


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Why EBP?

  • Standards Based Application - J2EE compliant
  • No 3rd Party License Fees - all robust, well tested Open Source applications: Apache, Tomcat/Jboss, OSCache, Lucene, and Postgres on Linux
  • Component Based - flexible offerings. Mix and match components based on customer needsBacked by Arvato Systems experience in International E-Commerce
  • Feature rich Catalog Shopping (Sophisticated Search Engine, Configurable browsing, etc)
  • Low cost hardware options Low cost PC's running Linux.
  • Scalable - Install on one machine or multiple small machines to handle traffic as it grows
  • DRM integration - Immediately sell license managed downloadable products
  • Easy Configurable Setup and maintenanceMultilanguage versionsOffer Co-Branded Versions of site
  • Manage subscriptions
  • Communicate with vendors

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Conclusion

arvato systems North America is dedicate to offering solutions that exactly meet the needs of its customers. It can offer the widest range of technological expertise in E-Commerce Platforms, E-Commerce consulting, offering Out-Sourcing Plans, Order Fulfillment, Financial Processing, and Customer Service through it's Arvato partners, at a budget that can satisfy projects from biggest to the smallest.

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