Throughout this web site, we use terms that you need to be familiar with to truly
understand how an online shopping cart functions.
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Terms
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Definition
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XML
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Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable
form. Documents are self describing, meaining you define the layout according to
some basic rules using tags. To understand, you need to see an XML document such
the catalog Price File.
Learn more about XML
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PayPal
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PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made
through the Internet. PayPal serves as an electronic alternative to traditional
paper methods such as checks and money orders. A PayPal account can be funded with
an electronic debit from a bank account or by a credit card. The recipient of a
PayPal transfer can either request a check from PayPal, establish their own PayPal
deposit account or request a transfer to their bank account. PayPal is an example
of a payment intermediary service that facilitates worldwide e-commerce.
Learn more about PayPal
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Domain
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The name of your web site as publicly identified to the internet. For example, the
domain for this web site is "xmlshoppingcart.com".
You must purchase a domain, i.e., web site, to use this XML Shopping Cart.
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ISP
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An Internet service provider (ISP), also sometimes referred to as an Internet access
provider (IAP), is a company that offers its customers access to the Internet. The
ISP for xmlshoppingcart.com is Discountasp.net, an ISP for hosting web sites based
on Microsoft's internet technology, IIS and ASP.Net.
Learn more about ISP
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ERP
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Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is an integrated computer-based system used to
manage internal and external resources, including tangible assets, financial resources,
materials, and human resources. It is a software architecture whose purpose is to
facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries
of the organization and manage the connections to outside stakeholders. Built on
a centralized database and normally utilizing a common computing platform, ERP systems
consolidate all business operations into a uniform and enterprise-wide system environment
Learn more about ERP
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FTP
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File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard network protocol used to copy a file
from one host to another over a TCP/IP-based network, such as the Internet. We recommend
FileZilla, a free FTP solution for uploading
files to your web site.
Learn more about FTP
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SSL
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Secure Socket Layer is a cryptographic protocol that provides security for communications
over networks such as the Internet.
Learn more about
SSL
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CRM
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Customer relationship management (CRM) is a broadly recognized, widely-implemented
strategy for managing and nurturing a company’s interactions with customers, clients
and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize
business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer
service, and technical support.
Learn more about CRM
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WMS
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A warehouse management system, or WMS, is a key part of the supply chain and primarily
aims to control the movement and storage of materials within a warehouse and process
the associated transactions, including shipping, receiving, putaway and picking.
The systems also direct and optimize stock putaway based on real-time information
about the status of bin utilization.
Learn more about WMS
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BI
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Business Intelligence (BI) refers to computer-based techniques used in spotting,
digging-out, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or
departments or associated costs and incomes. [1] BI technologies provide historical,
current, and predictive views of business operations. Common functions of Business
Intelligence technologies are reporting, online analytical processing, analytics,
data mining, business performance management, benchmarking, text mining, and predictive
analytics.
Learn more about
BI
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Merchant Account
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A merchant account is a type of bank account that allows businesses to accept payments
by debit or credit cards. A merchant account also serves as an agreement between
a retailer, a merchant bank and payment processor for the settlement of credit card
and/or debit card transactions.
You will need a merchant account number and a terminal ID number to offer a payment
solution on your own web site. Most merchant accounts require a credit check and
cost approx $150 - $200 for setup.
Learn more about
Merchant Account
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Payment Gateway
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A payment gateway is an e-commerce application service provider service that authorizes
payments for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick
and mortar. It is the equivalent of a physical point of sale terminal located in
most retail outlets. Payment gateways protect credit card details by encrypting
sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, to ensure that information is
passed securely between the customer and the merchant and also between merchant
and the payment processor.
Learn more about
Payment Gateway
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MAP
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Minimum Advertised Price - Minimum Advertised Prices (otherwise known as MAPs) are
prices set by a brand, and agreed upon by retailers, below which products cannot
legally be advertised. Modern brands often practice MAP policies to ensure that
retailers maintain sufficient margins to support their products with a high level
of service and superior presentation standards. Unfortunately, retailers often break
MAP agreements, and advertise products at illegal discounts, thereby undermining
hard-built brand integrity (MAP Trackers)
See MAP Trackers, a web site
devoted to monitoring MAP prices on the internet.
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HTML
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HTML, which stands for HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language
for web pages. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural
semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists, links, quotes and other
items.
Learn more about HTML
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Internet Sales Tax
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As a result of a 1992 Supreme Court ruling, retailers are not required to collect
sales taxes from customers in states where they do not have a physical presence.
While the ruling applied to catalog sales, it has since been extended to online
sales.
Here is an article list on on Business.gov explaining the ruling.
Collecting Sales Tax Over The Internet
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Buy Unit Conversion
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Conversion between how a product is priced and how it is sold. Products can be priced
by a single item, but are required to be sold by a larger quantiy. If an item costs
$1.00 but you are required to purchase a dozen to obtain the product, the buy unit
conversion is 12.
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Transaction Costs and Fees
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Transaction Costs and Fees are applied to the sales of products in your shopping
cart. The payment gateway provider, the credit card companies, and your bank all
charge these fees and transaction costs. Everyone wants a piece of the pie. Make
sure you negotiate or shop around for the lowest fees and transaction costs possible.
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PCI DSS Compliance
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The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a worldwide information
security standard defined by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council.
The standard was created to help payment card industry organizations that process
card payments prevent credit card fraud through increased controls around data and
its exposure to compromise. The standard applies to all organizations that hold,
process, or exchange cardholder information from any card branded with the logo
of one of the card brands.
Learn more about PCI DSS
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XML Sitemap
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The Sitemaps protocol allows a webmaster to inform search engines about URLs on
a website that are available for crawling. A Sitemap is an XML file that lists the
URLs for a site.
Learn more about XML Sitemap
Also consider reading about Google's sitemap service: About Sitemap's for Google Indexing
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