B2C

When a visitor arrives at your website, prior to the website displaying, TOTECS had created an Unregistered Guest User session.  This special type of user is linked to a customer account id in your Accounting / ERP System often with the name set to 'Online Ordering Retail Customer' commonly configured with an id WEB_RETAIL.  This customer account in your accounting/ERP system is linked to a Price Level corresponding with the RRP price or consumer sell price set against every product.  The customer account also specifies the payment methods that consumers may use such as Credit Card or Paypal whereas commercial customers may also Pay On Account or use Direct Deposit.

Consumer Websites

As a consumer browses the product catalogue, they can add products to cart and proceed to Checkout where they can either proceed as Guest (if active) or complete a user registration.  When they register, the contents of the visitor shopping cart is copied to their new user account shopping cart so they can proceed to checkout without needing to fill their cart again. 

Public Catalogue Only Websites

For wholesalers who simply want to display a catalogue website without any add to cart functions for visitors, the same process applies and the WEB_RETAIL is used to control what products are displayed to public visitors.  In some cases, wholesalers do not want to allow public visitors any access to their product catalogue which can be configured into the website.

TOTECS provides the Region Switching feature which can switch the Unregistered Guest User account to a different Region Profile..  

Region Profiles control:

• The default currency display (note you must manage exchange rates in the platform)
• The price level to use (this is so that overseas pricing can be managed in a separate price level or group)
• The user registration profile that governs the customer account id the user is assigned to once they register
• The freight rules that apply for the region
• The products allowed for purchase (through the configuration of User inventory Permission roles)
• Tax rules associated with that region

Region Switching for State Based Regions

The Region Switching feature was not only designed for handling international customers but customers from different states.  

For instance, a large national consumer website may have different prices set for different regions around Australia.  Often the prices differ due to the logistics and handling costs.  TOTECS can be configured to ask the user to enter their postcode which can be mapped to a Region Profile.  The Region Profile ensures the user sees the product catalogue for their region, the specific prices set and if they proceed through checkout, the freight rules for the region will factor in any extra costs.

User registration is a process whereby a visitor enters their details into the eCommerce website and creates a User Account.  An alternative terminology for the same activity is Sign Up.  On your TOTECS website, you can label it hoever you like.  Ie, Sign Up, Register, Create Account etc.

In TOTECS, you can setup multiple User Registration Profiles where each profile could be configured for different types of user accounts. For instance, you may require the user to enter an ABN if you want to offer trade account registration whereas it is not provided as a field for consumer registration.

Each user registration profile contains the customer account id in your accounting/ERP system that the user is linked to after registration.  For instance, a consumer user can be linked to customer account id WEB_RETAIL which is assigned to Price Level 1 (RRP) whereas trade account customers could be linked to customer account id WEB_TRADE which is assigned to Price Level 2 (Trade - RRP less 5%).

Where The User Registration Form Appears

User registration forms can be placed anywhere in your TOTECS website however the most common workflow is that it appears on the Login page or when a user has added products to cart and proceeds to Checkout.

Registration Approvals

TOTECS offers the ability to set the approvals mode for a given user registration profile.  Normally for consumers, they are automatically approved and logged in so they can complete the checkout process to finalise their order.  

Alternatively for trade account customer registrations, you may want a customer service person to examine and approve the user registration before they can login.  In this case, once the registration form is completed, the user is advised 'the registration will verified and login details emailed after approval' (this message is completely configurable).

For an example of a website that offers both consumer and trade user registration, visit www.qcc.com.au

When a visitor arrives at your website, prior to the website displaying, TOTECS had created an Unregistered Guest User session.  This special type of user is linked to a customer account id in your Accounting / ERP System often with the name set to 'Online Ordering Retail Customer'.  This customer account is then linked to a Price Level corresponding with the RRP price or consumer sell price for each product.  It also specifies the payment methods that consumers may use such as Credit Card or Paypal whereas commercial customers may also Pay On Account or use Direct Deposit.

In some cases (for instance a wholesaler), a business may want to restrict the range of products that unregistered consumers are allowed to purchase.  To accomodate this requirement, you can setup a User Inventory Permission Role for the Guest user account and setup exception rule to knock out the products that are not available.  With this in place, a public guest arriving at the website may only browse the categories that contain active products.  Likewise for keyword search.

TOTECS offers both workflows.  If Guest Checkout is active, then the user has the option to skip the user registration.  There are some points to be aware of.  

The psychology of Guest Checkout is that the system does not setup a user account, track the users activity and send eMarketing material.  User details for Guest Checkout are not stored in the system but instead simply stored against the order submitted.

A TOTECS eCommerce Website can handle both B2C and B2B workflows.

There are two ways to handle this.

1. Activate consumer Add To Cart and checkout workflows (these workflows are 
2. Some wholesalers are concerned that selling to consumers online could alienate their commercial customers.  In this case, we recommend you setup a separately branded eCommerce website on your TOTECS platform so that your wholesale website is distinct from your consumer website.  The two brands are distinct