Elastic Path Glossary
A
Accessory
A type of merchandizing association whereby the shopper is presented with an item that is complementary to the currently viewed item. For example, when a customer adds a camera to their shopping cart, some accessories display on the page to encourage the shopper to purchase more. Unlike a warranty, an accessory is a tangible item that has a value in its own right and can be sold separately.
Related terms
Action
An action is the result of a promotion being granted to a shopper when the shopper meets the promotion’s conditions. For example, when the shopper adds a particular SKU to their shopping cart, they receive a 10% discount on shipping. The action in this case is the 10% discount.
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Activity (Commerce Manager)
An activity represents a group of related functionality in the Commerce Manager application, usually associated with a specific user role (Commerce Manager). As of Elastic Path Commerce 6.3, the following activities are available in the Commerce Manager client:
- Catalog Management
- Change Set
- Configuration
- Customer Service
- Price List Manager
- Reporting
- Shipping/Receiving
- Site Optimization
- Store Marketing
API Gateway
An API Gateway is a type of security software that filters API traffic.
Typically, an API gateway provides the following services:
- Access control and integration with Identity Management Systems
- Security Protection from Denial of Service and brute force attacks
- Traffic shaping
- Rate limiting
- Analytics
- Logging
Assets
Assets refers to files used by the Elastic Path Commerce application. This includes themes-related files, product images, content wrappers, and Power Reviews content.
Related terms
Attribute
A characteristic of a product, category, SKU, or customer profile attributes. Attributes are defined at the catalog level. Product types and category types each have their own configurable attribute sets. This makes it easy for business users to define new types of products. Product and category attributes can be defined in a master catalog or they can be global, where they are available in all master catalogs.
Related terms
Availability
The purchasable state of an item in the storefront. This determines whether the shopper can add the item to their cart when it is not in stock. A product that is not in stock may be still be available, depending on its configuration. The possible availability states are:
- Available only if in stock
- Available on pre order
- Available on back order
- Always Available
Related terms
B
Backorder
A product that is available for sale that cannot be immediately fulfilled due to an inventory shortage. Orders for back ordered products are shipped as soon as inventory is received on a First In First Out (FIFO) basis. Products are usually offered on back order when the supplier has committed to a future delivery date to the merchant.
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Brand
The brand of the product being sold.
Bundle
A purchasable product that is composed of other products or bundles. Bundling is a marketing strategy that involves offering several products for sale as one combined product.
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Bundle item
A product or bundle contained within a bundle. This can also be referred to as a constituent.
C
Cart Item discount
A discount applied to a SKU or item in a shopper’s shopping cart.
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Cart Subtotal discount
A discount applied to the subtotal of a shopper’s shopping cart.
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Catalog
A collection of products. In Elastic Path Commerce, there are two types of catalogs: master catalogs and virtual catalogs.
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Catalog promotion
A type of promotion applied to the products and SKU’s in a master catalog or virtual catalog. Used to discount the catalog price of an item or items.
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Category
A navigation entity that contains products or sub-categories that are used to organize a catalog’s contents.
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Category type
A category type consists of:
- The set of attributes common to a particular product category.
- The template used to render it in the storefront.
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Change set
A group of objects, such as products, categories, price lists and promotions that have been created or modified. They are intended to be published to another server environment, such as a production server.
Checkout
After the shopper has added the items to purchase in the shopping cart, checkout is the point when the shopper is ready to complete the purchase. At this point, the storefront prompts the shopper to provide the information required to complete the transaction, including:
- Shipping and billing address
- Mode of shipment
- Payment information, such as credit card number, expiry date, and so on.
Related terms
Commerce Manager (CM)
Commerce Manager is a web application built on the Eclipse Remote Application Platform (RAP). It is primarily used by business users to administer and operate the Elastic Path Commerce platform. Commerce Manager is also referred to as CM.
Condition
For a promotion, a type of promotion rule that determines in what circumstances the promotion applies. For example, when creating a shopping cart promotion, the cart subtotal is at least [] condition can be used to specify that. To receive a discount, the total value of all items in the shopping cart must be equal to or greater than the given amount.
For dynamic content delivery, determines in what situations a piece of dynamic content is displayed.
For price lists, determines in what circumstances a price list is added to a shopper’s price list stack.
Related terms
Content space
The location on a storefront page where you can display a piece of dynamic content. A web developer must first add the content space to a template. Then, the content space must be registered in the Commerce Manager client. After this is done, a marketing user can set dynamic content delivery conditions to map pieces of dynamic content to that content space.
Related terms
Conversion rate
The ratio of the number of times an objective is actually achieved to the total number of times it could have been achieved. For example, a ratio would be the number of times a product was actually purchased to the number of times visitors viewed that product’s page. The ratio would be object achieved to the total number of times it could have been purchased. If seven people actually purchased a product but 10 people had viewed that product’s description, then the conversion rate would be 0.7. The conversion rate is 70% since 70% of the test subjects ended up buying the product after seeing its description.
Coupon code
A code entitling the bearer to a shopping cart promotion. The value of the coupon code is set on the associated promotion. Coupon codes are usually manually entered by the shopper on the shopping cart page or during the checkout process. Coupon codes can also be automatically applied through a referring link or email campaign.
Cross-sell
A type of merchandizing association whereby the shopper is presented with a product of interest, based on the product currently being viewed. For example, a shopper viewing a cable television and internet package might also be interested in purchasing the installation service.
Customer
An individual who has previously purchased from a store or has created a registered customer account.
Customer Profile Attributes
A set of fields associated to a customer that can be populated either by the customer themselves or by a business user in Commerce Manager.
D
Digital Asset
A type of product that you can download from the storefront.
Dynamic Content
A piece of content displayed to the shopper when certain conditions, referred to as dynamic content delivery, are met. A variety of content types are supported, including images, Flash objects, and HTML. New content types can be created by creating content wrappers.
Dynamic Content Delivery
The set of conditions associated with a piece of dynamic content that define:
- Who (which shopper segment) can see the content
- When (the period of time) the content will be accessible
- Where (in which storefront(s) and in which content space) the content is displayed.
Related terms
E
ep.properties
The ep.properties file provides a convenient way to customize your web applications. The web application parameters are stored in key=value pairings.
To use this file:
- Create the file at your home directory, Windows:
C:\Users\<username>\ep\conf or Linux: /home/<username>/ep/conf. - Define the properties as required.
warning
Restart Server
Changes to ep.properties require you to restart your server for the changes to take effect.
Exchange
A SKU or SKU’s returned to the merchant by the customer in exchange for alternatives. Exchanges generally occur for unwanted gifts, damaged products, incorrect products or products that develop faults within the warranty period. Merchants issue an Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) authorizing the customer to return the goods.
The exchanged SKU’s are shipped by the merchant when the returned goods are received.
The exchanged SKU may be identical to the returned SKU in the case of damaged goods, or may differ in the case of incorrectly ordered products. This may result in the customer receiving a refund or paying an additional amount depending on the price difference between the returned SKU and exchanged SKU.
Related terms
Exclusive Tax
Tax that is added to the base cost of the goods at the time of sale. Goods and Services Tax countries including the United States and Canada add exclusive taxes at the time of sale.
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Extensions Directory
A directory that contains your extensions. We recommend having a single folder for all your extensions to help you better organize your customizations. For Windows, we recommend creating the directory at C:\extensions. For Linux, we recommend creating the directory at /home/extensions.
F
Featured Product
A product that the merchant wishes to feature or promote in the storefront category or search result pages. Featured products generally appear in a more prominent position in the page.
Filtered Navigation
The ability to search in the storefront for items having one or more characteristics whose values are within specific ranges. For example, while viewing a category in the storefront, a shopper can click the $100 to $300 link to view only items having prices within that range. Also known as faceted navigation.
G
Geo-location
A technology that uses the IP address of the shopper to ascertain geographical information about the shopper, such as city, state or province, and so on. In Elastic Path Commerce, you can use this information for personalization of promotions, dynamic content, and price lists. Various commercial and free geo-location services are available.
note
There are various commercial and free geo-location services are available. The accuracy of the information provided by these services is limited. It is limited to whatever information can be ascertained about the owner of the IP address block containing the shopper’s IP address. The accuracy of this information is further limited by the fact that the IP address may be assigned to a proxy server. The server which may be proxying requests from multiple clients in different geographical locations.
Related terms
Gift Certificate
A type of product that is be sold to a shopper in the storefront and is usually delivered to a third party. The gift certificate has a set monetary value and can be used by the recipient as a form of currency when making purchases in the store.
I
Identity Management System
An Identity Management System is a type of software that manages a user’s authentication, authorization, roles, and privileges within or across system and enterprise boundaries.
Import Job
A configured mapping of fields for an import of data from a CSV file. The Commerce Manager user configures the desired import type and maps system data fields to data columns in the CSV file. A saved import job can be executed at any time to import data from a CSV file.
Inclusive Tax
Tax that is included in the base price of the product. Value Added Tax (VAT) countries such as the UK and France include the VAT tax in the price of the goods sold.
Related terms
Inventory
The quantity of a SKU currently in the warehouse. There are four types of inventory:
- On hand: the total amount of the SKU currently in the warehouse.
- Available: The amount currently in the warehouse that can be used to fulfill new orders.
- Allocated: The amount allocated to fulfill current orders.
- Reserved: The amount that cannot be used to fulfill orders.
The general formula for calculating inventory is: available = on hand - (allocated + reserved).
L
Linked Category
A category in a virtual catalog that is inherited from a master catalog. The inherited category contains links to all of the products in the source category in the master catalog. All product attributes are inherited with each product, except merchandizing associations and category assignments.
Related terms
M
Master Catalog
The main catalog containing all products and SKU’s that can be sold regardless of selling channel or market or shopper segment.
Maven Artifact
An artifact is the product of a build process, such as a JAR or a WAR file. When an artifact is added to a repository, it includes version information to reduce conflicts between build dependencies.
Maven Plugin
A Maven plugin is an artifact that Maven uses to provide some specific functionality during the build process. Some of the most commonly used plugins include maven-compiler-plugin, maven-war-plugin, and maven-failsafe-plugin (for executing jUnit test).
Merchandizing Association
Merchandizing is the practice of displaying related items on product pages. The store’s administrators must define what a related product means and specify the nature of the association here.
Merchandizing associations have proven to be extremely effective at increasing the average order size for e-Commerce sites. They allow store administrators to promote related products on the same page that the customer is currently viewing. The goal is to increase the size of the customer’s shopping cart, or to encourage the purchase of a higher-profit item.
Related terms
Multi-SKU
A product that has more than one SKU. It is used to represent variations of the same product, such as sizes and colors of clothing. The ability for a given product to support multiple SKU’s is determined by the product type.
N
Navigation Mode
Navigation nodes group a store’s products into hierarchies. Each node can contain attributes, any number of products, and other child nodes. In Commerce Manager, a navigation node is known as a category. Cortex API refers to them as navigation node.
Nested Bundle
A bundle that is contained within another bundle. If a nested bundle has either select one or select x as its selection rule, then the parent bundle is considered to be a dynamic bundle. The shopper can choose which items are included.
Related terms
O
Order
The list of SKU’s and quantities that a shopper intends to purchase.
P
Packing Slip
A printed acknowledgement of the SKU’s packed in a delivery package. The packing slip usually has a quality assurance stamp or signature provided by the picker to confirm the items packed match those on the packing slip. The packing slip often doubles in purpose as the customers invoice for the ordered items.
Payment Gateway
A service that processes and authorizes payments made from a customer to a retailer. It encrypts sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, and ensures that it is transferred securely.
Out of the box, Elastic Path supports two payment gateways: CyberSource and a Demo (Null) gateway that is used for development.
PCI DSS
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 applies to all organizations which hold, process, or exchange cardholder information from any card branded with the logo of one of the card brands.
Permission
In the Commerce Manager client, the ability granted to a user (Commerce Manager) to perform some action. For example, permission to modify items in a catalog or to execute import jobs. Permissions are granted to users indirectly through user roles in Commerce Manager.
Related terms
Personalization
In Elastic Path Commerce, the ability to dynamically customize the shopper experience based on information previously gathered about the shopper segment. Also referred to as targeted selling.
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Pick Delay
The delay between when a customer submits an order and when the order is released for picking. Often a pick delay is used even if the ordered SKU’s are in stock to provide a time buffer for order modifications and cancellations by the customer.
Pick List
A printed list of SKU’s that need to be picked in the warehouse for packing, prior to shipping to the customer. A pick list usually contains information regarding the location of the items to be picked and the orders they belong to.
Project Object Model (POM)
A Project Object Model (POM) is an XML file that contains a description of a Java project. The POM.xml file may contain a variety of information, but it usually includes a list of the following items for the project:
- Dependencies
- Default values
- Profiles
- A reference to a parent project
- Build configurations
Maven builds the Java project according to the details defined in this POM. For more information on POMs, see POM Reference.
Pre-order
A product that is available for sale that cannot be immediately fulfilled because it is a newly available product and inventory has not yet been received. Orders for back ordered products are shipped as soon as inventory is received on a First In First Out (FIFO) basis. Products are usually offered on pre order when the supplier has committed to a future delivery date to the merchant.
Related terms
Price
The amount of money in a given currency that the shopper is expected to pay for a product or SKU. Prices are often subject to a variety of adjustments, including taxes, promotions, and sales.
Price Adjustment
The ability to automatically adjust the overall price of a dynamic bundle based on the selected bundle items. A retailer may want to offer the choice of bundle items with a wide range of prices. Shoppers consistently select the most expensive options can result in margin erosion. To prevent this, the retailer can configure the bundle price to be adjusted depending on which items are selected.
Related terms
Price List Offer
A set of price offers being treated as a single entity for convenience. For example, one could recreate all the price offers contained within a price list offer for the same effect.
Price List Stack
The set of price lists associated with a shopper. In Elastic Path Commerce 6.2, the ability to create price lists and associate them with shoppers through price list assignments was added. A shopper may be part of multiple shopper segments and they can be associated with multiple price lists. Each price list assignment has a priority that determines the order of precedence when determining which price list to use when looking up the price of an item.
Related terms
Price Tier
The price of a product or SKU for a given quantity. Retailers use price tiers to provide special volume pricing. For example, a retailer could define three price tiers for an item:
- Tier 1 price is $10.00 USD if the shopper purchases 1 to 10.
- Tier 2 price is $9.00 USD applies if the shopper purchases 11 to 100.
- Tier 3 price is $7.50 USD applies if the shopper purchases 101 to 1000.
Related terms
Product
A catalog entity that can be browsed by shoppers but not purchased. It is a container for one or more SKU’s that can be sold.
Product Type
A product type consists of:
- The set of attributes common to a particular kind of product
- The template used to render it in the storefront.
Related terms
Production Environment
An Elastic Path deployment that is accessible through the internet where shoppers can browse the storefront and make purchases.
Promotion
A price incentive offered to shoppers to promote a purchase when certain conditions have been satisfied. Also known as a discount.
Related terms
Promotion Rule
A condition or action associated with a promotion.
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R
Refund
A refund of money that occurs after the completion of the sale. Refunds may be given to the customer for a variety of reasons and can range in amount up to a maximum of the original order. Refunds are generally credited back to the original payment source, such as the customers credit card.
Related terms
Replacement
A type of merchandizing association whereby the shopper is presented with a replacement or newer product to the currently viewed discontinued or expired product. For example, an cell phone replacement may be presented to the customer when they view the discontinued cell phone. Replacements are used as merchants often leave discontinued products in their catalog for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes.
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Repository
A repository is a collection of Maven Artifacts. It provides the dependencies required by Maven to build Java projects. Repositories store artifacts in the filesystem hierarchically (<groupId>/<artifactId>/<artifactVersion>).
Local versus remote (central) repositories
Each developer on a project has a local repository, by default, located in <user_home>/.m2. This repository provides the dependencies when that developer builds the project. Local repositories might also connect to a remote repository, that acts as a central location for retrieving the most up-to-date versions of project dependencies. For example, when one developer adds a new dependency to the project, the developer updates the Project Object Model (POM) to refer to it and installs it in the central repository. When other developers retrieve the latest POM and try to build, they may not have the new dependency, in which case Maven will search for it in the central repository. If it’s there, the dependency is downloaded and installed in the local repository.
Resource
A resource is an entity that can be created, read, updated, and deleted. For example, in Commerce, a resource might be a product, order, or customer. You identify a resource in a store by using a URI that includes the unique identifier for the target resource.
Resource Prototype
Resource prototypes are generated Java classes that implement the resources defined in the API definition. Resource prototypes are generated from the API definition XML as an interface. The interface is generated with associated interfaces for the create, read, update, delete, and API operations that the resource can perform.
Return
A SKU or SKU’s returned to the merchant by the customer in exchange for a refund. Returns generally occur for unwanted gifts, damaged products, incorrect products or products that develop faults within their warranty period. Generally merchants issue an Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) authorizing the customer to return the goods.
The refund may occur immediately when the RMA is issued or alternatively only when the returned goods are received, depending on the merchants return policy.
Related terms
Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA)
RMA is an authorization from the merchant for a customer to return SKU’s ordered from a store and receive a refund or exchange SKU.
Related terms
S
Saved Condition
A dynamic content delivery condition that has been assigned a name and can be used multiple times.
Selection Rule
Specifies the options available to the shopper with regards to a bundle’s items.
There are currently three selection rules:
- Select one
- Select all
- Select x
A bundle’s selection rule is applied when a shopper adds the bundle to their shopping cart. If the bundle has been assigned the select one rule, the shopper must choose one and only one item in the bundle. If the select all rule is assigned, then all items in the bundle are automatically selected and added to the shopping cart. If select x is assigned, the shopper must choose a specific number of items in the bundle (as set by the merchant).
By nesting bundles with various combinations of selection rules, it’s possible to create complex product configurations. For example, a camera merchant can create a beginner photographer bundle that would allow the shopper to choose:
- One of three cameras, and
- One of three carry cases, and
- Two of three miscellaneous accessories
Possible combinations include:
- Camera A, Carry Case B, Editing Software, and Lens Set
- Camera B, Carry Case C, Lens Set, and How-to instructions
- Camera C, Carry Case A, Editing Software, and How-to instructions
- Camera of your choice, Carry Case B, Lens Set, and How-to instructions
Scope
A scope is a permission setting that specifies access to a particular store in a realm. For example, the realm could be a company is comprised of multiple stores: Store A, Store B, Store C, and Store D. When a user requests access to scope=Store B, they might be logging into the Store A realm, but will only have permissions to the Store B store.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to an e-Commerce storefront from search engines. This is done through natural or un-paid results, such as organic or algorithmic search results, as opposed to Search Engine Marketing (SEM) which deals with paid search results.
Shipment (Split)
Some orders cannot be fulfilled completely in a single shipment. For example, some of the items ordered might be out of stock. When this occurs the order can be split into multiple shipments as items become available.
Shipping Discount
A discount applied to the shipping rate of a shoppers shopping cart.
Shipping Region
A geographical entity, such as a country, state or province, that a store ships to.
Shipping Service Level
A delivery service that available in a given shipping region, such as Ground Shipping, Overnight Shipping, and so on.
Shopper
A visitor to a store. A shopper may also be a customer if they have previously purchased from the store, or created a registered customer account.
Shopper Segment
A set of conditions, or rules, that define a particular type of shopper, or persona. Marketers use shopper segments to target dynamic content and promotions at specific types of shoppers. Pricing managers use shopper segments to target price lists at specific types of shoppers. This targeting is referred to collectively as personalization.
Related terms
Shopping Cart
A place in a store where shoppers can accumulate a list of items for purchase, described metaphorically as "placing items in the shopping cart". Items in a cart can be purchased, resulting in an order.
Shopping Cart Promotion
A type of promotion applied to a shopper’s shopping cart.
Stock Keeping Unit (SKU)
A SKU represents the exact variant of an item being sold in the store. It is linked directly to available inventory.
Related terms
SKU Option
A style or variant of a SKU used to identify its association within a product. Examples include style, color, size or format.
Related terms
SKU Option Value
A specific value of a SKU option. For example, XS, S, and M are values assigned to the size SKU option.
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Staging Environment
An Elastic Path deployment that is used for preview purposes before new features or data are deployed to the production environment.
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Store
In Elastic Path Commerce, a store represents a retail organization that sells items to consumers. A store has a catalog containing the items, such as products and SKU’s, that it makes available to shoppers. Stores use strategies like merchandizing associations and promotions to attract shoppers and encourage them to make purchases.
The terms store and storefront are sometimes used interchangeably but their meanings are slightly different.
Related terms
Storefront
In e-Commerce, the storefront is the interface, such as a website, or a mobile application, that allows shoppers to interact with a store. A storefront usually provides shoppers with the ability to browse or search product catalogs, view current promotions, and make purchases. Most e-Commerce sites include some form of shopping cart, which keeps track of the items that the shopper intends to purchase. The shopper then proceeds to checkout, where the storefront collects the information required to place the order.
Related terms
Subtotal
The cart subtotal represents the currency amount of all items in the cart, including promotional discounts, before taxes.
T
Tag
A piece of information that can be used for personalization.
Tax
Additional monies that must be paid by the shopper to the retailer, to be collected by some governmental body, such as municipal, state or provincial and federal.
Related terms
Tax Category
Determines the taxes that are applicable for a tax jurisdiction. For example, the Provincial Sales Tax (PST) rate is different from one region to the next.
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Tax Code
Identifies the type of tax applicable to a product. Tax codes are used to group tax categories.
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Tax Jurisdiction
A region that is entitled to impose taxes.
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Tax Value
The tax rate applied to a tax category in a particular tax jurisdiction.
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Team Developer Environment
A team developer environment means you are coding within a release-engineering infrastructure. Elastic Path’s release-engineering infrastructure is comprised of Maven Nexus, Jenkins, and Git.
Theme
A set of files that define the visual presentation of a storefront. This includes templates, Javascript source files, stylesheets, and images.
Top Seller
The most sold product within a particular category. Elastic Path Commerce can be configured to calculate and display the top selling products when browsing categories in the storefront.
Related terms
U
Upsell
A type of merchandizing association whereby the shopper is presented with a product similar to the one currently being viewed. This product is either more expensive or has a higher profit margin for the vendor.
Related terms
User (Commerce Manager)
A person who uses the Commerce Manager (CM) client application. This should not be confused with shoppers or customers, who generally interact with Elastic Path Commerce exclusively through the storefront application.
Each CM client user has access to certain features, as determined by the user role (Commerce Manager)that have been assigned to them.
User Role (Commerce Manager)
A user role represents a set of permission (Commerce Manager) that can be assigned to user (Commerce Manager) in the Commerce Manager client application. Out of the box, three user roles are provided:
- Super User: Grants all permissions, and should be reserved for administrative use only.
- Commerce Manager User: Grants permission to log on to the Commerce Manager client.
- Web Services User: A special user role that allows third party applications to call Elastic Path Commerce’s web services.
Additional user roles can be created by users with the Configuration -> Manage Users permission. Users can be assigned to multiple roles. Permissions are cumulative. For example, adding a user role to a user combines its permissions with those granted by the user’s other user roles. A permission cannot be revoked by assigning a user role with less permissions.
Related terms
V
Virtual Catalog
A collection of catalog entries available for display and purchase at a given online store for a given shopper segment.
W
Warehouse
A physical location where shippable items are stored in anticipation of future orders.
Warranty
A type of merchandizing association whereby the shopper is presented with an item that is complementary to the currently viewed item. Unlike an accessory, a warranty is an intangible item that has no value in its own right. It can only be sold in conjunction with the item being viewed. For example, when the shopper adds a camera to her shopping cart, the option to purchase a one-year, on-site parts and labor warranty is displayed on the page.