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Let's
try to define Your Products
Catalog: |
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Your
products catalog is the
Database that contains all
the information related
to your products. Such a
catalog can be divided into
departments or categories.
Each Category may be divided
into one or more sub-categories,
each sub-category may as
well be divided into sub-sub-categories
and so on so forth down
to the items level.
While building your products
catalog, we will define
a few "key words"
that will be very useful
in exploiting the full power
of the PL4E package
so you
apply it in the way that
serves best your e-store
and its future expansions.
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Classes
and Attributes
Among your items,
do you have multiple
types? For instance,
Clothes and Books
are of two totally
different types.
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| Example: |
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Let's
say you plan
to sell Garments,
Books, Computers
and Beds on
your site. You
proceed as follows:
Garments have
to have the
following properties
(called attributes):
Size, Color,
Brand, Fabric,
etc.,
Books have the
following attributes:
ISBN, publishing
house, author,
hard/soft cover,
etc.
Computers have:
CPU type, CPU
speed, RAM Memory,
HDD capacity,
etc.
And, Beds have:
Model, Height,
size, Wood/Metal,
mattress type,
etc.
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Definition: |
Attributes
are the characteristics
of certain set of
items
Or product lines.
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Definition: |
A
Class is a set to
which belongs all
the items that have
exactly the same attributes.
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It is your turn now, Please
define the classes and attributes
of your products lines.
Please do that with real
examples. You will make
it
easier for our engineers
to build a solid structure
for your products Databases.
You will get the software
quality and reliability
enjoyed
only by multi-billion
Dollar companies.
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Do
your items have to have
dynamically defined attributes?
I mean, do you want to have
the ability to edit (add,
modify, delete) the attributes
of your items through a
control panel without the
help of a programmer?. If
yes, then the attributes
of your items should have
the flexibility to be dynamically
defined. The PL4E smart
software allows for such
a flexibility so anytime
you decide to start selling
new products on your website, you will be able to
define all the parameters
that let you have full control
of these products just like
they were build with your
original web store.
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Categories
and Sub-categories.
Your Products lines are
better handled when grouped
into categories
and sub-categories:
Example:
For clothes, you may have
Women's Garments and Men's
Garments as
two separate
categories. Whereas, Brand
XYZ of either men's or
women's
garments can be grouped
into a sub-category of its
own category. Books
can be categorized based
on any defined criteria,
For instance, school books,
reference books, Medical
books, etc., each of
which
can be considered a category.
A sub-category for Medical
books would be, say, Books
on Heart Attack issues,
etc.
Based
on the above, Please define
the categories and sub-categories
your products will belong
to. This helps establish
a good structure for
the
hierarchy of your products
lines.
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Do
you want to have fixed or
dynamically defined categories?
This feature gives you the
tool to create a new category
or sub-category for any
of your product lines through
a control panel that you
can access through an ID
and a Password.
Example:
For Women's Garments, this
gives you the tool to set-up
a new category called brand
"ABC" and a new
sub-category called "xyz",
etc.
Relations
between items of your products
lines.
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a. |
Do
you want to establish
any sort of relations
between items of your
products?
For Instance, when
a customer checks
a shirt on your web
store, do you want
the PL4E Smart software
to suggest to him
to buy a tie that
goes with the shirt?
Do you want to suggest
to him to buy a shirt
of higher price?
Do you want to recommend
to him to consider
to buy a bundle that
may contain a shirt,
a tie and a set of
golden buttons?
All this can easily
be set-up for you
in your PL4E Admin
Control Panel. Just
help us define the
relations that you
would like to establish
between your items
and we will make it
very easy for you
to do it with a few
clicks of a mouse.
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b.
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Write
your special comments
if you have any. Mention
please about what
was not Considered
in the above questions.
You may have some
special cases. We
will be happy to deal
with them. Just let
us know what are they
and we will take it
from there.
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Example:
A
department store:
Catalog
A
catalog would contain all
the products available in
the store.
Categories
Examples
of categories would be:
Men's ware, Cosmetics, Kitchen
ware, Books, etc.
Sub-Categories,
Items
Examples
of sub-categories for Men's
ware would be: Men's shirts,
Men's Ties, Men's shoes,
etc. Examples of Sub-sub-Categories
for Men's ware would be:
Men's shirts with short
sleeves or, if you want,
Men's shirts of Brand XYZ,
etc.
A
Sub-Category for Books can
be: Computer Books
A Sub-sub-Category for Books
can be: Java Programming
Books
Items under Java Programming
Books can be:
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Item 1: Java Learning
Book, written by abc |
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Item 2: Intermediate
Java book, by xyz |
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Item 3: Advanced
Java programming |
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Etc. |
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Classes
and attributes
In
the above examples, The
attributes for Men's shirts
would be: Color, Size, Brand,
Fabric, Collar type, etc.
The attributes for Books
would be: ISBN, Publisher,
Author, Cover type, etc.
As
a consequence, All Shirts
may belong to the same
Class. Because their attributes
are the same. This also
applies for Books, etc.
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