making items available on website

Is there a way to 'make items available on the website' other than going into each items properties under the Options Tab and checking the box? I would like to make quite a few items available at one time if possible. Thanks for any help. Craig

Criag

The SQL statement suggested should be executed through SO Adminstrator...

This should work with whatever eCommerce product you are using since they should all use the RMS SQL tables.

Plug: If you had been using NitroSell eCommerce there is a 'block fill' tool that does all of this for you and 1001 other things at the same time - stitching data together, fill one field with another's data, etc. So, ABH Development, you can strike NitroSell off the list of probable eCommerce solutions that Craig is using! ;o)

Craig there are only a few RMS eCommerce solutions out there and you'll have to decide what's best for you. You can do a search within this news group for RMS eCommerce and study up a bit. Here is a link you can start with.

Kosmos Central has a great solution that integrates with RMS, you can read about it here:

Coming Soon: RMS OSCommerce Solution Web Integrator 3.0 (ship from any location with RMS HQ)

Alex

ABH - you can scratch Kosmos off the list as well... For a full list of competitors, just e-mail me direct and I will furnish you with my list.

Does anyone else want to slip in a bit of blatant advertising before we start the New Year? As well as listing features, we could all start listing the exhibitions and shows we are going to attend over 2007 and then Craig can come and find out if he really wants to replace the solution that he is already putting together. The other option is to arrange a football game where each company gets to field their own team

- winner gets to pitch their sales spiel to Craig without interruption! :D

Happy New Year to you all!

Dominic

Dominic if you have such a killer list why don't you post it? Seems like you're biased to Nitrocell. I've been doing some research and there seems to be only 3 proven RMS eCommerce solutions out there.

Nitrocell has a great reseller plan and I would assume you're a reseller because they are padding your wallet with re-occurring income. Since Kosmos customers own their product 100% and can host anywhere they can't offer re-occurring, and their solution is the most cost effective. Store Front also has a reseller plan, but since their service is terrible I'm not even considering it.

Just review all the posts here and you'll see what's available.

Where's your list? If you have one, please post it because the community would like to know. I have not made my decision yet and would like to know what other proven options are out there.

Hi Nick

Yes, I am biased towards NitroSell - just look at my e-mail address. I also have 160+ dealers who are also biased towards NitroSell - they too have done their research and have come to the same conclusion. First off, let's correct your stats on NitroSell...

They should read: only 15 minutes to setup for an inexperienced user easy to customise if you have web developer skills fees NOT based on qty of products images automatically re-sized for you extend the RMS database to include additional fields to suit your business increases page ranking because you are part of the NitroSell community excellent search engine optimization - to get business through your door hourly sync with your RMS database fully managed service - no servers to buy, no servers to fail, no maintenance callouts, no reliance on a single ISP to deliver 24/7 shopping 100% portable means 100% YOUR problem if anything goes wrong 100% owned means that you don't get free updates for web and back office functionality

So, to answer your other points... Yes, NitroSell have a great reseller plan - 160+ trained resellers able to assist you with RMS issue enhancing your solution beyond the basics web design web optimisation. advise on getting more customers to your site If all you want is a web presence, there are plenty of choices. Lets face it, you could open a bricks and mortar store anywhere you choose but a good location makes all the difference to sales! The same goes for webstores - if you want a business that will grow and become more successful the choice is a LOT smaller.

You've looked at cost effective solutions, presumably just at the costs... What about the revenue that you could generate? We have customers who will quote revenue up 300% and December sales up %120. We also have customers who have ditched their old web solution to join NitroSell because they weren't getting the level of business they had expected.

Surely a critical issue here is that this is your opportunity to compete with YOUR competitors on a level playing field! Webstores level the field and if you check out the stats on shopper expectation, you will see that speed, quality and reliability are top of the list of reasons why goods sites are good sites...

Now comes the punch... you say "Proven options". There I am at a loss. The list even seems to be shrinking since one of our old 'competitors' have now chosen to sell our product instead of their own! Unproven eCommerce is simple, how many of them can integrate properly and give you a service worthy of a retail business is another question for another thread maybe?

I'm going to be on a stand at the NRF show in January, why not come along and we can discuss the points in more detail?

Seasons Greetings

Dominic

Please further explain:

"6) Web Integrator 2.3 (supports RMS Headquarters: ship from one location)"

Does this mean that all of my web orders would need to ship from the same location? For example, what happens when location A is out of stock, but Location B has inventory? I need to be able to either ship from any location or allow the customer to select store location for pickup.

I'm not clear on what the HQ part does.

Jason, with the current version of WI 2.3, all orders would be delivered to one store location or a shipping warehouse. That store manager then would have to decide if he or she needs to do a transfer request to another location to process the order via RMS. We are also looking into a new design model for the next version of WI and the Kosmos Web Service, that will allow orders to be downloaded to the nearest store based on the zip code.

Alex KosmosCentral.com

Please don't go the Zip Code route. We aren't all in the gool ole' USA, you know.

That does not seem like a practical and flexible route.

Jason

Hi Nick

Just visit

Back to the point - check out any of

"Terrazas 2004 De Los Andes Chardonnay" this puts them at the top of the Google search, but "Terrazas 2004 chardonnay" puts them in second place but the no.1 slot isn't a shopping site and "Terrazas 2004" still puts them on the first page, albeit near the bottom

Also, check out

The SEO is handled as standard by NitroSell. We advise our clients on how best to market their products for the web but also have a number of "tricks" that we use to ensure that you get as far up the searches as is possible. Happy New Year

Dominic

Dominic

I looked up 'Terrazas 2004 De Los Andes Chardonnay' and wasn't able to find anything on Google at all. My self as a consumer I'm not going to put obscure unique names in a search and would probably locate more generic competitive terms like 'Terrazas 2004 (other year...) and hopefully I'd run across a professional looking site. Cycle ways did come up though. I'm concerned about your TRICKS, because using any sort of tactic not accepted by a search engine will get you banned when caught.

When you state Nitrosell's solution includes SEO, what does that entail?

What exactly am I getting with your solution and how much?

Nick

Hi Nick

Yes, I agree that you wouldn't put "obscure descriptions" in to a search engine - that's why I listed 3 different search strings for the same product.

We don't use search engine unfriendly 'tricks'. The point is that I have no intention of describing all of our methods on an open forum. NitroSell have been providing webstore solutions for a number of years now and we don't use cheats to push you up the ranking - we do however know how to produce a technically competent product that helps increase SEO and how to advise our clients on what they can do as well...

To answer some of your points specifically, we manage areas such as Google Analystics, Site Maps and Google Base (Froogle) submissions directly on behalf of our clients but leave Ad Words and banners for them to decide on for themselves.

Please e-mail me directly with your details if you would like one of the sales team to give you a call... snipped-for-privacy@nitrosell.com

Happy New Year

Dominic

Im a web application developer (13 years web development experience) who wants to integrate RMS into an existing CMS. All Ive read in lots of threads is sales crap and no real technical information or solutions.

I havent seen the RMS backend yet, are the db tables exposed, are there stored procs that can be used or not, and/or is there a decent api that can be used.

Im integrating it into a ColdFusion CMS on Windows using MSSQL 2005 so wont be using php or mysql.

H> Hi Nick

There is no info available on this subject from MS...those who have integrated with it do it directly through SQL I'd say...there is an XML document that discusses how to integrate the inventory and pull orders down to POS (via the Exchange table) but that's about it...I have not ever seen this document myself, but I understand it's pretty skeletal...You will basically have to come up with your own integration if you want to do anything more than that...Indeed that's what we did with NSc Commerce.

Regards, Todd Jensen NitroSell

Jason

If you can program in SQL, you shouldn't need an ODBC driver. The big problem is understanding all of the RMS fields and how they work in all conditions.

Like Todd, as far as I know there isn't a 'how to integrate your webstore to RMS' style document. Your best bet is probably to get hold of a copy and test each condition that you want to create a web component for.

The blatant sales pitch on this, is that there are a few engines to drive RMS data on to the web, maybe you should look at those and concentrate on the HTML/presentation side of the webstore? From NitroSell's corner, we have plenty of freelance opportunities for proven HTML web designers working with our engine...

Dominic