MyStore3™ User Interface

With MyStore3™ a customer can browse at will without regard to any special sequence of events.

MyStore3™ paradigm emulates a traditional corporate business technique for making a purchase:  a buyer writes a purchase order to a seller. The purchase order is a contract which which defines the entire transaction between the two parties. It typically identifies the seller and buyer by name and address, provides shipping requirements specified by the buyer, payment requirements of the seller, and a detail list of the quantities, descriptions, and prices of the items being ordered. It will also include any special instructions of either party.

This leads to a well defined , modular system for putting together the MyStore3 software.

First there is the database of products broken into individual tables by category along with the associated table and category readers. The readers determine what and how the database information will be presented to the customer. (In the Lite version there'll be only one category.)
Second there is the shopping basket where product selections can be viewed and edited.
Third there is an order form where the customer fills in all of the purchase contract information except for the product selections themselves.
Forth there is the purchase order itself which combines the selection information with the purchase information and represents the buy-sell contract.

Using MyStore3, it is perfectly acceptable for the customer to navigate at random among the modules. They can't do the wrong thing! Included are four ways to view product information and make selections.

The Browse button will return a list of product categories with examples of items in each category. (In the Lite version this button takes the customer directly to a product list)
A View Category link from the Browse page returns a list of products within the category, sorted by product type. Selections to the basket can be made here.
A '?' link from a type list returns a product type information page. This page can have any image and/or promotional material on it that you want. The page automatically displays a list of all of the items within the category and type. Selections to the basket can be made here.
An Imbedded link in a product listing returns an item detail page. As above this page can can have any images and/or promotional material on it that you want. It too supports selections to the basket from a list of the type group in which the item resides.
The Search button returns an entry form where your customer can select a category to search in using item description keywords. The keywords can be separated by commas, causing a return of multiple lists of items grouped according to the keyword. IE: A customer could search on "red, dodge" in a particular category. This will return two lists: everything red and everything dodge. This is considered an excellent search return to a shopper because it is actually returning everything for which a shopper has preferences.   Selections to the basket can be made from the search return.

The other navigation possibilities along with Browse and Search are provided with the buttons at the bottom of the storefront window. All of these buttons can be your own custom images. They are:

Check Basket returns the shopping basket where selected items can be viewed and edited.
Order Form returns the form in which the customer provides their billing and shipping information, optional gift wrap information, and payment information.
Purchase Order returns the purchase order itself. It include all of the contractual information and is the only location from which the order can be submitted. There are various checking functions built in to make sure all essential information has been provided. When the order is submitted, both the HTML version being viewed by the customer and a text version of the order are sent to the store. Usually the text version gets e-mailed with a confirmation copy to the customer and the HTML version gets saved to a folder.

Some of this action is designed to protect you the merchant. The Purchase Order is a contract. So we provide you with an exact copy of what the customer was viewing when they sent the order. There can be no dispute here. The confirmation text copy to the customer requests a return in the event they did not place the order. This helps to eliminate bogus orders from people using someone else's e-mail address.

Of course if on line credit card payment is being made, there are further checks.

Feedback returns a standard form from which the customer can select subjects about which to communicate with your store.
About returns the opening page to the store which contains generic information and the side bar window with the customer confidence building logos.
One other link in the bottom row is the store name. This link points back to your web site index file. This is usually the opening page to your site.

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