Tips on ECinteractive and is.D-Force® 2
Sneak Preview: Coupons & Promotions Coming Soon!
Although ECinteractive 9.0.5 is not due out until late June, many dealers have been clamoring for information on its new Coupons feature.
Examples. Here are just a few promotion combinations you could offer:
- $10 Off First Web Order Total, with minimum $75 order (Use promo code 10off1st75), or $20 Off First Web Order Total with minimum $150 order (Use promo code 20off1w150). Newly registered accounts only. Not valid with any other offer.
- Buy three boxes of these whiteboard markers, get one box free (Shoppers may reuse this promotion code as often as they like across their entire account).
- Buy this printer, get this ink 25% off (any quantity, one use per department).
- Buy this combination of back-to-school-spirit items portfolio A, backpack B, and pencils C, and get 10% off the highest unit-priced item in the cart (any quantity, one use per shopper).
- Order $250 now (pre-tax, pre-volume discounts, but after your account's standard discounts), get $25 off your current order total.
- Order three reams of this paper now, get 15% off your next order.
- For every order over $150, pick from three free gifts (and reuse as often as you like before expiration date).
DDMS Promotion Setup. You'll find many thoughtful options for setting up your own coupon promotions in DDMS, as you can see in the figure below:
- Specify any 10-character promo code (alphanumeric), and any 50-character Description.
- Set up a series of promos in advance using different start and expiration dates.
- Web Orders Only (default at this time; Order Entry coupons will be available in a future release.
- Limit to use a certain number of times per account, department, or user.
- Toggle to allow use with other promotions.
- Require up to 50 specific item(s), spend over specific order total (compared to the order total minus any standard discounts, prior to taxing, and prior to any volume discount), or no minimum.
- Apply one of four Discount Types: Discount Current Order Total, Discount First Web Order Total, Discount Next Order Total, or Discount Highest Unit Priced Item on Order.
- Alternatively, you may apply one of two Item Bonus Types: Choice of Additional Item(s) or Discount Matching required Buy Item(s).
- Track Promotion and Promotion Item usage in new SQL Preview Reports, as well as current text-based usage reports.
- Customize messages displayed at Web Checkout to explain why a code is invalid.
Enable Promo Code Entry At Web Checkout. After setting up promotions on your backend system, you'll need to:
- Enable Promotions and Coupons in your customers' Marketing Settings.
- Communicate your promos to your customers. You might use Site Text, Custom HTML confirmation messages, and/or other marketing tools and campaigns.
 To take advantage of your promotions, shoppers must enter the promo code at Checkout (as shown here) or on Approval.
Your ECinteractive or is.D-Force 2 site will prompt for department if required, will check the code's validity, and if needed, prompt the shopper to select free item(s) from a list based on the promotional benefit you set up.
System Requirements. The Coupons & Promotions feature integrates both the back-end and front-end software. As a result, you may require a software update.
- ECi DDMS dealers must load DDMS 8.19 or higher (set for release next week).
- ECi COPAS dealers will be able to use their current Promotions features.
- ECinteractive 9.0.5 has a tentative release date of June 29, 2009.
Continuing Development. A future enhancement to enter promo codes in DDMS Order Entry is currently in queue for prioritization. However, Web coupons are available with the system requirements above.
We'll publish detailed instructions with the ECinteractive 9.0.5 release announcement.
Coupons Require DDMS 8.19+ (Download Soon Via Portal!)
If you are using DDMS as your back-end business system, you must upgrade your software to DDMS 8.19 or higher. This will allow you to take advantage of integration between back-end Promotions & Coupons administration application, additional GOA gateway software changes, and the ECinteractive and is.D-Force enhancements that handle promo codes.
DDMS dealers will soon be able to download DDMS 8.19 or higher from the ECi Customer Support Portal's Software Downloads page, pending final testing next week. We will announce the release to all customers soon.
Hundreds of ECi customers already go to https://support.ECiSolutions.com to log tickets, add attachments, add notes to Web Conversations with their support techs, look up their development status, download software updates, and more! It's easy to register if you haven't already.
When you are ready to download DDMS 8.19 or higher:
- Go to https://support.ECiSolutions.com.
- Just enter your unique email address. If you already have a password, enter it and click Submit. If you don't have your password or have forgotten it, check the box for a temporary password, and click Submit.
On the login page, you can view a 10-minute video guided tour to introduce you to using the ECi Customer Support Portal. There's also a new 2-minute video on using Software Downloads.
- If your email address is associated with a customer account in our system, you'll receive a temporary password. If not, we may contact you to verify your account.
- Once you receive your temporary password, you can log in.
- Change your password as prompted.
- Click Software Downloads, click DDMS 8.19 or higher and follow the on-screen steps.
Tips On Setting Up Category Trees for Custom Products
For items that are exclusive to your site, ECinteractive's Custom Product Management feature gives you great flexibility. You can add custom product categories, even entire category trees, while making your products easy for your customers to find.
What you may not know is how categories work. Here are some rules to remember:
- Clicks Are Minimized. If a category contains 25 or more items, your site shows the subcategory links you have defined. If it's less than 25 items, it shows the list of items. This threshold minimizes the number of clicks required to get to desired items. It also minimizes the amount of granularity required for you to map your category tree
- Cross-Pollenization is Easy. If a custom item logically belongs to two or more categories within the same catalog, no problem. Any item can be mapped to multiple categories or subcategories.
- Standard Categorization is Worth It. If you don’t categorize your custom items in the standard catalog, your customers will not be able to find those items through the Standard Browse Catalog categories, Favorites categories, or related pages. Instead, they will be displayed in the Miscellaneous category.
- ECP Category Mapping is Worth It. If you use United SmartSearch or S.P. Richard's Enhanced Content Provider (ECP) catalog, items that you have not mapped to ECP categories will be displayed in the Miscellaneous category. Uncategorized items in your custom ECP catalog will not display among Similar Products in Product Detail or Cart pages, because those lists are generated in part by category name.
- Plan Your Categories and Check your Spelling. If your custom category trees differ from the standard or ECP tree or contain spelling mistakes, it will result in duplicate categories. Browse your own site for ideas before you set up your category trees.
- Browse For Your Custom Items Periodically. Wholesalers are subject to update their category trees at quarter-end or with the release of a new general line catalog, If you previously created an ECP category structure, it's a good idea to Browse your site periodically, make sure all your custom categories still exist, and re-map as needed.
For more detailed instructions, we've updated page 17-20 of Setting Up Custom Items & Catalogs (pdf).
Correction: Do Not Use DEMO Account for Guest Users
When we announced the Guest User enhancements in ECinteractive 9.0.0, our original setup instructions showed a sample screen that erroneously highlighted the DEMO account for the default Guest account.
Do not use the DEMO account for guest orders. By design, DEMO orders do not flow through to Order Entry. DEMO is meant to demonstrate your system to prospective clients without having to manually remove tickets or incur transaction fees.
The recommended practice is to have a GUEST account set up in your backend system to accept credit card orders from your unregistered Web site visitors.
For detailed instructions, see your online help or the illustrated Guest User Checkout and Order History (pdf), which was corrected May 13 to show the GUEST account.
We apologize for any confusion this illustration error may have caused.
Promote Your Site With New Customizable Handouts
ECi offers two new tools for you to use in promoting your own site. Each handout highlights commonly used features — including the latest enhancements in version 9.0.0 — but is tailored to fit the needs of:
Using Microsoft® Word®, you can feel free to customize the header and footer with your company name, logo image, URL and so forth. You can even add or remove items to the list, and reformat the text.
Video Too! ECi produced a five-minute video that provides a guided tour of commonly used features in the ECinteractive family of products. For instructions on displaying this streaming video on your site (both the ECinteractive and Dealer Station families), see Displaying the Guided Tour Streaming Video (pdf).
JumpTech Setup Requires Our Cart Handler Address
If you subscribe to Jump Technologies, Inc. (www.jumptech.com/partners.html), the barcode scanning software needs to be set up with our cart processing handler application's Web address.
This cart handler Web address is necessary to transfer the orders into your system. At least three people need it:
- Your JumpTech representative needs it to set up your account in their system.
- You need it to set up JumpCart™ client software at your site for testing and/or retail purposes.
- Your customers need it to set up JumpCart client software at their locations.
The cart handler Web address looks like your main Web storefront site address — followed by the filename ExternalPartnerHandler.ashx. In the following examples, the blank represents your account name or number:
https://www.ecinteractive.com/____/ExternalPartnerHandler.ashx
https://www.dforce2.com/____/ExternalPartnerHandler.ashx
We communicated this cart handler Web address to JumpTech personnel, but inadvertently omitted it from our original announcement.
For troubleshooting purposes, your Admin Control Panel's AdminSite menu includes a Punchout Log. On this page, you can look up the chain of actions involved in a single transaction. You can also look up any items currently being stored in a temporary cart that have not posted to your backend system.
For detailed instructions on JumpTech setup and troubleshooting, see Setting Up the JumpCart Barcode Scanner Punchout (pdf).
Customize Your Shopping Site's Theme Colors
 Eight theme colors are currently available for all ECinteractive and is.D-Force 2 dealers.
What if you want to adjust your color theme? For an additional fee you can request colors that more closely harmonize with your company's branding, and differentiate yourself from the rest.
If you are matching your logo or existing site, consider using your original swatch or style sheet as a basis.You'll need to specify the desired valid HTML/CSS Hex Color Code (such as #0099FF) for each style element you wish to customize.
Ideally, use accessible, Web-safe color combinations with enough contrast to avoid colorblind issues.
For more details, please use the Custom Color Theme Request Form (pdf).
For this and other custom development requests, contact ECi Sales by phone (866-374-3221), fax (682-831-9929), or email (info@ecisolutions.com).
More Information and FAQs
For more details about your Web storefront, see ECinteractive FAQs
(www.DDMS.com/support/doc/ecInteractive.htm). |
