By Paul Lang, Editor, Sell It!
October 24th, 1998

See Also   How to Choose a Shopping Cart   StoreSense Pro   Click and Build   eCongo Free Commerce   EasyCart   FreeMerchant   Merchant Planet   Merchant Manager   Yahoo! Store   MerchandiZer

Overall
The large number of commerce servers or shopping carts currently available can in general be placed in to one of two broad categories. They either provide a complete Web store solution that includes the online creation and hosting of the store, or they simply provide Web merchants with the software tools to allow them to build and host a store themselves.

The Merchant Planet Web commerce solution falls in between these two categories. In essence all Merchant Planet provides is access to a virtual shopping cart together with optional online credit card processing. The merchant is responsible for creating and hosting the store, simply linking their pages to the Merchant Planet site to allow customers to add and remove products from their shopping cart, and to pay for their order.

This type of solution will probably only meet the needs of a limited number of Web merchants. The product is unlikely to appeal to the Web novice, as they still have to build a Web site – or pay someone to do it for them – using traditional HTML tools. Similarly the product lacks a number of key features that would make it of interest to the more advanced user.

However, Merchant Planet could be a suitable solution for a Webmaster that wants to bolt-on e-commerce capabilities to an existing Web site, with minimal disruption to the site and limited capital investment. Merchant Planet's pricing structure tends to support this approach with a modest set up fee combined with a monthly charge that is based on the actual value of sales made.

International merchants need to look elsewhere though as Merchant Planet currently only accepts applications from US merchants. This parochialism is also reflected in what is without doubt the biggest flaw with the Merchant Planet solution - its inability to work with distance related shipping charges. This makes accepting orders from non-US customers difficult, if not impossible.

Set Up
The Merchant Planet set-up process is simple. This is a reflection of both its good design and its limited functionality.

There are three steps in the set-up process; providing background information about the store, supplying details of the products to be sold in it and then finally adding links from the merchant's Web site in to the Merchant Planet network.

The first step is managed by a simple wizard that takes about 10 minutes to complete. After supplying basic information such as billing and administration contacts, the wizard then presents options for configuring the shopping cart. There are however very few options available. Merchants are only able to specify the screen background colours plus a logo that they wish to appear on each page. They then define which credit cards they are going to accept before specifying shipping and sales tax options.

There are three options available for setting shipping costs: per-item, weight based or order value based. Only one of these methods can be chosen and it will then apply to every item in the store. In addition up to three premium delivery methods and associated surcharges can be defined.

A major shortcoming is the inability to set shipping costs based on shipping distance. This makes it difficult if not impossible to deal with international orders.

Sales tax set up is straightforward. The merchant simply specifies which states they wish to collect sales tax for and then either accepts the tax rates that Merchant Planet suggests or inputs their own.

Once the store is set up the merchant then moves on to define the products it is to carry. Products can either be added manually via a form, or they can be imported from an existing database via a tab-delimited file.

Merchant Planet works with three categories of products: Simple Products that have no variations; Complex Products that do have variations; and Software Products that are available for download only.

One area that Merchant Planet handles well is variations. Each complex product can have a number of aspects defined for it, with each aspect then having associated variations. A shirt, for example, could have chest size and colour defined as aspects, with red, blue and green being the variants associated with the colour aspect. Each variant can have a different price and shipping cost attached to it as well as a unique part number to help with linking in to any legacy systems.

The final step in the set up process is to link an existing Web site to the store. The only assistance provided here is a simple help file that includes some sample links. A wizard to automatically generate links would be a welcome addition, as would other resources for example, a selection of graphics for buttons etc.

A Merchant Planet store costs $150 to set up with a monthly fee of 2% of sales, with a minimum charge of $35. There is a $150 set up fee for the optional CyberCash online credit card validation.

Order processing
The order processing options available are limited. Orders need to be placed online and payment must be made by one of four credit cards – MasterCard, Visa, Amex or Discover. All orders are secured via SSL.

Customers automatically receive an e-mail order acknowledgement that includes a unique order ID. However, there is no online order tracking capability.

The merchant is also notified by e-mail when an order is received. However, for security reasons they need to log on to Merchant Planet's secure server to get full order details. The merchant then has the option of either marking the order as fulfilled or putting it on backorder. Once the merchant specifies that an order has been completed an e-mail confirming shipment is automatically sent to the customer.

Administration
Day to day administration of the store is very straightforward mainly due to the limited functionality of the Merchant Planet solution. There are no facilities for discount clubs, price promotions or mailing list management. Nor are any reports available on the store's performance.

The only aspect of the store that needs regular maintenance is the product details. These can either be amended via a simple on line form or a whole new database can be uploaded.

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Links
Merchant Planet		http://www.merchantplanet.com