Integrating your Company Store with an outside system is a great way for you to provide a custom and unique store that will work exactly how your clients need. A Company Store integration can help prevent mistakes by eliminating the need to rekey order data and can also streamline the ordering process for both you and your clients. There are several types of Company Store Integrations that are offered in Bright Sites:
Single Sign On (SSO)
By far, the most popular type of Company Store integration is a Single Sign On (SSO) integration. An SSO integration allows you to set up your client’s Company Store with their intranet or employee/user management system for a single action of user authentication and authorization. What does this mean? When a user logs into their work system, they will automatically be logged into the Company Store and ready to shop.
There’s a variety of SSOs on the market – the most common type is SAML 2.0. We offer a Standard SAML which will carry over basic user information and an Advanced SAML which will allow you to carry additional data such as custom user fields. The benefits of having an SSO include an added level of security and control for store administrators while creating an enormous level of ease and flexibility for the user because now they don’t have to remember yet another URL and log in.
Punchout Stores
If your client requires all corporate purchasing to be completed within a procurement system, you will need to offer them a Punchout Integration. A Punchout Integration allows the Company Store to communicate directly with that procurement system for purchase order approval. The most common procurement systems are Ariba, Oracle, Clear Commerce. Bright Sites can connect to most other procurement systems that support both cXML and OCI language for a successful punchout. How does it work? Users add products to their cart, the cart information is sent to the procurement system for order approval or to create a purchase order, then that data gets sent back to Bright Sites for completion. A Punchout Integration gives your client an increased level of spending control by requiring all purchases to be managed through the procurement system.
Web Services / APIs
An API allows you to consume all order and store data programmatically and push that information from Bright Sites to many outside systems. Using APIs, we have successfully integrated Bright Sites with hundreds of outside systems. APIs are used primarily to integrate with order management systems for order processing, fulfillment houses and warehouse systems for inventory management, and billing systems.
We have APIs for order data, user data, product and inventory information, and so much more. These APIs will allow you to integrate with just about any system.
Out-of-the-Box Integrations
Ranging from advanced product customization to shipping and shopping cart integrations, there are several built-in integrations that make it easy for you to connect outside systems with your Bright Sites store.
Sales Tax – Bright Sites has a zip code based sales tax tool you can use in your stores but if you would like real-time tax calculations, we recommend integrating your store with Avalara. Avalara pulls in tax rates from over 12,000 jurisdictions to provide you with the most up-to-date tax rates to accurately calculate each order.
Shipping – There are two types of integrations you can use in Bright Sites for shipping. You can integrate with FedEx, UPS, or USPS to pull in shipping rates. Shipping rates are calculated using the product weight and dimensions along with the origin and shipping addresses. These rate calculations are then added to the final order total.
The other shipping integration is with ShipStation. ShipStation offers more capabilities than just calculating shipping rates. You can print shipping labels, and generate pick tickets and packing slips. ShipStation will also let you manage all of your shipping accounts in one location, and will automatically send the tracking information back to your store.
Payment Gateways – If you are accepting credit card or check payments through your store, you will need a payment gateway. A payment gateway allows you to securely accept and process credit cards while remaining PCI compliant. Bright Sites integrates with Stripe, Authorize.Net, and Square.
Order Management – For a direct Order Management integration, you can automatically send order details for all of your Company Stores directly to Bright Orders to begin processing, fulfiling, invoicing, and collecting payment for orders quickly and easily. We also have integration options with ASI Smartbooks. Or, as mentioned earlier, distributors have used our suite of APIs to integrate with a number of outside order management systems. If you currently have a system in place or are shopping for a new order management system to process orders, just give us a call and we’ll help you determine if it will integrate with Bright Sites.
Enhancing your Bright Sites stores with outside systems is easy and can provide you or your client with a more efficient and secure Company Store. If you’re looking for a particular integration that we didn’t mention – give us a call! We’re happy to discuss custom integration options with you.