Product Configurator for eCommerce

Alterra Product Configuration Manager (PCM) configures products and variants for eCommerce systems, web shops and sales portals. Alterra PCM is a productconfigurator used to create classes, rules and configuration scenarios that ensure that compatible products are found in your web shop or via a product configuration wizard on your website. 

 Benefits of the Web Product Configurator 

• Maximum success when searching and finding compatible products.
• Maximum customer satisfaction through optimized search results.
• Relief for your sales force through less routine requests.
• Multiplies the expert knowledge of your sales force.
• Web-based product configuration for your web shop.
• Less effort for the collection of product data.
• Plug-ins for integration into all leading shop systems like Magento available.
• Compatible with SAP VK, IPC.

Screenshot:  Finding compatible products in a web shop for bike parts via Alterra PCM. 

Web-based Product Configuration

The software market so far lacked systems that were able to effectively prepare both complex rule sets and large amounts of product data for online sales. In cases, where products are to be configured by the customer or where the customer wants to check compatibilities between products on the web, Alterra Product Configuration Manager ensures that the necessary basic information for a successful search exists on the product.

Screenshot: Automatic identification of matching products in a pneumatics web shop – here via the property "thread diameter". 

Alterra PCM is a product configuration software in which the production database is maintained centrally and the configuration scenario, i.e. the set of rules for the compatibility of the products, is stored separately.  Customers can then query compatibilities in a web product configurator. A plug-in that allows for this is running on all popular CMS systems (Typo3, Drupal), shop systems like Magento Commerce, or CRM systems such as Shuggar CRM or Salesforce.com.   

The components at a glance

• Alterra PIM: The perfect platform for creating and combining masterdata and logics for your product configurator.
• Alterra PCM: The "Product Configuration Manager" calculates compatibilities between attributes, configuration-szenarios and rulesets.

• Alterra CakePHP Framework for Productconfiguration: The Web Product Configurator is a product-configuration-wizard working as a plug-in for websites and web shops, whose layout can be adapted to the requirements of the website. The module provides a powerful interface to search and find compatible components – so it's the product configurator  that the customer can actually see and use on the Internet. It is compatible with all major content management and shop systems.

Product Configuration with Alterra PCM

Optimized Method for Capturing Compatibilities

The optimized method for capturing dependencies between products is the separation of dependency structures and contents (mostly technical data). As the rules for compatibility are separated from the content of the components (products), data maintenance is kept free of redundancies. With this type of variant configuration, you can generate a large number of product variants for your customers live on the Internet with minimized effort. 

Optimized design of the data management

• Structure data = classes + attributes + rules 
• Content = products (classified with values) 
• Product Configurator Workflow
• Capture structure and rules
• Capture structure.
• Capture attributes.
• Structure attributes (form classes).
• Define matching and dependencies of attributes.
• Inheritance of matching and dependencies.
• Define configuration rules.

Work on the product

• Classify components (products, parts) 
• Fill component attributes with values ​​(technical data).
• Search and find compatible products 

Filter components by properties (attribute filter)

• View compatible products
• Order compatible items
• Product configuration by the customer
• Combination of products from parts lists.
• View summary. 
• Order configured complete/final product.

Chart: Product configuration with Alterra PCM – search and find compatible products in the web shop. 

Alterra PCM – the Perfect Product Configurator for Companies with Complex Products

With Alterra Product Configurator, a product is offered on the market that is a must-have for companies that offer more complex products. 

It enables you to implement ambitious eCommerce projects or product configurators on your website. The integration does not require complex programming, so projects can be implemented quickly and you can quickly benefit from the expected ROI (return on investment). This is a concept that management boards or CIOs that focus on results should like. 

Your Personal Web Demo. 

You can get more information about Alterra PCM in a Personal Web Demo.