Product Browsing and Search

Categories

• How many levels of categories will there be?
• Can products belong to multiple categories?
• Is there a single hierarchy or should users be able browse using multiple starting criteria (e.g. Brand vs. Product Type vs. Occasion vs. Cost Range)

Search & Filtering

• Keyword based searching is a given, but what fields will need to be searched?
• Should users be able to filter by attribute/category? Is Cumulative filtering required (i.e. Keyword = “Basket” + Wood + Woven + Lined + Brand)

Options & Variations - (e.g. color, size, material, voltage).

• Will there be multiple options for products?
• Should different SKUs be represented as different products or options within a single product?
• Will variants need to impact product cost and weight (for shipping calculations).
• Will there be add-ons and upsells? E.g. we hope you like your toy, do you want to also buy the batteries for it

Listing Page

• What Fields should be displayed on the listing page? Do different categories need different display templates?
• Should users be able to add products to their cart from the listing page? If so, how should options and variants be handled?

Details Page

• What Fields should be displayed on the Details Page?
• Should details be broken into multiple tabs?
• Should users be able to view additional images for a product (e.g. Front View, Back View, Interior, Exterior, ...).

Discounts and Sales

• What types of discounts and sales will you provide?
  • Role Based Discounts –Wholesale customers, frequent buyers, friends 
    Referral discounts?
  • Bulk discounts – e.g. Buy 10 and get a 10% discount,
  • Combo - Buy Product A and get Product B for 50% off 
  • Coupons/Promotion Codes – Single Use, multi-use, once per account 
  • Groupons/Deal of the Day
  • Holiday Promotions
• Will you offer both product discounts (Buy 1 Get 1, 20% of product A and cart discounts (i.e. 20% of entire Subtotal)

Shopping Cart
Mini-shopping Cart location and details to display: products? Sub-total?

Features

• Wish List - Should users be able to create a Wish List?
• Sharing/Send to a Friend - Should users be able send product details to a friend?
• Ratings and Comments - Should users be allowed to rate and comment on products?
• Referral Tracking
• Inventory Tracking? Show Availability? Allow Backorders?
• Downloads? (e.g. Software, Product Info, or Manual)
• Multiple Vendors - Will different people/companies be selling things are your site?
• Multiple Stores?
• Gift Messages

Payment / Checkout

Customer/Account Information- What data to you want/need to collect for each customer? How will accounts be created (user registration, import, data entry, combination)? Is anonymous checkout supported?

Taxes

• Local taxes (special business districts, City of St. Louis)
• State Taxes
• Country Taxes

Payment

• What Payment Methods are allow (CC, ACH, Credit Terms, COD, invoice, ...)
• What Credit Cards are accepted?
• What level of validation do you need (Card # and CVC? Name? Address?)
• Automated or Manual Processing of Credit Cards? Gateway? Merchant Bank?
• Should credit card info be stored on the server and should users be able to save and select from existing cards?
• Is PCI Compliance required? If your taking credit cards online, it probably should be.
• SSL- Do they have an existing SSL certificate? Preferred provider? What type/level of certificate do they want?
• Newsletter - Should users be able to opt-in for a Newsletter? Single newsletter or multiple types (Sales, New Products, Store information, ...)

Shipping

• What Carriers (UPS, USPS, FedEx, ...) do you want to support?
• Delivery Options (For Each Carrier: Ground, Next Day Air, 2 Day air, ...)
• Order Tracking - Is order tracking required?
• Is support for printing labels required? Any special requirements (i.e. QR Codes)?
• How will shipping costs be calculated? Based on weight? Fixed Based on order amount? Fixed? Percentage of Order Amount? Variable based on shipto address?
• Do shipments need to broken into multiple boxes?
• International Shipping? Canada? Non-contiguous states?
• Can users split their order between Multiple Addresses?
• Might an order ship from multiple warehouses? Is "drop shipping" support required?
• Gifts - Ship to Friend? Gift message, gift cards, gift wrapping? Allow spliting order into multiple shipments?
• What type of Shipping Discounts do you anticipate?
• Time until product is shipped- Consistent? Variable per product? Variable per category?

Administration & Integration

Reporting

• What do they need in terms of reporting? Graphs and charts?

Fulfillment & Order Tracking

• Should users be notified at each phase of the order (Order Receipt, Payment Receipt, Order Fulfilled, Order Shipped, Order Returned)?

Integration

• Is integration with Quickbooks or other accounting systems required?
• Is Order and/or customer Export to a specific system required.
• Audit Trails - When something goes wrong (i.e. a client accuses says credit cards numbers entered through your store have been misused), having a proven audit trail is invaluable (also required for PCI compliance).

Product Entry

• How will products get into the system (data entry, one time import, daily import, real-time integration with separate system, combination)?