Web Tool FAQs
If these FAQs do not address your issue, please contact the Electronic Commerce Help Desk at:
U.S. Support Line: 800-222-7926
U.S. Fax: 727-538-5823
Canadian Support Line: 800-334-2445
Latin America / Caribbean Support Line: 727-532-8850
On the right side of the screen towards the top there is a computer icon with a link titled "My Account Login". Click this link to go to the login page. Enter
your user id and password and click the login button. This will allow you access to all of our secured search and ordering tools. (back to top)
Our new website is designed by resellers for resellers. We responded to a strong business need to offer assistance in providing intelligent
add-on suggestions. Additionally, the new site has been improved to offer you increased efficiency in locating products through several searching
enhancements. (back to top)
The look of our website changed to provide easier site navigation and to accomodate our new search and sales tools. (back to top)
We've added product aisles across the top of each page. You can now drill down through these categories to the subcategory, then down to attributes to find the products you're looking for.
Our new search engine returns results based on relevancy (those products most relevant to the search keywords appear nearest to the top). Results are also based on a list of synonyms
commonly substituted for search keywords entered. We've added a "Did you mean" tool to display possible spelling corrections/suggestions. In addition, our search results are now unlimited.
(Note: The "Legacy" searches still have a limit of 600 products.) (back to top)
Our new site is designed with resellers in mind, crafted to provide you with valuable upsell and cross-sell opportunities to engage your customer and increase your business. You can use these
features to more effectively sell add-on products. (back to top)
Our new search engine will help you find the product you're looking for faster which will help with your productivity. Also, by displaying additional information such as Featured Products,
Top Sellers, May We Suggest, and People Who Bought This Item Also Bought..., we will show you items that are relevant to the purchase you're already making. These are items you may have
overlooked or not even considered that you're customer may also need. Knowledge of these items could help you make that extra sale to your customer. (back to top)
The configuration tools are still there, located on the left side bar under the Support heading. (back to top)
The old search tools will be phased out as they are limited in their functionality. The new search tools provide unlimited search results, “Did You Mean?” and Thesaurus suggestions. The legacy
search tools are provided in the transition to the new web site. (back to top)
Yes, our page names haven't changed so you will still be able to use your old bookmarks. (back to top)
All of the content still exists. The information from the home page is provided in the links at the top of our site and within the left side bar. (back to top)
Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's browsers are still supported on our site. (back to top)
We will soon have new tutorials on the site to walk you through the new search functionality and site navigation.
In addition, you can attend a free 75 minute demonstration of the techdata.com's new features, including navigation, searching, My Menu, and site personalization functionality. It is held every
Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. EST and you can register online. Register Now! (back to top)
These items are derived from analyzing patterns of invoices across all resellers to identify most prevalent items in a given category. Relevancy is based upon navigation throughout the site.
Top Sellers can be most effectively utilized as an aid in helping you identify the hot selling items to your end user. (back to top)
These are items published by both manufacturers and our product marketing teams to provide relevant add-ons related to products being purchased. Recommendations will vary from time to time based upon
industry trends, special deals, and other factors to provide extra tools. (back to top)
These are items that may be of interest based on category selected, new items stocked, or special offerings from vendors. (back to top)
These are items identified by analyzing the purchasing habits of our resellers. The most frequent combinations are provided as potential add-on sales opportunities to use with your end user. (back to top)
As part of Tech Data's committment in making our site easier for you to use, the common feature of displaying product categories on every page, similar to consumer websites, has been added. These tabs
allow users to navigate through our product heirarchies. (back to top)
You have multiple ways to search for product on our site. The product aisles (tabs) across the top of each screen allow you to access any of our categories and drill down to subcategory and then attribute. See our help section
titled New Category Search for step by step instructions. You can search by keyword by entering a value in the input box located towards the top of the left side bar.
For step by step instructions on using that search please see our help section titled Keyword Search. You can also still use the "legacy" Category Search or Category Map
search features. (back to top)
On the search results page, we strive to provide as much information as possible about a product but have a limited area of space in order to do so. To remedy this, we show icons to convey certain information. The meaning of those icons are as
follows:
- Question mark - If you mouse over this icon it will show a full explanation of the item status.
- Shopping Cart with arrow - Clicking this adds the items to your shopping cart.
- Star - You can click this icon to add the item to one of your Favorites folders.
- Drop Ship - Indicates the item is available to be drop shipped directly from the vendor.
- LION - Licensing Product.
- Bundle - This item is part of a bundle. (back to top)
In the upper right hand corner of several of our tool screens you will see several icons and a link. From left to right the icons are as follows:
- Shopping cart (with a link next to it) - Clicking this icon or the link will take you to your shopping cart.
The link tells you how many items are in your shopping cart.
- Envelope - Clicking this icon brings you to our message center. We use this area to inform you of changes made to our site, important security information,
or sometimes promotional information.
- Clipboard - Clicking this icon brings you to site options. You can customize your experience using Tech Data tools by setting up how you would like to see your searches, orders, etc. in our site options.
- Star - Indicates Favorites. You can click this icon to view and/or manage your Favorites folders.
- Logoff button - The logoff link is right beside the button. Clicking this will log you out of the website and causes you to have to log in again if you access the website later that day. If you only close your
browser without clicking the logoff button you can access the website without logging in again for that day. The next day you will have to log in upon first access of the day. (back to top)
Tech Data has implemented features that will increase the security of your Tech Data Electronic Commerce User Name/ID and Password. Occasionally, you will be reminded if your login credentials are not valid or will soon expire. Please take the opportunity to
keep your information current. We will be expiring passwords on a regular basis. As such, you should NOT "hard code" (auto-save) login and/or password information as credentials are subject to change. Tech Data reserves the right to inactivate an EC User ID
without notification after 6 months of no login activity. (back to top)
In general, high-traffic web sites such as Tech Data's www.techdata.com have to employ measures to ensure satisfactory performance under high demand conditions. Server load balancing, clustering technology and application tuning are some of the strategies
utilized for optimal web site performance. In addition, every high capacity web site also has to contend with managing server memory, and Tech Data is no different. This technique is implemented in numerous ways and often a connection timeout value is utilized.
We have employed this technique to manage server memory ever since the launch of our web site in 1997. The connection timeout basically recognizes the last time a reseller has accessed our web site and if it exceeds 45 minutes of inactivity, the user’s session
encounters a timeout. Without this feature, any high-traffic web site would see a decline in performance throughout the day. Tech Data has implemented a feature that can save your login information to a cookie stored on your local machine. To use this feature
click on the appropriate check box on the Tech Data login page. (back to top)
If you are coming in to the Tech Data web site through a proxy server at your location, your local configuration may have incompatibilities that prevent you from moving off the login screen, even though you have entered a valid login ID and password. If this
is an issue for you, check the "Use SSL for entire Session" checkbox located at the bottom of the Customer Login screen to resolve the problem. (back to top)
A cookie is a message given to a Web browser by a Web server. The browser stores the message in a text file and the message is sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. The main purpose of cookies is to identify users and
prepare customized Web pages for them. For example, when you enter a Web site that uses cookies, you may be asked to fill out a form providing information such as your name and interests. This information is packaged into a cookie and sent to your Web browser,
which stores it for later use. The next time you go to the same Web site, your browser will send the cookie to the Web server. The server can then use this information to present you with custom Web pages, i.e., you might see a welcome page with your name of
it instead of seeing just a generic welcome page.(courtesy of http://www.webopedia.com) (back to top)
A session is the period of activity that a user with a unique IP address spends on a Web site during a specified timeframe. The number of user sessions on a site is used in measuring the amount of traffic a Web site gets. A web site administrator will determine
what the time frame of a user session will be on a given web site, i.e., user sessions at Tech Data are set for 45 minutes. If a visitor comes back to the site within that set time period, it is still considered one user session because any number of visits within
that 45 minutes will only count as one session. If the visitor returns to the site after the allotted time period has expired, then it is counted as a separate user session.(courtesy of http://www.webopedia.com) (back to top)
Various internet security, anti-spam, or firewall hardware/software products may sometimes inadvertently block/restrict access to web pages. If you are able to view the web site when you bypass the applicable product, your system administrator may need to review
your existing system settings. (back to top)
If these FAQs do not address your issue, please contact the Electronic Commerce Help Desk at:
U.S. Support Line: 800-222-7926
U.S. Fax: 727-538-5823
Canadian Support Line: 800-334-2445
Latin America / Caribbean Support Line: 727-532-8850 (back to top)
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