[uf-discuss] hCard and Internet Retailers (Shopping Contact Information)

[Ben Ward]

Hi Junaid,

On 17 Oct 2010, at 10:19, Junaid Nazir wrote:

> However, before going forward with such an idea, we would need to know
> if there are any suitable classes to differentiate between different
> telephone numbers and email addresses (sales, customer service,
> technical, head office, switchboard/operator)

These are ‘agents’. You'd have a main vcard for the company (<span class="fn org">) which along with the main contact (head office or switchboard perhaps?) then contains any number of <div class='vcard agent'> children, each of which is another hCard, representing a different part of the company (organization-unit, or a person.) Since each agent is an hCard too, they can have phone numbers, addresses of their own.

> and further how to list
> multiple addresses for a company (head office address, local chain
> store differentiated by zip/post code)

Chain stores I think you should just represent as standalone, separate hCards. An hCard is a representation of a business card (and can be quite substantive, especially with agents) but it is not a model of an entire _business_. Different hCard for difference branches is fine.

> and if there is scope to
> include 'store opening times' and for e-commerce sites: if they have a
> 'reserve & collect' service (where you can order online, but collect
> in store without having to wait for a delivery). 

Opening times could, with some a bit of improvisation, be represented using hCalendar. Recurring events from vcalendar haven't really been deployed on the web as yet, so the actual presentation would need some exploration, but hCal is the way to go.

Any specifics of a Reserve and Collect service is out of scope of hCard, but if it's just a particular URL or a particular phone number, you could again represent it with an hCard as an organization unit of the company.

Hope that helps,

Ben