[Draft] W3C Merchant Business Group Charter

Mission

The mission of the Merchant Business Group (“Merchant BG”) is to improve the Web for both business-to-business (B2B) merchants and business-to-consumer (B2C) merchants. In this non-technical forum, participants will discuss merchant challenges, how emerging Web technologies could help address them, and what additional Web capabilities may be necessary. Likely topics include:

• Web checkout experiences, including the value merchants should gain with W3C's Web payments standards;
• Emerging regulatory requirements (e.g., related to privacy or accessibility) and ensuring good customer experience;
• The evolution of Web advertising;
• Good practices for reducing online fraud;
• Enhancements to transaction integrity and assurance;
• Customer interaction, capture and retention via accessible immersive Web experiences.
• Improving mobile Web commerce experiences.

Scope

Participants will choose and prioritize discussion topics.

Activities in Scope

• Education about Web technology trends and the impact on merchants, including through discussions with other W3C groups. These activities will include non-technical briefings.
• Identification of current merchant challenges, best practices for addressing them, and how those practices may change for various reasons (e.g., due to evolving privacy practices).
• Communication of merchant use cases and requirements to groups within and outside W3C.
• Coordinating reviews of the work of other W3C groups (e.g., the Web Payments Working Group, Web Authentication Working Group or Immersive Web Working Group). It is a goal that this group enable high-bandwidth, two-way communication channels with other W3C groups.

Activities out of Scope

• Development of technical specifications.
• Discussion of specific products or implementations consistent with W3C's Antitrust and Competition Guidance.

Deliverables

The Merchant Business Group should publish use cases, analyses, or other deliverables consistent with the scope of this charter. These may be shared with other W3C groups as input to standardization activities, as well as groups outside W3C.

Published documents should represent group consensus. Documents will be published under the W3C Document License and will be freely available.

Participation

Although the group focuses on merchant issues, participation is not limited to merchants. Integrators and others who represent merchant interests are also encouraged to participate and contribute diverse perspectives. We also seek global participation.

Participants should have knowledge of industry business requirements and some technical knowledge. Deep technical knowledge is not required.

Participation will potentially involve email, teleconferences, authoring of use cases, and review of education materials. These activities are expected to require approximately 4 hours monthly. Participants are also encouraged to accelerate progress by sharing materials such as externally developed use cases and requirements, or experimental results.

The group should also hold at least one face-to-face meeting per year. The group will determine the location, which may include W3C's TPAC event or co-located with another industry event.

The W3C Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct applies to participation in this group.

Process

The group operates under the Community and Business Group Process. Terms in this Charter that conflict with those of the Community and Business Group Process are void.

Todo: align other boilerplate sections with CG/BG charter template. However, that should be done after there is agreement on the mission and scope sections.