CardinalCommerce Corporation
March 2007 - Vol.5, Issue 3

 Certified by PayPal and Chase Paymentech Solutions, the Cardinal Adaptor eliminates all technical barriers merchants using Order Management Systems previously had when trying to accept new
payment types, including Verified by Visa,
MasterCard SecureCode and PayPal.

The Cardinal CentinelTM
Adaptor for Order Management Systems:
Enabling Payment Brands
 
As consumers become more and more concerned with online security, payment alternatives to credit cards have gained popularity. These alternatives have proven to gain incremental sales for merchants, attract security-conscious customers and heighten average ticket values. With these benefits available to merchants it's no wonder that by 2009 credit cards are expected to be the minority when it comes to online payments(1).

But, for some merchants, accepting payment alternatives is simply not an option. Due to Order Management Systems and/or legacy software, bottlenecks are created and merchants cannot pass the data elements that are necessary to accept new payment types.

Now, for the first time ever, through Cardinal's certified partnerships with Chase Paymentech and PayPal, merchants can accept these payment brands. Through a simple one-time integration of the Cardinal CentinelTM Adaptor for Order Management Systems, merchants can quickly and easily accept all of the leading payment options, including Verified by Visa, MasterCard SecureCode, PayPal and other popular payment types.

Currently, the Adaptor is certified with Chase Paymentech Solutions and other payment processors are soon to follow. Rob Lyons, VP of Corporate Alliances at Chase Paymentech  comments, "We're pleased to offer a single-source market leading solution for merchants to enable all payment brands. Merchants using Order Management Systems can attain significant sales lift with alternative payments. We are pleased to provide an integrated offering with Cardinal and PayPal that delivers significant merchant-level benefits."
 
Merchants processing with Chase Paymentech have access to far more than a broad payment mix. They also benefit from consolidated reporting that streamlines reconciliation with the Adaptor, making it a true all-in-one solution. All enabled payment brands are reported in daily, weekly or monthly online reports, accessible 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

Without expensive upgrades within their Order Management System, merchants using the Adaptor can accept multiple payment brands through one easy integration. This is a highly customized, version- neutral solution developed by CardinalCommerce (in conjunction with Fluent Edge Technologies) and certified with both PayPal and Chase Paymentech.

To read about a merchant enabled with the Cardinal Adaptor, scroll to the Featured Merchant Article below.

To learn how your eCommerce business can begin accepting multiple payment brands without changing your current set-up, contact CardinalCommerce Merchant Services today at 877-352-8444 or email SaleSupport@CardinalCommerce.com.

(1) Celent Communications, as sited in Digital Transactions, October 2006
Part I: Initial Screening:
Are you (dare I say) avoiding customers?

Last month we announced our Order Acceptance Series called "The Adverse Effects of Fraud Screening: Are you Forfeiting Customers?". The series will examine the advantages, and possible pitfalls, of fraud screening systems. This month we spotlight initial screening - what is it and how does it affect your business?

Many merchants identify initial screening as the fraud scoring and manual review that occurs immediately after an order is entered on their site. We argue, however, that initial screening occurs long before the customer even hits the 'buy' button.

It includes the order acceptance qualifications cited directly on your website, including the payment brands that you accept and the policy you have for international orders. If you limit your business on these two fronts, you have already screened out legitimate orders and good customers.

Payment Brands Payment Brands
As you can see in the charts, alternative forms of payment are gaining significant traction on merchant sites, but far too many merchants are still only offering the web's default currency - credit cards. By limiting order acceptance/sales only to customers that are comfortable sharing their credit card information over the web, merchants are shrinking their customer reach.

Alternatives to credit cards have proven to add incremental sales and increase average order values. Look at Bill Me Later for instance - the payment brand's average order value is 25% higher than average credit card orders. These shoppers (who are spending more) are customers every eRetailer strives to bring to their site; they are high-income shoppers with good credit.

Perhaps most important is the fact that most Bill Me Later customers are new to participating sites and once they shop on the site, 49% of shoppers shop there again. Thus, Bill Me Later proves that when merchants limit the brands they choose to accept they also severely limit their sales.

By only accepting credit cards, merchants are essentially screening out the millions of PayPal, SECURE-eBill, and Google Checkout account holders that would have potentially shopped on their site. These are seasoned online shoppers that seek out sites that offer non-plastic payment methods.

QuickStatsThe most common barrier for most merchants thinking about offering new payment brands is the technical implementation that must be done to support new payment types. It's important for merchants to recognize that implementation of payment brands is not as difficult and time consuming as they might imagine. Solutions such as Cardinal's CentinelTM software make integration fast, easy and simple and can enable all payment brands through one central integration.

International Business
Merchant policies regarding international orders are another factor covered under initial screening. If your website is one of the 39% of sites that does not accept inter-regional shoppers, good business is lost - approximately 17% of new orders in
fact(2).

Limiting international order acceptance in an effort to avoid fraud causes merchants to reject an extreme amount to orders, rather than just the fraudulent ones. In fact, retailers report that their rejection rate of foreign orders is three times higher than for domestic orders. The 8th Annual CyberSource Fraud Report notes that merchants rejected 12.7% of orders from outside North America in 2006, up from 12.3% in 2005. Likely, many of these orders are legitimate overseas customers, declined due to over-zealous screening.

Although international business is considered by most merchants to be risky, there are best practices to follow to assure you are not severely limiting the growth of your business by closing it to foreign shoppers.

For instance, authentication, or the process of confirming the customer is who they say they are (typically through use of a PIN/password) is an eCommerce merchant best practice.

Visa and MasterCard have developed authentication programs - Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode - which not only give merchants more confidence in their order acceptance, but also come with significant merchant level benefits, including eligibility for a lower interchange rate and fraudulent chargeback protection.

For years, Perfume Emporium avoided international markets due to the risk associated with foreign orders. When they heard Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode offer global chargeback protection, they decided to add this protection to their current Visa and MasterCard offerings.

"Prior to deploying Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode, we did not offer shipping outside the United States, but since we have implemented these programs, we have increased our online business by 10 percent," said Craig DuAlba, Perfume Emporium. "These are reliable programs that provide a system for handling international credit cards with protection and allow online merchants to expand their online business into the international market."

Before reading this article, you may not have considered payment brands or international policies as part of your initial screening process, but it is important to think about who you are inadvertently turning away. The gross orders submitted for fraud screening or review today, do not reflect these avoided orders. Think about how much growth your business would have if it were to decrease initial screening efforts and accept new payment brands and international customers. How many orders did you forfeit today?

To learn more about the topics covered in this article, contact CardinalCommerce Merchant Services at 877-352-8444 or email SaleSupport@CardinalCommerce.com.

(2) CyberSource 8th Annual Online Fraud Survey

The Eastwood Company
Takes Advantage of the Adaptor for Order Management Systems
Eastwood.comEastwood Company, a unique automotive tool and supply retailer, was looking for a way to increase sales, while also increasing security on their online site, www.Eastwood.com. They had hoped to implement new payment options to reach this goal, but were discouraged when they were informed that their current Order Management System (OMS) could not pass the necessary data elements to their processor.

While researching ways to overcome this, they discovered that the Cardinal Adaptor could enable PayPal and other popular payment options on their site through a central integration. By wrapping around infrastructure barriers to pass new data components, the Adaptor allows OMS users to accept payment brands that they previously could not.

Nick Capinski eMarketing Manager of Eastwood comments, "We were thrilled to have the opportunity to finally offer PayPal as a payment option on our site. In years past we had considered PayPal but it simply wasn't an option due to constraints within our OMS. The Adaptor has opened our business to new customers that prefer to pay with their PayPal account."

With 133 million PayPal account holders, www.eastwoodco.com has access to experienced online buyers who seek out websites that accept PayPal as a payment option. Surveys show that small-to-medium-sized businesses accepting PayPal typically see an average sales lift of 14%(1).

To learn more about the Cardinal Adaptor and other payment technologies offered through CardinalCommerce, call Merchant Services today at 877-352-8444 or email SaleSupport@CardinalCommerce.com.

(1) Q1 2006 PayPal phone survey of 110 small and medium sized businesses doing a minimum of $120,000.00 USD in annual online sales.

CardinalCommerce CorporationCopyright®2007 CardinalCommerce Corporation.
6119 Heisley Road, Mentor, OH, 44060, USA
www.CardinalCommerce.com
1-877-352-8444
* Patent No. US 7,051,002 B2

NetCash NACHA Online Payments Pilot Western Union JCB - JSecure MODASolutions Secure-eBill Bill Me Later PayPal MasterCardSecureCode Verified by Visa