Credit Card Processing

A credit card processing system will provide you with real-time processing of credit cards on the web. Transactions will be processed immediately and securely, providing a cleaner shopping experience for your customers and reducing your workload.

How it Works

The following outlines how a sample order taking and real-time credit card processing enabled site might work.

Part I

You as a vendor will first design your web site to allow potential clients to find information on your products/services. You may choose to integrate a database driven product catalog into your web site.

Part II

Once the client has decided which products/services they want to purchase, they will fill out an online order form. This order form will reside on a secured web page for enhanced security. Once the user has filled in the items and quantities required, the user will submit the order.

Part III

An order processing program will then calculate the total order amount (including taxes and shipping) and present the total to the client. This program will probably calculate the product prices and totals by looking up the product codes submitted by the client in a product database supplied by you the vendor. This program will usually be developed using custom programming.

Part IV

At this time, the client will be shown the order total, and prompted for payment information (credit card # and expiry date, and various shipping and address information). This form will also be secured via SSL. The user will then submit the form for payment processing.

Part V

The payment processing program will take the order total and payment information, and in real-time, verify the credit card transaction over the web. This verification is done in less than 5 seconds. The data transmitted during the verification stage is encrypted for security purposes.

Part VI

Depending on the results of the transaction processing stage, the client will either be presented with a "Payment Declined" message, or a "Payment Authorized" message. Assuming the payment was authorized, the order will be sent to you, the merchant for fulfillment.

While unlikely, it is theoretically possible that the transaction might fail due to network problems. In this case, the customer will probably be given the option to retry the transaction or to submit the order for manual processing.

Requirements

This service currently supports processing of VISA, Mastercard, and American Express credit cards.

To take advantage of this service, you will require a merchant ID for each type of credit card you wish to support. VISA and Mastercard merchant ID's are available from your local Bank(s). Contact American Express directly for an AMEX merchant ID.

Canadian banks currently consider Internet based credit card processing high-risk, similar to telephone sales. This is because you never receive a signed order from the client. Before you can proceed with this service, you must have authorization from your Bank(s) to accept transactions of this type (telephone sales).

If your company is new and/or you have not dealt with your Bank for a long period of time, the Bank may request a security deposit before they will issue you the Merchant ID. This security deposit is based on your estimates of annual transaction volume and the "risk" of your business.

Pricing

This service is provided directly to you by Primus.

The following fees will be charged to you the merchant by Primus Communications

Initial Merchant Setup: $300
(includes Secure Server Setup - package #1)
Base Monthly Fee: $80
Free Transactions Per Month: 180
Transaction Fees: $0.22 per transaction
(the per transaction fee only applies if more than 180 transactions are generated during the month)

** The above fees do not include any Bank or discount fees which will be charged directly to your account by the issuer of your VISA, Mastercard, or AMEX merchant IDs.

• The Primus E-Commerce service automatically balances and settles the Merchant's account on a daily basis. This process requires that Primus perform three closing transactions for each day that at least one Credit Card Transaction was successfully processed. On days where no Credit Card Transactions were successfully processed, the automatic balance and settlement process only requires one closing transaction. On a monthly basis, these closing transactions could total up to approximately ninety transactions. These ninety transactions are counted as part of the 180 free transactions per month. In effect, this leaves the Merchant with approximately ninety free transactions for the month.
• An unsuccessful (declined) Credit Card Transaction is considered a "transaction" with respect to transaction fees. To prevent abuse, Primus recommends that the Merchant's custom authorization CGI should prevent multiple unsuccessful attempts of the same card number.
• The above fees do not include any custom programming required to implement order taking, credit card processing, or order fulfillment on the website.
• If the customer is using a merchant id that processes funds in US dollars, all of the above fees will be billed by Primus in US dollars.
• You have the option of completing all required programming yourself, or of contracting Primus to assist you with this work.

Implementation Issues

Every business is different. Each business will usually have specific products or services that it sells. Each business will usually have a product inventory / order processing system customized to their particular business.

Because of this, it is difficult to estimate the amount of time and effort required to setup an order processing system with features similar to those described in Parts I to VI above.

Clients interested in this service should contact Primus for further information. Primus can provide a customized quote for you covering the development of the scripting required to implement such a system.

Technical Details

For clients interested in either doing the programming work themselves or contracting it to a 3rd party, Primus can provide the appropriate tools required to process the credit card transactions. The client is responsible for all custom programming work required to get the transaction ready for card processing and for handling the transaction after the card has been processed. You must contact us at 613.228.3565 to obtain access to the scripts necessary.