From the monthly archives:

November 2010

Gift Cards in Retail Industry and Testing Challenges-III

Today I will talk about the actual gift card transaction through POS device.

More and more retailers–and e-retailers–will be featuring Gift cards online–daily, hourly, at lunch time, after dinner, and at other times–to keep the cash registers churning and most of these transactions are through POS devices.

POS is one of the most important medium to acquire Gift card transactions.

  • The major vendors for these POS devices are VeriFone, Lipmann, Ingenico…
  • For more details check

http://merchantwarehouse.com/credit_card_machines?cpao=149&kw=gift+card+terminal&gclid=CO-wgf-KgKUCFQITbAod63UvhQ

In order to start selling or acquiring Gift card transaction make sure to check that your POS device is equipped with-

  • Application to support Gift card transactions.
  • Check if Ethernet POS device has Comm Server application to support the Ethernet transactions.
  • Check if Analog POS device is connected to telephone line for Analog transactions.

Some group of terminals only supports Analog (Verifone 3730) where as some supports both Analog and Ethernet (Verifone 3750/Vx570).

Now that we know our terminal can support Gift card transactions let see how the actual transactions goes through. Assuming POS device is authorized to sell the Gift Card,

  • User swipes the card.
  • POS is capable to read Track1 and Track2 data. Gift card information in stored in track1 and track2.
  • POS application reads card No, UPC, amount and expiration date from these tracks. A simple card reader can help to extract this information for verification purpose.
  • Acquiring application composes an activation request with extracted information and 8583 protocol format.
  • A typical request field will consist of Card No, UPC, Merchant ID, Terminal ID, Amount, Expiration date, Service provider id, etc…
  • The request is sent out to the correct service provider. This routing setting is usually in application configuration files.
  • The whole process of transaction authorization and response including the receipt printing should be completed within 20-25 sec in typical scenario.
  • Validation can be done for the response to make sure that the correct card is activated with correct amount.
  • Contents of the printed receipt can be verified.
  • Cross check the data base entries for the approved transaction.

This is the usual flow for a successful gift card transaction over the POS.

Let’s briefly go through some of the other acquiring channels.

HTML

A Web page is built to process Gift card transactions. A simple card reader attached to your laptop/desktop can acquire a transaction and further sent it for processing. Internally it will follow the same step as mentioned above for POS transactions.

XML

An API is exposed to end user who in terms can have their own wrapper to send these transactions. Rest all process is same as mentioned above once the transaction reaches the acquiring application.

Overall in last couple of blogs we saw how the Gift cards industry works and how these transactions are carried out.

So, before you just cross your fingers and pray that retailers will carry and support the gift that you are planning to buy, think about taking control and making Gift cards work to your advantage.

Let me stop here and give you guys some time for shopping gift cards, Happy holidays!

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InfoStretch Test Automation Framework

InfoStretch Test Automation Framework

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Gift Cards in Retail Industry and Testing Challenges-II

In the last session I provided an overview of the gift cards industry. In this blog, I am planning to share more in-depth details for actual testing of gift cards system. Gift cards and payment is a very vast industry to cater, as a Tester/QA person here are few starting points to keep in mind.

  • Which protocol is being used?
  • Security, is the user information secured?
  • Transaction Channels, how the transactions are acquired.

Protocol

Need to understand the protocol that is being used for these transactions.

  • ISO 8583 Most of the card base transactions are carried out using this protocol. More details about the protocol http://j8583.sourceforge.net/desc8583en.html
  • How the requests are composed.
  • How the TCP/IP request flows with the request and response.
  • How the response are read.
  • Which fields to review in the request and response?

As you could see below a sample message type, this will depend on the specification defined by the organization.

Sample Message types

The most common message types are:

0200 Activation Request,

0210 Activation Response,

0400 Request for activation reversal.

0410 Response of Activation Reversal.

0800 Echo request

0810 Echo response

…..

Security

As Gift card transactions over the net are more vulnerable to attacks. Some pointers to ensure security is meeting the industry standards and customer expectations.

  • Make sure that transactions are acquired in secured manner and abide to PCI norms.
  • During testing make sure that the card numbers of the acquired transactions are encrypted.
  • PIN is provided as scratch PIN option.
  • Information regarding acquired card has to be encrypted in Dbase, there are various encryption software available like Ingrian, MEO, etc.
  • Only first 6 and last 4 digits of the card can be left un-encrypted for searching and revoking the transactions.

And the last point to check is how the gift card transaction is being acquired.

These are typical Channels for acquiring Gift Card transactions.

  • Terminal also called as POS (Point of sales)
  • HTML any web application developed for acquiring these transactions
  • XML API’s are exposed to client who in terms can have a wrapper to send these transactions.
  • IVR (Interactive voice recognition) software can be used in Gift Cards activation.

In the next edition let’s focus on gift card transactions over Point Sale Terminal (POS).

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Gift Cards in Retail Industry and Testing Challenges

We are nearing the holiday season and one of the problems on everyone’s minds is what to buy as a gift for loved ones. For last few years Gift cards have been a good rescue for me to avoid lot of hassle in selecting the gift as well as providing an opportunity to my loved ones to choose what you like. I believe this phenomenon is somewhat similar to holiday/greeting cards- today more than 60% of the holiday cards are sent electronically.

Gift card industry surpassed the $100B mark in 2007-2008 and is continuing to grow at 20% pace year over year. Gift certificates is a story of past, today gift cards are being extensively used by retailers in almost every industry including Sports, Entertainment, kids, Home, Food, Telecom, etc…

It has been a favorite among gift givers because finding a gift card is much easier than actual gifts- no more gift wrappers!! The receivers like them because it gives them lot more flexibility to choose the gift of their interest. Some websites like giftcardmall.com and plasticjungle.com have even made it easier to trade gift cards.

  • Retailers like it because it gives them access to teens who do not have bank accounts but want to the ease of buying using plastic
  • Retailers don’t have to give the cash back for the remaining amount and can elude customers in coming to the store again
  • Gift card based prepaid sales generates immediate cash flow for the retailer
  • Electronic transactions result in accurate, Online Tracking – track activity by store, venue, issuer, account or by individual
  • Plastic cards eliminates Fraud – extremely difficult to duplicate and can be cancelled.

There are varieties of card available in market. Following are some examples.

  • Close loop: – Restricted to a specific retailer. It can be fixed or variable denomination cards.
  • Open Loop: – Visa or Master Gift cards can be used as gift cards with any retailer (secured credit card). Again they can be fixed or variable denomination cards.
  • Variable value cards.
  • Fixed denomination cards
  • Single step, 2 steps , Hybrid cards
  • Different digits (16-18-19) of cards. This will depend on the service provider.

In order to cater to this fast growing market service providers are making every possible effort to have quality product on the shelf and support most of the transaction types -

  • Activation
  • Balance Inquiry
  • Redemption
  • Reload
  • Refund
  • Void in some cases
  • SAF (Store and Forward) is the technique used for card activation in case the connection/communication with actual service provider (One who will authorize the transaction) is down. User is provided with information stating card will be activated within 24 hours.

Enough about the Gift Card Industry let me start talking about some technical details and how the gift card systems are implemented.

I have been involved in testing gift card solutions for various retailers and have learned a lot as part of my career. Gift card has become a vital part of the retail industry and hence the quality of their offering is the only differentiator that they can leverage to continuously grow. There are various challenges in testing gift cards transactions and ensuring consistent user experience. I will discuss this testing aspect in detail in my next couple of blogs, so stay tune.

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