Overview:

FocusRight Marketing, a New York Corporation, is positioning itself as the premiere in-store marketing company, which provides merchant brands the opportunity to distribute their pre-paid gift cards in supermarket chains and other high traffic retail channels.

Project:

FocusRight Marketing was in need of a highly customized software package supported by a state of the art data center that would authenticate retail gift cards by creating a virtual bridge from non-retail setting (i.e. a grocery store) to multiple major retailers.

Solution:

When a corporation has their own gift cards and sells them in their own store, the front-end point-of-sale system (POS), the transport and processing middleware and the back-end databases are entirely owned and operated by a single corporation. The control is absolute and the variables are few.

Our customized solution enables different corporations to be bridged securely and in a controlled manner. They are able to securely exchange real-time information, while at the same time, collect valuable reporting data. Similar to how credit cards are charged, we have built software that can seamlessly integrate with a POS infrastructure. We interconnect our services with the client’s storefront and major retailers via 128-bit (3DES) VPN. Our solution also has custom reporting available to any authorized and authenticated user from any web-enabled PC. Collected parameters of data are updated in real time using the latest Microsoft development environment (.NET).

The transaction timeframe has several variables that affect processing. The front-end connection (checkout counter) must reach the processor, then to the central corporate office where it is then routed to our network. We capture the data, send it to the retailers and use another portion of the collected data is used for custom web reporting. The whole process is less than a couple of seconds.

Our data center facilities are second to none. Our operations exist inside a very redundant, fortified, well operated building. We can guarantee 100% uptime as we have created a very fault tolerant middleware product.

Results:

In seconds, a shopper at a non-retail setting (grocery store) will have the ability to purchase and set the value to major retailer gift cards. Within seconds, we created a virtual bridge connecting the non-retail store to multiple major retailers which integrates both with the client’s existing POS and the major retailer’s database to authenticate, validate and approve a pre-paid gift card, while at the same time allow custom web reporting.

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