Highly-Visible Presence
National Organized Retail is a segment also called big-box retailers. Ogloba recommends that clients requiring eTop-Up solutions pursue opportunities for ECR (Electronic Cash Register) integration with such retailers because they attract large numbers of customers, and provide a great branding opportunity. Ogloba already has established working relationships with a number of big-box retailers that clients might be keen to work with.
Ogloba’s experience is that big-box retailers will prefer e-Vouchers rather than DTU solutions, so that is what we recommend to our clients. We can however, facilitate whichever solution is most appropriate for our clients. Given Ogloba’s experience in this, the retailer integration for e-Voucher includes selling process and check out processing.
Selling Process
The selling process of e-Vouchers in a big-box retailer generally provides a huge branding opportunity to a service provider through the use of Dummy Cards. A Dummy Card, as the name suggests, has no value in itself. It is a branding opportunity for the operator, and has a barcode which can be read by an industry standard ECR just like any other product sold by a retailer. The dummy card will be shown as a SKU (EAN13 Stock Keeping Unit) in the retailer’s system and has a value shown on the dummy card.
The dummy cards are placed strategically in various locations around the store and provide a great branding opportunity for the store, and also for the operator. They should certainly be placed behind the sales counters to encourage an impulse buy, as well as to assist the operator in the check out process (see below).
Check Out Process
The check out process is as follows:
- The Dummy Cards are scanned in the same way other standard products, in the check-out lane.
- The scans are stored in a local buffer of the Cash Register system.
- An Ogloba-supplied Dynamic Linked Library (DLL) or a webservice will integrate the data stored in the ECR buffer with the Ogloba system which, will send an authorization request to our client. This will go via the retailer’s back office Host.
- The specific PIN Code associated with the SKU will now be in “HOLD” status.
- Once payment is confirmed, the DLL, through the retailer host and the Ogloba host, will flag the PIN Code as SOLD.
- The e-Voucher Ticket is printed with a PIN number.
- The e-Voucher payment is listed on the same receipt as that for other items procured by the customer.
- The consumer then activates the e-Voucher.
The Dummy Cards are returned to the display system since they are not required anymore in the current transaction, and can be restocked for branding purposes.
