Netifice Partners with IP Merchant Solutions for Broadband Retail Applications

By providing a fully redundant, scalable VPN infrastructure, Netifice is providing retail customers with increased flexibility for deploying new Point-of-Sale systems and other back-office and customer-facing applications. As a leading provider of broadband-based VPNs to the retail industry, Netifice has partnered with IP Merchant Solutions to deliver an integrated platform that enables retail customers to reduce costs, save time and improve their customers experience. The platform enables customers to lower credit card transaction costs by up to 30 percent and reduces transaction times from more than 15 seconds to less than 2 seconds. This decreases customer wait times and increases the number of transactions that can be conducted simultaneously. Retailers can now serve more customers with faster service and higher satisfaction. IP Merchant Solutions will also configure and deploy serial-to-IP conversion devices, which allow customers to continue using their legacy Point-of-Sale systems. This enables them to avoid the capital cost, as well as time and effort, required to replace all of their point-of-sale systems. IP Merchant Solutions also leverages this platform to deliver audio services, including custom music and advertising. Unlike traditional media that have to be produced and shipped, this service can be custom tailored to each store and changed frequently. Not only do customers save production and shipping costs, but they can also boost revenues by better targeting advertising promotions and using music to create a shopping environment that is tailored to their ideal clientele. Customers simply use Netifice Retail Connect VPN to connect to the IP Merchant Solutions platform, which consists of redundant Frame Relay connections to numerous credit card processors. Netifice hosts and IP Merchant Solutions maintains and manages all of the routing and switching infrastructure to ensure that these connections have maximum performance and up time. This provides the customers with a highly flexible solution that can be set up and changed quickly and easily. In the past customers conducting high-speed credit card processing had to procure and manage their own Frame Relay connection - which could take a significant amount of time to deploy -- or settle for a more expensive and less secure/reliable Internet-based solution. And, if they ever want to change to a new credit card processor, IP Merchant Solutions simply redirects their traffic to the new processor.