Giant Eagle realized two major challenges: First, the company needed to meet the demands of Pennsylvania's electronic benefits transfer system (EBT); second, the company’s payment switch hardware would soon reach the end of its life. Giant Eagle determined that its platform was outdated and functionally inadequate. The company sought solutions to overcome each of these obstacles.
The Solution
Giant Eagle chose two solutions from the ACI Retail Commerce Server line of retail software applications.
“Our goal was to find payment software geared toward the retail industry and that met our requirements,” said Jon Fischer, senior project manager at Giant Eagle. “Of all the vendors providing payment processing, ACI was one of the few that provided the solutions that matched our business requirements.”
ACI Retail Commerce Server for Electronic Payment Acceptance is an electronic funds transfer (EFT) system that authorizes and captures customer payments. The solution provided Giant Eagle with a reliable, cost-effective method for processing debit and credit card transactions, as well as for supporting EBT programs, including the U.S. Food Stamp and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) programs.
ACI Retail Commerce Server for Check Authorization, a fast and convenient check authorization and tracking system, provides Giant Eagle with an efficient method to authorize checks and limit exposure to losses from check runners, organized fraud schemes, checks written on closed accounts and checks from customers who consistently write non-sufficient funds (NSF) checks.
The Results
Giant Eagle has experienced several benefits since implementing Retail Commerce Server solutions. The Retail Commerce Server platform, in conjunction with Giant Eagle’s existing environment, enables the company to process credit, debit, EBT and check transactions reliably, which has reduced customer time spent waiting in checkout lines.
With ACI’s ability to tailor the solution to Giant Eagle’s environment, Giant Eagle implemented the Retail Commerce Server solutions quickly. Giant Eagle uses the Retail Commerce Server database to produce its own custom reports and pull information into other in-house applications. Furthermore, the Retail Commerce Server solutions provide Giant Eagle with hardware independence.
“We found this to be a huge cost savings, relative to other solutions,” Fischer said. “Since ACI’s products run on an open platform, we could choose less expensive hardware and still achieve the uptime that Giant Eagle is accustomed to. In fact, this savings allowed us to purchase multiple servers to distribute processing and perform as hot backup servers.”
Download full details