University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame Marketplace Plays Like a Champion, Every Day
Conversion to TouchNet Boosts Capacity, Performance and Compliance
- Notre Dame, Indiana (South Bend)
- Enrollment: 8,371 undergraduate, 3,362 graduate
- National, private Catholic university
- Highlighted TouchNet technology: Marketplace™ (23 uStores, 4 uPay sites)
- Consistent Top 25 ranking, US News & World Report, Princeton Review, TIME, Kiplinger's and Kaplan/Newsweek
"Play Like a Champion Today!" It's the famous sign every Fighting Irish player touches before taking the field at legendary Notre Dame Stadium. While game days are a cherished tradition at Notre Dame, there are only a handful of them each fall. In the Notre Dame Marketplace, however, every day is game day. Since bringing TouchNet into the program, Notre Dame has shaped its eCommerce system into championship form.
Success Stalled
In 2005, the university was in year two of its wildly successful Notre Dame Marketplace, a burgeoning eCommerce site for students, faculty and alumni. Merchants were multiplying, as were services and new revenue streams. But before long, it became clear they would soon outgrow the system behind it. Then PCI mandates began to surface, and suddenly the system's challenges were no longer limited to capacity.
"Part of the issue was the way the application was written, how it queried our database, and part of it was the hardware we were using," said Jeff Simko, manager of ND Marketplace, who is also responsible for the university's PCI compliance program. "We simply weren't able to handle a significant number of users at once."
Simko said the limitations were infamously exposed in April that year, in the days leading up to Senior Week, another big tradition at Notre Dame. For the first time, 2,000-some seniors could secure their tickets on the ND Marketplace. And they seemingly all tried at once.
System meltdown. Services sacrificed. Efficiencies lost. But again, capacity wasn't the only driver to begin the search for a new solution.
"Our system was highly customized and hosted here on campus, in our own data center," Simko said. "We knew making it PCI compliant wasn't going to be easy."
The Search Is On
Even before PCI came along, the university had a formalized store request and implementation process for Notre Dame Marketplace, whereby proposed eCommerce merchants and activities were vetted for potential risk. The security oversight process became even more complicated with looming PCI compliance deadlines.
By 2007, Simko put together an RFP for a new commerce partner that could meet the capacity and compliance objectives.
"Those two primary drivers kept TouchNet in the running from the start," he said. "They were obviously taking PCI very seriously and were certified as a compliant provider. They also told us they could handle the high volumes we required, and showed us load-test data that supported those claims. Plus, several hundred schools were already supported by their data center with no problems."
Marketplace
By January 2008, ND Marketplace was running on the TouchNet Marketplace ™ platform, with payments securely funneled through TouchNet Payment Gateway™.
At the time of implementation, there were 13 merchants. Now there are 27. Everyone from the Irish Shop to the Society of Hindu-Christian Studies. Most are uStores, TouchNet's end-toend storefront solution; a handful of existing merchants simply employ the uPay module to handle payments.
Simko said. "TouchNet gives us the ability to add merchants easily and without any incremental cost. Unlike our previous system, whether we have two or 200 merchants, and whether they're selling one or 1,000 items a month, we have the same hosting and licensing fees, and no transaction fees."
More revenue, greater system capacity and functionality, improved customer service and back-office efficiency, and simplified compliance - all have come to fruition since ND Marketplace met TouchNet Marketplace. After partnering with TouchNet, ND Marketplace's total revenue climbed 48 percent in 2008, while order volume grew by 113 percent, when compared to 2007.
"What was once available only to customers in South Bend is now available around the world," Simko said. "Yes, that means more revenue, but equally important, it's revenue that's transacted securely. Not to mention that we used to manually process many check orders and create reports. Now TouchNet Marketplace does it automatically."
The security oversight process that each new merchant was subject to has also been streamlined. "It's a quicker review process, with fewer things to dive into and think about as long as they're running through TouchNet," he said. Credit card numbers are never touched or transmitted through Notre Dame servers."
Commmunity of Champions
Simko said the conversion to TouchNet Marketplace has exceeded the objectives and criteria put forth in the RFP. He also said the benefits transcend capacity and compliance.
"TouchNet's familiarity with Higher Education has proved to be a more significant benefit than I would've anticipated," he said.
Among several examples, Simko cited specialization as foremost. "There are thousands of shopping cart options out there, but very few that are developed specifically for Higher Education," he said. "For instance, ours can link directly to our active directory, meaning we can authenticate users and thus create private stores only for people affiliated with the Notre Dame community. There is no way we could do that with other out-of-the-box applications."
Other benefits came to light after implementation.
"Since we already have Payment Gateway and Marketplace, there is the opportunity to expand to the rest of TouchNet's product lines," he added. "There are built-in economies of scale there, and more opportunities for improved efficiencies."
Finally, he said, Notre Dame can leverage the investment by utilizing the legions of fellow TouchNet clients. "The community we're now a part of is a tremendous asset. COMTEC and Straight Talks connect us to TouchNet experts and other universities that can help us, and we can help them."
In the community of Higher Education, that's what champions do.
To see the TouchNet-powered Notre Dame Marketplace in action, visit marketplace.nd.edu.
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame Marketplace Plays Like a Champion, Every Day
Conversion to TouchNet Boosts Capacity, Performance and Compliance
- Notre Dame, Indiana (South Bend)
- Enrollment: 8,371 undergraduate, 3,362 graduate
- National, private Catholic university
- Highlighted TouchNet technology: Marketplace™ (23 uStores, 4 uPay sites)
- Consistent Top 25 ranking, US News & World Report, Princeton Review, TIME, Kiplinger's and Kaplan/Newsweek
"Play Like a Champion Today!" It's the famous sign every Fighting Irish player touches before taking the field at legendary Notre Dame Stadium. While game days are a cherished tradition at Notre Dame, there are only a handful of them each fall. In the Notre Dame Marketplace, however, every day is game day. Since bringing TouchNet into the program, Notre Dame has shaped its eCommerce system into championship form.
Success Stalled
In 2005, the university was in year two of its wildly successful Notre Dame Marketplace, a burgeoning eCommerce site for students, faculty and alumni. Merchants were multiplying, as were services and new revenue streams. But before long, it became clear they would soon outgrow the system behind it. Then PCI mandates began to surface, and suddenly the system's challenges were no longer limited to capacity.
"Part of the issue was the way the application was written, how it queried our database, and part of it was the hardware we were using," said Jeff Simko, manager of ND Marketplace, who is also responsible for the university's PCI compliance program. "We simply weren't able to handle a significant number of users at once."
Simko said the limitations were infamously exposed in April that year, in the days leading up to Senior Week, another big tradition at Notre Dame. For the first time, 2,000-some seniors could secure their tickets on the ND Marketplace. And they seemingly all tried at once.
System meltdown. Services sacrificed. Efficiencies lost. But again, capacity wasn't the only driver to begin the search for a new solution.
"Our system was highly customized and hosted here on campus, in our own data center," Simko said. "We knew making it PCI compliant wasn't going to be easy."
The Search Is On
Even before PCI came along, the university had a formalized store request and implementation process for Notre Dame Marketplace, whereby proposed eCommerce merchants and activities were vetted for potential risk. The security oversight process became even more complicated with looming PCI compliance deadlines.
By 2007, Simko put together an RFP for a new commerce partner that could meet the capacity and compliance objectives.
"Those two primary drivers kept TouchNet in the running from the start," he said. "They were obviously taking PCI very seriously and were certified as a compliant provider. They also told us they could handle the high volumes we required, and showed us load-test data that supported those claims. Plus, several hundred schools were already supported by their data center with no problems."
Marketplace
By January 2008, ND Marketplace was running on the TouchNet Marketplace ™ platform, with payments securely funneled through TouchNet Payment Gateway™.
At the time of implementation, there were 13 merchants. Now there are 27. Everyone from the Irish Shop to the Society of Hindu-Christian Studies. Most are uStores, TouchNet's end-toend storefront solution; a handful of existing merchants simply employ the uPay module to handle payments.
Simko said. "TouchNet gives us the ability to add merchants easily and without any incremental cost. Unlike our previous system, whether we have two or 200 merchants, and whether they're selling one or 1,000 items a month, we have the same hosting and licensing fees, and no transaction fees."
More revenue, greater system capacity and functionality, improved customer service and back-office efficiency, and simplified compliance - all have come to fruition since ND Marketplace met TouchNet Marketplace. After partnering with TouchNet, ND Marketplace's total revenue climbed 48 percent in 2008, while order volume grew by 113 percent, when compared to 2007.
"What was once available only to customers in South Bend is now available around the world," Simko said. "Yes, that means more revenue, but equally important, it's revenue that's transacted securely. Not to mention that we used to manually process many check orders and create reports. Now TouchNet Marketplace does it automatically."
The security oversight process that each new merchant was subject to has also been streamlined. "It's a quicker review process, with fewer things to dive into and think about as long as they're running through TouchNet," he said. Credit card numbers are never touched or transmitted through Notre Dame servers."
Commmunity of Champions
Simko said the conversion to TouchNet Marketplace has exceeded the objectives and criteria put forth in the RFP. He also said the benefits transcend capacity and compliance.
"TouchNet's familiarity with Higher Education has proved to be a more significant benefit than I would've anticipated," he said.
Among several examples, Simko cited specialization as foremost. "There are thousands of shopping cart options out there, but very few that are developed specifically for Higher Education," he said. "For instance, ours can link directly to our active directory, meaning we can authenticate users and thus create private stores only for people affiliated with the Notre Dame community. There is no way we could do that with other out-of-the-box applications."
Other benefits came to light after implementation.
"Since we already have Payment Gateway and Marketplace, there is the opportunity to expand to the rest of TouchNet's product lines," he added. "There are built-in economies of scale there, and more opportunities for improved efficiencies."
Finally, he said, Notre Dame can leverage the investment by utilizing the legions of fellow TouchNet clients. "The community we're now a part of is a tremendous asset. COMTEC and Straight Talks connect us to TouchNet experts and other universities that can help us, and we can help them."
In the community of Higher Education, that's what champions do.
To see the TouchNet-powered Notre Dame Marketplace in action, visit marketplace.nd.edu.