CIM - sharing customer profile information across trusted merchants/sub-merchants

[amolnatu]

Hello:

I would like to understand if CIM can be used to facilitate the following scenario:

1. Consumers register/create payment profile with the service provider, which is managed by CIM

2. This service provider would work with merchant partners who provide products/services to the consumers.

3. Consumers making purchases from any of these merchants would be able to make a payment using some sort of "pay via service provider" option, which in turn would invoke the customer profile managed by CIM. 

4. The merchant account used would be owned by the respective merchant and the service provider would not be involved in the actual transaction authorization/settlement.

There are many market examples to the scenario I am referring to and Buyster, France could be similar model.

Few questions:

a. Can such a scenario be supported wherein the customer profile is shared across multiple trusted merchants ? (nature of transactions will not be one-off customer initiated and not recurring type)

b. If CIM does not support this, does someone have alternative recommendations (other than managing profile at service provider)

I came across a post dt 2009 – http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1881284/using-authorize-nets-cim-feature-for-one-merchant-with-mu..., which suggests that this is not possible. Just wondering if there is any update since.

Regards

Amol

[Joy]

Hi Amol,

The CIM service is restricted to usage by individual merchants.  In order to build a multi-merchant wallet system, it would be necessary to store the cardholder data outside of our system.

Thanks,

Joy

[haipothetical]

I see that this thread is a couple year's old.  Has the situation changed at all?  Can customer profile information be shared across multiple merchant accounts?  

Hai

[RichardH]

Thanks for the question haipothetical, however Customer Information Manager (CIM) does not offer multi-merchant capabilities.

Richard

[bellasys]

I am a developer specializing in membership sharing and multi-site networks for affiliated or syndicated businesses. 

I think the question can be broken down to simpler parts, and perhaps then you can make progress. 

Many of the scenarios I develop deal with priviliges of one member spanning across to an affiliated site. For example, MemberA from SiteA is not explicitly member of SiteB. But SiteA and SiteB have a relationship. They are set up to share resources so that MemberA has privileges on SiteB. 

If Authorize.net is the Payment Gateway, then any *individual site which displays the proper credentials can access it. 

Therefore, I offer 2 solutions to sites desiring the setup SiteA + SiteB --> A.net

First, the mechanics of membership sharing need to reside on a separate site. ControlSiteA. That way,

SiteA + SiteB <---> ControlSiteA (site A and B cross communicate with ControlSiteA)

Because both sites have permissions and a pre-agreement in place

SiteA

            \

              ----> ControlSiteA --> A.net

            /

SiteB

I am not offering or selling my services, but what I suggest is that because more sites desire partnership, shared membership bases, or affiliation of some kind, it makes sense to develop resources which can accomplish special and very important functions such as *sales.