Tim Kemerley - Vice commodore
During the last few weeks, we have made good progress on establishing the Ship’s Store online capability. After a series of discussions involving people from Parrot Sportsgear, ProForma Albrecht Company, Kevin Irwin, Marge Gross, and me, we have a better understanding of the business, the ordering process, and the security issues involved.
Screen shot of HBYC Online Order Form
Below is a description of these activities and the new online order form.
Past: Pre-web days, HBYC made bulk orders of apparel, etc. from Parrot Sportsgear. The purchased items were either picked up at the Bellbrook, OH site or shipped to the clubhouse. A decision was made about what the club members wanted, and bulk orders were made from requests. The club paid for these items upfront, and members purchased them, and in effect, reimbursed the club. Work was started to take the Ship’s Store online. Erinn Petsch headed up the transition to an online capability. We thank her for her initial work.
Concept of Operations: We are now establishing an online order form (not an online store) with Parrot Sportsgear. An online store requires a large setup fee and monthly fees, and it is not what a small club needs to acquire limited apparel. Parrot Sportsgear is teamed with a very large organization, ProForma Albrecht Co., which handles the invoicing and payment aspects of the apparel order. More information on security issues will be discussed below. There are basically two types of orders - individual and bulk. The individual order involves having apparel embroidered with the HBYC logo, etc. These items can be ordered one at a time by a club member. The second type of order is the bulk order that uses quantity to get the price down. These bulk orders can be screen printed t-shirts, key chains, pens, cups, etc., where quantities (e.g. 25-100) are ordered by the club and not by the online order form. To set up an online order form, HBYC pays Parrot Sportsgear ~$50 to design a form that has about 8-12 items listed on the form This form is online and individual club members can pick sizes and colors and order/pay with a credit card. The items are directly shipped to the customer's address. If we want to change the order form to add/subtract new items a $50 fee is charged. This change could happen each year or more often if members want more options. Marge Gross and I have worked with Parrot Sportswear to create an order form.
Security: Kevin Irwin was in contact with the ProForma Albrecht Co. security personnel concerning how our credit card purchases will be handled, and what type of security measures to safeguard our private information will be followed. Below is the company's e-mail response that he received: "We have several ecommerce platforms all of which are PCI level 1 compliant. In regards to HBYC, here are some of the key payment security protocols we implement as a part of the payment processing:
We use Microsoft Azure; a highly available, cloud-based, and secure hosting environment. This environment is both BAA (HIPAA) and PCI (DSS) level 1 compliant.
The payment processors offered (Stripe or Square) are all PCI Level 1 compliant
User card data are never transmitted, processed or stored by our websites or forms, The transaction data are transmitted directly from the user’s browser to Stripe (or Square) payment processors.
No card data are ever kept, stored or collected at any time."
Both Kevin and I think that ProForma Albrecht's approach is first rate, and is as safe as currently possible for these types of transactions.
Clubhouse: A display case will be located in the club house that will contain a very limited number of items, such as hats, decals, etc., for direct purchase. The old Ship’s Store room will be repurposed for other club activities in the future. There are still some items for purchase in the Ship’s Store room as we transition to setting up the display case. Hats are now available for purchase. 5. Way Forward: We are including the Parrot Sportsgear online order form website in our HBYC website so club members can order apparel items. Marge Gross will be the HBYC focal point for the Ship’s Store. She will handle bulk orders. Please contact her with your questions and comments.
The new HBYC online order form will be accessed from the Members Only Section of the Website.
Click here to access the Members Only Section —-> Members Only
Click here if you forgot the password ——> Help Me Webmaster