Call Back
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When a shopper makes an order at your website and
starts to pay, our 'callback' feature enables you
to automatically return information to your webserver.
Many shopping carts make extensive use of this feature,
to manage your shopper's orders more effectively.
For a standard purchase - with no callback
(see lifecycle diagram,
below)
When a shopper wants to pay for their order at your
website, you pass the shopper to our payment pages.
You send the shopper's order information to us in
a 'Purchase Token' (via the shopper's PC and their
browser).
The shopper then enters their card details via
our secure payment pages; we check these details
with the card issuer, to see if enough funds are
available (and that the card has not been reported
lost or stolen). If these checks indicate a failure,
then the card-issuer declines the payment and we
return the shopper to the payment page, where they
can try again, or cancel their attempts at payment.
If the above checks indicate success, then the
card issuer authorises the payment, and we ask the
card issuer to withdraw funds from the cardholder's
account. We then show the shopper a 'Result' page,
showing whether the transaction succeeded, or was
canceled. For transactions that do not use callback,
we recommend that you alter/customise these Result
pages, and include links back to your site. Otherwise,
the Result pages could be an end point for the shopper
(as the shopper would not be returned to your site).
For successful transactions, we send an email to
you and the shopper, confirming the details of the
transaction.
Lifecycle of a successful transaction (not using
callback)
Here is a diagram to illustrate this process:
Caution: If a site does not use callback,
then the confirmation email sent is the only indication
that: a) an order was made at the site, and b) the
shopper paid for the order. Thus if you failed to
receive a confirmation email for some reason, then
you would be unaware of the order (unless you regularly
checked your transaction statements for the latest
transactions accepted). So you might eventually
suffer a chargeback, when the shopper complained
of non-delivery.
...and with Callback
If you - or your shopping cart software - use callback,
then when the transaction succeeds (or the shopper
cancels it), you can get return information about
the transaction back to your server. You can then
use this information, for example to update the
order, and to show shoppers:
1. your own customised version of our standard
result pages, or
2. your own result pages that are totally independent
of our templates. You can store these result pages
within your installation on the server, or send
them to the shopper using a special html script.
You could then enable the shopper to continue shopping
- if appropriate - by providing links to other areas
of your website.
Note: if your callback fails for some reason,
then we show the shopper a default version of the
Result pages (that you can customise).
What does a 'Shopping Cart' do?
A shopping cart is a software program that makes
it easier for you to manage your store's website
and the shopper's behavior at your store. Many shopping
carts use the callback feature to pass order details
across to us and back to your website. So if you
use a shopping cart, you do not have to worry about
the technical side of what happens to shoppers during
a transaction, or how callbacks are used to change
and control things (for example, using callback
to show customisable Result pages).
Benefits of Callback
If you use callback, you can:
