Online ticket sales have come a long way in SA, thanks in part to relative newcomer iTickets, which pioneered the print-at-home ticket with the help of its payment service provider, PayGate.
"When we bought the African rights from iTickets, people were used to visiting a walk-in kiosk to pick up their tickets even after they'd paid for them," explain directors Albertus Potgieter and Corne Prinsloo.
"We've made it our mission to make life more convenient by enabling customers to print their tickets as soon as they'd paid for them. The public perception is finally shifting - more and more people want to get their tickets by e-mail or print them directly from their browsers," they add.
To achieve this goal, iTickets has worked with PayGate to accept credit card transactions and to process direct funds transfers.
Until recently, notes Prinsloo, "if a customer didn't have a credit card, they had no option except going into the bank to make a direct deposit, or making an EFT via online banking. That made the whole process much less convenient."
Now, however, "all the major banks are linked to SID, which allows people to make instant EFTs from our Web site," says Potgieter.
"It's highly secure for the customer, and we get instant payment confirmation so they can download their tickets. PayGate recommended SID to us and has enabled us to add it to our payment options completely painlessly," he adds.
Potgieter adds that PayGate has actively helped iTickets manage payment security and reduce the risk of card fraud.
iTickets also recently signed up for the 3D Secure service offered by Visa and MasterCard, on PayGate's recommendation.
"It's now become almost imperative for merchants like us to have 3D Secure as a way to protect ourselves against fraud," concludes Prinsloo.
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