Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM MAY 2022 48 A VB Marketing, the advertising, e-commerce and digital marketing arm of AVB Inc., provides a wide variety of services for the independent dealers of the BrandSource buying group. And for members running our proprietary Alta e-commerce platform, we have an exciting announcement: We've recently completed our annual Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) Service Provider Level 2 certification! Say what??? For those not familiar with the PCI process, we hope this answers any questions you may have. WHAT IS A SERVICE PROVIDER? The PCI DSS defines a Service Provider as "a business entity that isn't a payment brand, but is directly involved in the processing, storage, or transmission of cardholder data on behalf of another business." While Alta doesn't store or process any of our members' cardholder data directly, it is the underlying platform that transmits the data. WHAT IS PCI COMPLIANCE? The Payment Card Industry (PCI), which includes Visa, MasterCard, American Express and other leading card brands, requires service providers, banks and high-volume merchants to follow strict security guidelines, including: • Building and maintaining a secure network • Protecting cardholder data • Maintaining a vulnerability management program • Implementing strong access control measures • Regularly monitoring and testing networks • Maintaining an information security policy Service providers certify as either Level 1 or Level 2 based on the number of credit card transactions that are handled through their systems annually. DOES AVB MARKETING PROCESS CREDIT CARD INFORMATION? We don't. Instead, we trust our terrific payment integration partners to do the processing for our members. However, we still wanted to provide additional reassurance that we're doing the most we possibly can to ensure safe, secure payments. And because so many members take advantage of our payment integrations, we work hard to maintain this level of certification. WHY IS LEVEL II SIGNIFICANT? AVB Marketing has been Level II certified for a while now. It means that we've passed several standards required for certification, including: • Annual third-party penetration testing to make sure our systems are secure • Quarterly ASV (Approved Scanning Vendor) scans so that we can test for new vulnerabilities as they are seen in the wild • Internal vulnerability scanning to protect against new vulnerabilities as they are disclosed • An annual assessment and report on compliance by a third-party QSA (Qualified Security Assessor) who is trained and certified by the PCI Council to audit and verify that service providers are adhering to the standards ELSEWHERE AT AVB MARKETING Now, to help put that ultra-secure payment platform to good use, AVB Marketing has also been busy developing digital marketing programs to take the heavy lifting off independent retailers while providing their businesses with best-in-class marketing tactics, strategies and reporting. Among other services, we've got the entire year planned out to support the busiest sales periods in retail, including Memorial Day, Labor Day, Independence Day and, of course, Black Friday. In addition to covering manufacturers' promotional-pricing periods, we also provide rebate-focused – and BrandSource-exclusive – Buy More, Save More and Customer Appreciation sales events to ensure that the independent channel is winning when it comes to savings. Happy selling! RO Don Grevenow Digital Trends Don Grevenow is Director, Infrastructure & Operations, for AVB Marketing, the advertising, e-commerce and digital marketing arm of BrandSource parent AVB Inc. IS YOUR COMPANY'S WEBSITE PAYMENT COMPLIANT? If it's an AVB Alta website, the answer is "Absolutely!"

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