Overview: Stanford eCommerce Services

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About eCommerce at Stanford University

Stanford eCommerce is a suite of services managed by the Controller's Office that enables Stanford's schools, centers, and departments to establish themselves as merchants, and market and sell products and services on the web.

Whether the merchant is offering physical goods, digital goods, services, registration or participation in an activity or conference, Stanford eCommerce's service portfolio provides platforms on which sales to the campus community and the general public can be transacted securely, efficiently, and in compliance with Stanford Administrative Guide and Payment Card Industry (PCI) recognized best practices.

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How eCommerce Is Used

Stanford schools, centers, and departments use eCommerce in a wide variety of ways:

Conference and Event Registration

Groups at Stanford use the Certain Registration and Gateway services to host their event sites and registration pages, collect data from event participants, manage their event inventory and wait-lists, and securely collect payment.

Selling Physical Goods

Groups at Stanford use the Gateway service to administer their online stores, product catalogs, and order pages, and to connect to Stanford's secure Internet payment processor.

Selling Digital Goods

Stanford eCommerce's Gateway service provides a mechanism for selling software, electronic documents, images or anything that can be downloaded from the web. The Gateway service allows secure payment collection and then directs the customer to a secure digital product download site.

Course and Certification Fees, Group Dues and Activity Fees

Stanford's Gateway and Certain Registration services provide tools to track course participants, gather other participant information and securely collect online payment.

Event Ticketing (Coming Soon)

The Stanford Ticket Office, in partnership with Stanford eCommerce, will soon offer a generalized service that allows groups to manage their venues and sell tickets online. Some Stanford venues, managed by the Athletic Department, also utilize the services of Paciolan, a leader in the collegiate athletic ticketing industy.

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Stanford's eCommerce Service Strategy

Stanford eCommerce's service strategy is:

  • To identify and support common merchant business requirements for eCommerce
  • Contract for or custom-build applications to meet those requirements, and
  • Support the operations and administration of those services for the benefit of the Stanford merchant community

In addition, Stanford eCommerce, as a unit of the Controller's Office, centrally manages Stanford's relationship with our merchant bank, and is responsible for issuance of all Stanford merchant accounts.

Lastly, as a premier global higher education enterprise, Stanford is committed to sound financial practices, compliance with all applicable regulatory and tax statutes, and the security of all cardholder and transaction data. In support of this commitment, Stanford eCommerce partners with Internal Audit, Information Security, and Risk Management to manage the effort and maintain ongoing compliance with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS).

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Services Provided by Stanford's eCommerce Group

  • Gateway Service for online stores
  • Certain Registration for event hosting and registration management
  • Quick Pay for electronic billing and electronic payment collection
  • Paciolan Service for online ticket sales and venue management

See Resources & Job Aids: Stanford's eCommerce Service Portfolio for complete descriptions of services offered

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How to Request eCommerce Services

New and existing merchants can request basic eCommerce services online. See Quick Steps: Request eCommerce Services.

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eCommerce Privacy Policy

Stanford's eCommerce Privacy Policy describes the treatment of information collected from customers, the use of cookies, notes on links to other sites, and the implication of consent. See Policy Notes: eCommerce Privacy Policy for complete details.

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Information Security

Stanford University is committed to maintaining the security of customer information, such as credit card account number, cardholder name, expiration date, and cardholder verification numbers.

To uphold this commitment to our customers, for all eCommerce operations hosted at Stanford, we follow and validate annual compliance with industry best practices, as defined by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS).

In cases where an application service provider has been contracted to provide hosted services for the use and benefit of Stanford merchants, Stanford requires PCI compliance as a condition in the contract, and additionally annually validates service provider compliance through methods authorized by Stanford’s PCI certified Qualified Security Assessor.

For more details about PCI, certified service providers, and qualified security assessors, visit the following web sites:

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Stanford's Credit Card Acceptance and Processing Policy

All eCommerce conducted by Stanford schools, centers, departments, or affiliates (e.g. ASSU) must comply with the University's Credit Card Acceptance and Processing policy. Stanford's Credit Card Acceptance and Processing Policy is part of the University's Administrative Guide Memo 84.

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Unrelated Business Income Tax Considerations

All business activities of Stanford University must be related to the University's tax exempt mission of education and research. Please review University Administrative Guide Memo 15.3 Unrelated Business Income (UBI)’. And see Resources & Job Aids: Unrelated Business Income Tutorial.

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