Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

MAYNARD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 17, 2004

Industry-Standard Technology Makes Continuously Available

Computing a Cost-Effective Alternative Solution

Wanting to ensure reliability and efficiency in processing customers' non-cash purchases while attaining better cost control, Sheetz, Inc., has deployed a transaction switch for its approximately 300 stores using the WINPAY24(TM) payment processing application from ACI Worldwide and a fault-tolerant ftServer(R) 6500 system from Stratus Technologies.

The convenience store chain rolled out the new server last month to accept credit card, debit card, fleet card and gift card transactions and route them to external networks for authorization and settlement. Such e-payment options account for a steadily growing volume of in-store and fuel purchases at Sheetz stores throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina.

Because the stores operate 24x7, it is critical that the chain's electronic funds transfer (EFT) switching application is always available. An outage during a peak period would have considerable impact on customer service, as well as on revenue, according to the chain's executives.

"We need to handle a range of non-cash consumer transactions impeccably, keep up with our continued growth, and maintain control of the process," said Rich Steckroth, manager of business development and e-commerce at Sheetz, a progressive retailer ranked at #109 on the 2003 Forbes list of the largest private companies in the U.S. "Being able to readily achieve the uptime we need makes it practical to handle transaction switching in-house. This also allows us to reap ongoing savings because we don't pay third-party fees to route payment transactions between our stores and the appropriate processors."

"The reliability of a fault-tolerant system is an advantage for this application but, until now, that's not been a technically attractive or cost-justifiable option," said Randy Pielmeier, Sheetz's payments system administrator. "With the Stratus(R) ftServer system, we get the uptime performance of traditional proprietary fault-tolerant technology on an Intel(R) processor-based platform that runs Windows(R) applications. And because we have such a solid base for EFT switching, we are in the driver's seat in terms of supporting more stores and adding new functionality."