Item Routing allows you to limit sales of certain Items to specific merchants. If that Item is in the cart, the available merchants to use can be restricted to just merchant allowed to sell that Item.

📘

Key Takeaways

• Item Routing Logic relies on 2 configuration components
  1. Items must be set on the specific Merchant Account within the Payment Router (route merchant)
  2. Setting to determine if the system should Force Item Routing

Force Item Routing

If using Item based routing, determine the logic for selecting the merchant when item restrictions are in place.

Checked = YES

When checked, when any item that is setup on a merchants Item Routing is present in the cart, ONLY the merchant(s) with those Items configured will be available for use.

❗️

If no merchants are available, a validation error will display

No available merchants for items

👍

Business Use Case

A store sells women's skincare and CBD lotions. One merchant does not allow CBD at all and two merchants do. By setting up the Item Restrictions on the Merchant Route, if the CBD Item is in the cart, only the 2 Merchants that accept CBD are allowed

FAQ for Forcing Items

Q: What if 1 Item is set to go to a merchant based on Item Routing but the cart has other Items that have no restrictions?

A: The merchant that is set with the Item Routing for the 1 Item will be used. Because the other Items have no restrictions, they are able to go to any merchant.

Q: What if Item A is set to route to Merchant A and Item B is set to rout to Merchant B. Merchant C has no Item Routing (left blank), where will the sale go?

A: The sale will decline because there is no merchant available to handle both Item A and Item B in the same cart. You would need a merchant that would allow Item A and B.

Unchecked = NO

When left unchecked, any merchant(s)with those Items configured AND and merchant(s) with no Item Restrictions will be used.

FAQ for Not Forcing Items

Q: What if Item A is set to route to Merchant A and Item B is set to rout to Merchant B. Merchant C has no Item Routing (left blank), where will the sale go?

A: The sale will go to Merchant C since there are no restrictions and Force Item Routing is unchecked.

Simulate Test Transactions

As always, it is recommended to test thoroughly to ensure your setup behaves as expected. Within the Payment Router there is a Test mechanism so you can simulate many transactions of varying transaction criteria

📘

Tip

When testing, the test simulator tests successful transactions only

To Test

1. Navigate to your Payment Router
2. Select Options
3. Click Test

4. Enter the test criteria
   1. Count will be the number of transactions to Simulate
   2. Payment will be the Payment method you wish to test
   3. Cards to Test is the Card type, select all that you wish to use in your simulation
   4. Choose Items to test will simulate a cart of Items to see what merchant they will use. This is great to test Item Based Routing use cases.
   5. Customer ID will simulate transactions from a specific customer
   6. Bin Number will simulate transactions from a specific BIN. This is great to test Merchant Bin Routing Logic