Data protection for custom links

Overview

2Checkout offers you the option to create custom renewal or upgrade links, that you can provide your customers with the relevant communication channel of your choice. This is an alternative to, for example, the automatically-generated renewal links that our platform sends as part of renewal reminders to your shoppers or makes available through the customer myAccount. 

If the path you choose is the one where you, as a merchant, create these links and share them with your customers, extra attention needs to be paid to make sure you distribute the links to the rightful owners of those respective subscriptions. Not only the money they spend is at stake, but also exposing personal information (which falls under strictly regulated areas both inside the EU, as well as the US). 

2Checkout has the obligation to make sure data is protected, therefore whenever the custom link path is chosen by you, shoppers will have to pass an extra validation step in the checkout process in order to confirm they are indeed the owners of the subscription they are attempting to renew/upgrade.  

Availability

This setting is available to all standard 2Checkout account types: 2Sell, 2Subscribe, and 2Monetize, for both PSP and MoR accounts created post-December 10, 2021. We will gradually enable it for all accounts created before this date.  

Benefits

2Checkout is adding an additional safety measure to make sure custom links reach the rightful owners of subscriptions without the need for you to build any additional logic on your side.

Workflow 

The same flow described below applies regardless of the shopping cart you are using, the theme, or the flow you have chosen. 

When shoppers click on a custom renewal/upgrade link you have previously sent, they will be reaching an intermediary page where they are asked to fill in their delivery email address associated with that subscription. 

Hosted Interface Default Layout

ConvertPlus Default Theme Layout

InLine Cart Layout

If there is a match between the delivery email address the shopper fills in and the one stored in the 2Checkout system on the original subscription, the shopper immediately reaches the shopping cart and continues the usual renewal/upgrade flow.

The shopper has three attempts to pass this validation step. If by the third attempt, the shopper fails to enter a matching delivery email address associated with their subscription, 2Checkout will display a warning message shown in the image below.

Hosted Interface Default Layout

ConvertPlus Default Theme Layout

InLine Cart Layout

The email also includes either a renewal or an upgrade link that is digitally signed by 2Checkout. This means that if the customer remembers the original email address and has access to that mailbox, they will be able to click on the relevant link once they open the email received from 2Checkout.

To address those valid scenarios where the original email address is not available anymore (e.g., it belongs to a fellow employee that left the company), the message prompted on the intermediary screen also suggests, as an alternative, reaching out to you. At that point, you will be able to identify the customer, and, if relevant, you can modify the delivery information belonging to that subscription. It will be an informed decision on your side that will also help you store the most up-to-date and relevant information on the owners of your subscriptions.