I want to test MasterCard, Visa, AMEX, Discover... and I don't want to use any of my own credit cards. Are there any ways for testing ecommerce? Maybe buy one of those credit card gift cards? Any experience with this?
nsoftware IBizPayPal V2 (working on way to get V3)
PayPal offers a sandbox for you to test your integration. For other checkout providers there are similar testing environments. For example with google checkout.
No experience with gift cards, wouldn't use them. Sandboxes are easy to use and can be configured into your test and staging configuration so you can fall back to them at any time.
When I am ready for a real test I will use my credit card and just bill for $0.01, even though that ends up costing the company, but I do this only to make certain it works. In the process I mentioned that their software shouldn't allow this to happen, that there should be some minimum that won't cost more in charges than the customer is paying.
You can then go back and cancel this payment, generally.
This is to make certain that everything works fine, when done with testing.
The payment provider should have a system for testing card payments by authorizing real numbers or numbers which they provide. Paypal has the Sandbox, as mentioned by tharkun above. Protx, now Sage Pay, offer a selection of test cards which you can use on their system to test different card types. Best advice would be to read the documentation from the payment provider.
Does anyone think it would work to buy and use one of those VISA or AMEX giftcards? Does anyone see any problem with this?
your API 'should' have test credit card numbers, authorize.net is like 4222222222222222 or something.