I am looking to add credit card payments to my little eCommerce but I don't want to pay a percentage to the credit card processing service.
So... How can I accept Credit Card payments ?
A:
Wrong place to ask, go to serverfault.com or something.
I believe the credit card company supports an API for those things, I'd directly ask them.
polemon
2010-08-26 16:28:34
As much as I don't like the question... APIs generally seem to belong on StackOverflow, not on ServerFault.
Dean J
2010-08-26 19:24:02
A:
You can't. Also, the credit card processing services offer more than just processing the payment. I would not reinvent the wheel. And credit card companies will also charge a percent of your payment.
Eduardo Mauro
2010-08-26 16:32:01
+3
A:
Accepting credit card payments means paying either a flat (and rather high) rate or a percentage of each purchase to a processing company. There's not really any way around that.
Being careless in how you handle credit card payments can leave you liable if the data is stolen. As a general rule, you should never let your application "see" the credit card number. Make sure it is always sent directly to a processing company, and you only handle the confirmation from there (via a form post back, or other mechanism).
This page from CyberSource gives you an idea of what types of APIs are available for processing payments. The "hosted order page" and "silent order POST" options both involve the user sending their card information directly to CyberSource (via a form post), and their application will then POST back to a URL on your site for the order to continue. Other processing companies will probably have similar options.
There's no simple "just use X" answer for this, but you're probably better off with something like Paypal or Google Checkout, unless you really want to get into the gritty problems of handling credit cards.
Bob
2010-08-26 16:37:01
+1
A:
When the customer clicks the buy now you can pop up a message instructing them to send cash to your address.
codingguy3000
2010-08-26 17:26:29
A:
Use Google Checkout or Paypal; the fees are average, and the implementation into a small eCommerce site is really, really easy for you.
Consider that large companies - like Amazon - still pay the same fees you're going to pay. There's no getting around it. That's how credit cards work.
Dean J
2010-08-26 19:26:08
I'd be very surprised if Amazon use a 3rd party gateway, especially as they have a PSP arm https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/index.htm
PaulG
2010-08-26 19:38:51
@PaulG: Yeah, but there are still costs. There's no "free" way to do it, and the costs eat a significant portion of fees in the industry.
Dean J
2010-08-27 16:06:36
+3
A:
It is possible. You'd need to become a payment service provider for the merchant. It is however a huge undertaking (especially since PCI-DSS came into play a few years ago).
Taking this route you would avoid any payment gateway fees, but you would still pay a percentage of the merchant fees (charged by the acquiring bank). You'd also have to take into account the enormous development time, and fees associated with becoming PCI-DSS compliant service provider. It's highly likely it would not be profitable (even long term) for a single merchant.
More info in my answer here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2647430/building-a-complete-online-payment-gateway-like-paypal/2652309#2652309
PaulG
2010-08-26 19:32:13