How can I bill within an application

Question

I've been programming for years, and I've also done a few professional programming projects. I recently had a friend ask about creating an e-commerce site, but I had to turn her down because I had never worked on a web application that can bill. I also might need to write a subscription-based web service in the future. My question is, how do I even get started with billing? I've never found a guide about this, and I barely know how bank accounts work since I don't manage my own one (I have an excuse for this since I'm only 16).

I don't know if the answer is language dependent, but if it is the languages I'm interested in are Python, C/C++, and Java.

Answer 1

I would look at paypal's api to get started. You might not want to stick with them but it is a good starting place to learn about dealing with credit card clearing houses and such.

Here ya go.

Answer 2

You'll typically interface with a 3rd-party for doing banking transactions. One that I've work with in the past is Authorize.Net but there's plenty out there (PayPal is another fairly popular one with a decent API).

Basically, the best approach is to do as little as possible and let the 3rd party handle all the "hard" stuff (such as security, managing credit card details and so on).

Answer 3

There are lots of ways to go about setting up e-commerce sites;

If you don't have any experience whatsoever, and don't want to get into anything "complicated", i would suggest going with a customizable web "storefront" hosted by someone else, pre-integrated with credit card processing, etc. There are tons of options for these online. Just search google for "web storefront". Yahoo! even has such a service:

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/ecommerce/sellonline.php

Going beyond that, It's pretty easy to integrate with someone like PayPal. They have all sorts of options from the most basic (use a link to send someone to their site with query string parameters to let paypal know what the user wanted to buy):

https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?&cmd=_render-content&content_ID=developer/home

Beyond that level, you will need to signup for a merchant account, or other similar sort of service, like the one offered by authorize.net (who I like):

http://www.authorize.net/

There are components you can buy for most major web development platforms like .NET, JSP, etc. Perfect example is dotnetcart. These components provide out-of-the-box, easy-to-setup integrations with major CC processing companies, as well as out-of-the-box shopping cart implementations:

http://www.dotnetcart.com/

Finally, most merchant services / payment gateways provide web services for direct integration.

PS.) Never ever ever store CC numbers ; )