Offtopic: How to Install credit card payment for website?

[roman]

Sorry for posting offtopic question, but this forum is full of skilled and experienced people, so I hope I will get a qualified answer.

My friend asked me to program a (music-shop)site for him with online credit card payment feature.

What do I need? Where to look for documentation? Which service to use? How to "order" this service?

I know I can check google for that, but I'm looking for someone who have some experience with this and who could point me to the right direction.

thanx very much in advance,

Roman

[gwpriester]

Roman

Take a look at PayPal.

It is the easiest way to add a shopping cart to a site. And it can accept credit cards an international credit cards too.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

<a href="http://www.gwpriester.com">
www.gwpriester.com </a>


The Xara Xone

[roman]

Thanx for advice Gary. I'll check it and let you know how it goes.

roman

[wfcentral]

I have used Paypal for many of my clients - I use it myself too... so I second Gary's nomination...

Something else to try (I don't sell this software, I just use it and like it...)

FREE CGI shopping cart that integrates with Paypal...

http://www.intralinkscorp.com/products.html#consult

The free version does everything most people need.
The Pro version they sell for $99 adds quickbooks export and the ability to sell non-taxable items plus a mailing list program...just a bunch of nice add-ons that most people can do without... I have used the free version on many sites and it works great...

It's also very customizable...and the user can add/delete/edit items through the browser WITH image upload...

Robert

[ED]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by wfcentral:
I have used Paypal for many of my clients - I use it myself too... so I second Gary's nomination...

Something else to try (I don't sell this software, I just use it and like it...)

FREE CGI shopping cart that integrates with Paypal...

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

PayPal also has a free Shopping Cart system and no need to worry about CGI scripts/programming/configuration.

The BEST is good enough!

[wfcentral]

I realize this is off-topic (so I shouldn't really be keeping this thread alive...)

But, here's some more of my 2 cents...

Yes, Paypal has a cart. However, here is a comparison...

Paypal cart
When you want to add an item to your "store" - go to paypal and fill in a form to get back the "code" you have to paste into your page. Using your favorite html editor, add a picture of the item to a page on your site and insert the "code" from Paypal so that you now have an "add to cart" button. Everytime you want to add or remove something from your store you have to deal with the html and upload files (so I guess you better be on your own computer).

CGI cart (from Intralinks - again, I am not selling this software - it's just the best I've found after HOURS looking and it's FREE)
Once the script is installed (I understand some people are clueless on CGI...) - it took me about 20 minutes to setup. You can add and delete items anytime, anywhere through the browser...
AND...
it has search capability
it allows you to create categories on the fly
it keeps track of orders and lets you mark them as shipped

So, if you can install CGI check it out...
If you are just looking to post a few items and can't do CGI then use the Paypal form...

I think that was about 3 cents worth of ramble...anyone counting?

Robert [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[roman]

Wfcentral, I've just discussed that with my friend. He said paypal is not suitable for us because:

"We'd have to create "items" for every items sold, and things are actually marketed from Paypal's web site. That wouldn't work."

I'm not yet experienced in this area so I don't know if it's actually possible. But we probably need the system where all forms and cart will be on our site and we'll just send the formular to the company which will process it. Paypal seems to force you to have "the stock" directly on their site if I can put it that way. Do I get it right?

roman

PS: I program websites in PHP+SQL.

[raffon]

Gave the link intralinkscorp.com to our sys admin 'cause we were also thinking of adding shopping carts to sites. His reply was:

"That one has the problem of storing visa info in clear text in a file that anyone could get in to."

If anyone know differently, let me know.

Ich bin ein New Yorker

[wfcentral]

quote from Dmagician
"We'd have to create "items" for every items sold, and things are actually marketed from Paypal's web site. That wouldn't work."

-- If you just use Paypal directly, yes...you would. If you use the cart program you modify your store through any web-browser. It's quite simple...none of the tedious form filling and code pasting that is done when just using paypal alone. As for the marketing of paypal. Consider this...Paypal is used by millions of people and was recently purchased by eBay. Anyone who has been on the internet for a while has dealt with paypal. The rates for using paypal are cheaper than going through any other credit card processing company. Also, when using the cart program all the invoices and cart are on your site until the very last step - when they click "go to paypal and make payment" - then it sends the invoice number to paypal and let's them check out - you can even have YOUR LOGO on that page too... sure, it will say "payments processed by Paypal" or something like that...but, as I said before, this is not a negative.
---------------------------------------------------


quote from Grant E. Remington
"That one has the problem of storing visa info in clear text in a file that anyone could get in to."

If you decide to let the program handle collecting credit card info you should be using a secure site (https) which would keep people from getting to this information. I do not use this method though - I go through paypal so all the credit card info is entered at their secure site.


Later,
Robert