Scholar Warrior Posted September 24, 2003 Share Posted September 24, 2003 At our stuartdavis.com, we offer digital song downloads as well as physical, shippable items. We have used paypal for over a year now, and it has been great. However we need to expand beyond the scope of paypal and are looking for some advice. From technical standpoint, i need real time credit card processing so i can instantly give customers access to their songs. What i don't know is how we connect to the gateway at checkout time and how that data is usually passed back to my system. Anybody been down this road before? Is there a gateway that function much like PayPal's IPN system? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borfast Posted September 25, 2003 Share Posted September 25, 2003 Hi Scholar Warrior. Check out Credit Card Processing, Links to check out, it contains some information I think you'll find useful Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scholar Warrior Posted September 25, 2003 Author Share Posted September 25, 2003 Thanks for the link. What i'm really looking for is a way to keep a user on my site essentially the whole time. When it comes time to process the payment info. I transparently do that behind the scenes (via submitted FORM data) and let the user know if there are any problems. Is something like this unheard of in the realm of ecommerce? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Rob Posted September 26, 2003 Share Posted September 26, 2003 (edited) Not unheard of at all. I use OSCommerce and all of my transactions keep you on the site and everything is done behind the scenes. There are packages made to make it work for many gateways. Having said that, I am not sure of the possibilities with your shopping cart. What cart are you using? Edit: I guess it would help if I looked further into your site. Here is what I found at drupal. there is no shopping cart module that i know of ..... Everything I can find on that site suggests that there is no availably to integrate one into the application unless one is willing to create their own. It looks like it is just set to be a CMS. Not that you can not do it but you would need to get the specifics for your gateway and create it yourself. Edited September 26, 2003 by Critical Mass Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scholar Warrior Posted September 26, 2003 Author Share Posted September 26, 2003 Thanks for your informative answer! Much appreciatted. I've already written a store module for drupal, That's how i run the paypal stuff now. Would you mind telling me more about your gateway. Who are you using and why? This would give a good starting point, and i can then learn the questions i need to ask other gateways. 3 cheers for critical mass! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Rob Posted September 27, 2003 Share Posted September 27, 2003 Scholar, Forgive me if I don't say who I am using as my gateway. It isn't that I don't like them but I feel that if I were to point you in a direction that doesn't work out it does more than have a negative effect on me. That said, you can find better gateway processors than what I am using. Mine was a bit costly out of the gate and I am too cheap to change now. Here are some things to look for. Set up fees, how much is it going to cost you to just to have them get you going? Application fees, is there one? Some don't charge a thing. Do they have an IPN so you don't have to use their software? What is the transaction fee and what percentages are taken per sale? Those fees are pretty stable for the most part. What is your monthly gateway fee and bank fee? I pay $20 each to the gateway company and card processing company and then some more for the AMEX and Discover. All in all though it runs me about $50 a month to accept cards. Shop around, some places will promise to beat other places prices. Google the term accept credit cards and start shopping. Don't forget, get as much information as you can on each place to compare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scholar Warrior Posted October 1, 2003 Author Share Posted October 1, 2003 Thanks for the info! I feel like i have enough knowledge to go out and start looking now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surefire Posted October 1, 2003 Share Posted October 1, 2003 I'd echo the part about $50 per month as a typical cost for accepting cards. I looked at Paysystems and their ilk Pros Very fast to set up Very simple to implement No monthly fees (that I know of) Easy to do recurring bills (subscriptions) Cons They take a high percentage of the transaction The rate they offer isn't always the rate they advertise They hold back a big percentage of money for safety The money doesn't go into your account right away They're Canadians... just kidding... they are Canadians though Your own merchant account Pros Money deposits right away Percentage of transaction should be much lower Your user doesn't have to leave your site at all No holdback on your money Cons Fees to set up (sometimes) Monthly fees are pricey Gateway interface can be a pain SSL certificate takes time and $$ I like some of the features of Paysystems but I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger because I added up the percentage of their cut (4%) and the holdback (6% I think) and I thought 'I don't want to net 90 cents on every dollar and have to wait for my money' Yes, I know the holdback is eventually given to you... but meanwhile I gotta pay my mortgage now. I think it's a good system, but I'm looking at setting up my own SSL for my merchant account and setting up my own Paysystems clone (just for me and various sites I have, not for others). I'm cheap and don't want to have to purchase multiple SSL's if I can avoid it. But I digress.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Rob Posted October 2, 2003 Share Posted October 2, 2003 (edited) Jack, Let me address your cons for a moment. ConsFees to set up (sometimes) Monthly fees are pricey Gateway interface can be a pain SSL certificate takes time and $$ Fees - Shop around and haggle. They all want your business and are willing to do things to get it. Monthly fees - for me, worth it. Accepting credit cards has gotten me more business. Gateway interface - Many of them have an IPN that you can just cut and paste code. SSL - Took about a week, cost wasn't that bad. Here is the thing with all this, it is start up. Yes I had to pay to start accepting credit cards and yes I had to pay for the SSL. Now, since I have started accepting cards and have gotten the SSL I have had more customers. I don't get that many visitors, 2600 uniques last month, it is almost doubling every month though. What makes up for it is that accepting cards and the SSL has given me a bigger ratio of customers versus visitors. I am more than happy to pay what they are asking. Edited October 2, 2003 by Critical Mass Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surefire Posted October 2, 2003 Share Posted October 2, 2003 You and I are singing the same song... I was just pointing out the differences. There are no monthly fees for PaySystems. You're right most payment gateways give you code you can paste... mine doesn't. But the fees are low. So whatcha gonna do? Nobody's perfect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Rob Posted October 3, 2003 Share Posted October 3, 2003 You haven't met me yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest twhiting9275 Posted October 3, 2003 Share Posted October 3, 2003 Modernbill is another thought actually for processor/billing systems. I've been using it for the past few months after relying solely on PayPal, and I've found that their processing systems are actually decent. You setup the packages, you tell it who to process through (2c0, authorize, etc), and you actually control a lot of the way things are done. I'm using the authorize.net setup in MB, paying about $50/month for all services (which is about right), and haven't had a problem in the world. Of course, there's other processors supported in modernbill as well, but if you're looking to keep the client on the site after order success and all, MB is most definitely THE one to be looking at, at least from what I've found so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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