I've puzzled by this question for quite a while, but never had the need for it. Now I do.
What I currently need is a Credit Card payment option for my website that does not rely on services such as Paypal. I want something like Name.com or Hostmonster.com have. You simply enter you credit card number, expiration date and the three little numbers at the back of the card. How can I achieve the same effect on my website?
I'll be programming the website in PHP.
Answers would be appreciated.
You need to signup to a payment gateway. It's a service that allows you to process credit card payments. I know you don't want to use PayPAL to accept payments, but PayPAL offer two solutions:
PayPAL Payments - That is the button and people pay through PayPAL
PayPAL Payments Pro (Payment Gateway). That is when you use PHP or anything else to connect to PayPAL with the credit card information. The customer never knows you used PayPAL, and they never leave your site.
When choosing a payment gateway these are the four most important things you should consider:
How easy is it to implement (PayPAL has a lot of documentation)
How much is the monthly fee.
How much do they charge per transaction.
How much do they charge to setup an account.
There are other options, and one of the most common is Authorize.net, but the is more setting up and a larger deposit to open an account.
Most accounts will require a background and credit check.
Well, you'll still need to rely on a Merchant Services company for card processing. There are many companies that boast an API that can then be accessed with PHP. One that I have recently learned of is Stripe. However, there are many competitors and you can research other companies further, but companies like Stripe will allow you to generate payments programmatically without having to leave your site to visit the black-box that is PayPal.
Related
I am looking for information on how large resellers collect payments and pay the people who sell on their site. (e.g. Redbubble.com, a company that pays artists a commission for their work)
Specifically, I am looking for different solutions that cover a few key functions at minimal cost (like Paypal fees)
Ability to take payment from credit cards and paypal (others a benefit)
Track sales for each merchant as payments are processing
Collect payments in central account
Payout all processed payments on a monthly basis
P.S. I imagine there are a few ways to do this, I am hoping to gain some insight on what solutions have been proven.
P.P.S. This is not a technology specific question. Whatever APIs or third party solutions you know of are fair game.
Thanks for your knowledge!
Try PayPal adaptive payments.
Paypal Adaptive payments
You can also try Stripe to collect funds to one account and to trasfer them to third party acccounts but this only works in the US.
Stripe Payments
You could use the Adaptive Payments API and that would allow you to split the payments up among multiple receivers in a single transaction in real-time. If you go that route the API calls that you'd be interested in are...
Pay - This setups the actual payment and the receivers on the payment.
SetPaymentOptions - This allows you to provide more details like items, shipping, etc.
ExecutePayment - This actually processes the payment in the system after it's been setup with the previous calls.
PaymentDetails - This obtains details about a completed transaction.
Preapproval (possibly) - This allows you to get a Preapproval key for a user that will allow you to trigger payments on that users behalf at any time in the future with the use of the preapproval key.
PreapprovalDetails (if you use preapprovals) - This obtains details about an active preapproval profile.
To get all of that working in the live environment you'll need to submit an application through your PayPal developer account to obtain a Classic API App ID. For development on the sandbox there is a global App ID that can be used.
Another option would be to take payments on your site using any PayPal product like Payments Standard, Express Checkout, Payments Pro, etc. and have all the money come to your account, and then use the Pay API to distribute those funds out to people accordingly. This could be automated with an IPN solution and possibly the use of a CRON job on your server.
This is the method I like to use, and I typically go with a full Payments Pro / Express Checkout integration for payments on my site and then I distribute via the Pay API within an IPN solution or CRON job like I mentioned.
I am trying to figure out exactly what payment solution to use for my site.
I would like to do the same thing as Spotify (https://www.spotify.com/us/freetrial/ - You'll need to login to see it), allowing users to choose whether they want to pay with PayPal or use a credit card and then taking them to a payment selection screen (on PayPal), then returning them to my site to click confirm and buy.
I am already paying for recurring payments (even though I've yet to use it) and am unsure if that is applicable here. I have also integrated express checkout but I don't know if it will allow recurring payments.
EDIT: Do I need a separate token for recurring payments? Do I have to use the old recurring payments checkout screen? How can this be done as efficiently as possible, like Spotify? Here are my efforts to create a recurring payments profile after express checkout: http://pastie.org/private/sakzopltnwfv93wwmduqq
Diagram:
Select Buy & PayPal (subscription) --> Choose Payment (on PayPal) --> confirm & pay (my site)
This is what spotify's checkout looks like (It wouldn't say update for first time users):
Are they using recurring payments + express checkout? I would really appreciate some help with this.
Yes, you can get this done with Express Checkout + Recurring Payments. That said, if the person chooses credit card when setting up a recurring payment they will have to create a PayPal account. If they're paying a non-recurring checkout then they could use the credit card option without creating a PayPal account.
You mentioned that you're already paying for recurring payments..?? Are you referring to Payments Pro? If so, you don't need to pay for that to use EC + RP. Pro is only necessary if you want to process credit cards directly on your site without ever redirecting to PayPal. This can sometimes make things seem a little more professional and would also give you the ability to let people setup recurring payments without creating a PayPal account when using a credit card.
When using EC you just need to make sure to include the billing agreement parameters in order to get a token back that will work within CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile. Refer to the SetExpressCheckout API reference for more details on that.
This is kind of old now, but is still useful. Take a look at this sample express checkout set of api calls. You'll notice it uses the same token throughout all of the calls.
Just like Spotify -you would need to build that option on your site. If the user chooses to subscribe with a credit card - use the recurring payments w/ direct credit card (see below). If the user chooses to subscribe with a PayPal account - use the recurring payments w/ PayPal Account (this is what Andrew is suggesting above in his response).
Here are the how-to guides:
For direct credit card subscriptions: https://www.x.com/developers/paypal/documentation-tools/paypal-payments-pro/how-set-recurring-payments-profile-using-direct-payment
For PayPal Account subscriptions: https://www.x.com/developers/paypal/documentation-tools/express-checkout/how-to/ht_ec-recurringPaymentProfile-curl-etc
The APIs would allow you to do things like trial periods, setup fee, etc. For example here is a how to on building a freemium kind of model: https://www.x.com/developers/paypal/documentation-tools/express-checkout/how-to/ht_ec-freeTrialRecurringPayments-curl-etc
Let's say, for the sake of discussion, my client does not want to use the Paypal api for transactions. I have already made a shopping cart. The user submits the items on the shopping cart and their credit card number.
Assuming I'm not using any api, how would I then charge the user's credit card for the items on the shopping cart? I understand that it is complex, just wondering what the general process is like and how to get started.
You're going to need to trigger a bank transaction, so obviously you're going to need to use an API at some level. I think the way to go would be to first learn in some detail how at least one of the popular commercial (by definition?) payment card processing services works, e.g.:
https://paymentvision.com/Payment-Gateway/Payment-Gateway-API.aspx
http://aws.amazon.com/fps/
https://www.firstdata.com/en_us/customer-center/merchants/support/first-data-global-gateway-api-software-landing.html
http://www.authorize.net/
The next step would be to design the "payment processing" subsystem of your PHP application/library around the "backend workflow" (perhaps using a 3rd party PHP library, if one is available), and do some testing.
Then I would plan for a security audit of your code & systems before you actually use it to handle payment card information on behalf of a customer/3rd party.
You can also capture all the card information and use an external payment processor. The problem is that you will be hit with major fees since it will be considered a keyed in and not swiped transaction.
If you don't want/like paypal, don want to use a payment processor like authorize.net, you could look at other options like stripe.com.
Find an payment gateway, such as authorize.net. With payment gateways such as this, your client will need to sign up for a merchant account with a credit card processing agency. You payment gateway can help you with this.
Then, you'll usually get a token or api key that you will use to connect to the payment gateways services. From php, you'll use cURL or fsockopen to connect to them. Securely send your api key, get a response, then send some other required message, get another response, and then send in credit card information and credit card holder information.
There are lots of PHP Libraries to choose from out there for different payment gateways. I'm not suggesting authorize.net, it was just an example. But when you find one you are happy with, and happy with the fees that are associated with processing credit cards, you can either use a prewritten library, or they payment gateway will provide you with and API that will tell you how to integrate with their system.
Payum efficiency proved by 1k+ stars on a GitHub, great comments and a million of downloads. Supports 50+ different payment gateways so you surely find what you need.
I have a website where I need to reward users for their involvement by paying money into their paypal account. I have a paypal business account, and would like to know if it is possible to put money into their account automatically from just having their paypal account email address.
I am developing my website using php. Ideally, I would like to have a script on my server that when executed transfers money from my business account into their paypal account.
I am new to paypal, and having looked around I am getting confused as to all of the different APIs that are in use! MassPay keeps coming up but if possible I would rather I didnt have to pay the 2% charge on each payment - is there any other options?
The payments are not for goods or services and so could be classed as a personal transfer, would this eliminate any fees?
So my questions are:
1) Is this possible?
2) Which API is most suitable?
Thanks
Yes, it's possible but you're going to end up paying a transaction fee. I would recommend you do a batch process (that is, do one large payment request scheduled at a certain time of day) through PayPal's Mass Payment API.
You can read more about this API and how to use it here.
The way PayPal stays in business is by collecting these transaction fees. If it didn't collect them, it wouldn't be nearly as successful.
If you're looking at having more options on the transaction, including some ways to try and shift around who pays the fee, you may want to look at Adaptive Payments.
The best way is to generate a paypal button in the following URL:
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_donate-intro-outside
and place it at your page... You'll still have to pay some fee (although it's a low one)
I am developing an Ecommerce website and I would like to implement Credit/Debit card processing within the site.
I would like to know if there are any good PHP scripts which fully implement this and the payment gateways that provide this service.
Also the website will have a Money Back guarantee feature in the event of cancelling of orders and so on. So how can this also be implemented using Credit/Debit cards i.e. I want to be able to refund the customers in the event of a cancelled order.
The site/service will be offered in Africa and Paypal isnt present.
Thanks
You need to find someone to process your credit card payments first. eg Paypal or SagePay.
They will provide you with all the documentation on integrating with the payment gateway, and all the ones I have used in the past have included PHP sample code.
Here are some handy links for you...
Paypal Developer Docs
Google Checkout
SagePay (UK credit card
processing)
Update: Since you are trying to offer this service in Africa, I would recommend contacting your local big bank to see what services they offer. All the major banks in the UK and the US offer their own gateways (or point you in the direction of their preferred partner), and I would imagine that would be true everywhere.
http://pear.php.net/package/Validate_Finance_CreditCard