[Zope] RE: Online donation and Zope

[Paul Winkler]

On Tue, Jul 30, 2002 at 07:24:37PM +0200, Breuer, Yvon wrote:
> I haven't searched into this more deeply, because I didn't need 
> it immediately. But (again), since you are interested too (and seem 
> to need this information now) I'll post some questions to the list:
> 
> 1. Does anybody have experience with PayPal?
>    If so: Was it any good? Why or why not?

I've only used it for buying / selling on ebay... it's fine for that
as long as everything works OK.  However, I have heard stories that 
it is *very* difficult to get support from them if you have a problem.
I can't verify that.  It's also pretty easy to set up a site
to work with paypal.

> 2. Do credit card companies have a standard module or program to 
>    have online payments on your website?

No. To accept credit cards, you generally need a "Merchant Account".
A special bank account into which credit card funds can be deposited.
There are monthly fees to have such an account, and per-transaction
fees. Usually there is a start-up fee, too.

Then you either need a secure server provided by your merchant account
provider; or you need to provide your own secure server and make
sure it really IS secure. The latter option can be expensive and
time-consuming...

If the merchant account provider has their own secure server that
you can use, they will give you an API for
working with their system. The ones I've looked at just use
standard http requests, so it's no problem to build a suitable
form in Zope and send the request to their system. Done right,
it looks like everything happens right on your website.

There are some other ways to do it - companies that use their
own merchant account and forward the money to you, 
so you don't have to get a merchant account.
the advantage is lower monthly and start-up costs, the disadvantage
is MUCH higher per-transaction costs.

It takes a lot of searching on google to find the various options,
and I can't find my old notes at the moment. Sorry.

-- 

Paul Winkler
home:  http://www.slinkp.com
"Muppet Labs, where the future is made - today!"