[pgo]

So, I may be getting involved in an ecommerce project.

This company wants to have a site where they have general content management (pages, etc), some form of user interaction (message boards, comments, etc), and ecommerce to sell their products online (and accept credit card transactions).

The only part that I'm concerned about is the latter. I've never done ecommerce anything before. As I understand it, I'll need the following:

1. Software like osCommerce, Zencart, etc.
2. An SSL certificate (how much do they cost? who to buy from? etc) for obvious reasons.
3. Payment Portal (like WorldPay or whatever) - they do already accept credit cards in their store - can they use the same service, somehow?

Tips. Advice. Answers. Appreciated.

[Dusteh]

You won't need a secure server if you are using an external payment portal like Worldpay, Paypal or Nochex. They save you the hassle by dealing with the transaction on their own servers. this also has the benefit of no confidential bank details stored by your client. If a customers card is used fraudulently and they blame your clients website, you simply tell them to contact your online payment provider.

Zencart and cubecart are two good options with minimal cost. I tried oscommerce and I think its rather limited.

[forbes]

you need a certificate def..

You might like trading eye as they are strong web standards advocates and its fairly easy first time u use it plus the support you get is good too.

I used secpay and seems ok

Very important - the client will need a merchant account with their bank. This takes over 2 months to set up at times, costs around 200 quid to get one and costs about 10 quid a month to maintain.. Learnt this the hard way and delayed a project by months! So make sure you tell them to get one asap

Secpay costs my client 10 quid a week too.

Just make sure your client knows they have to pay monthly charges

[pgo]

Thanks gents.

With portals like WorldPay and such, does the user have to leave the client's website to make their payment - the same way PayPal does?

If so, what options are available if they want to process payments on their website?

[roto]

pgo, there was actually (what looked like) a good payment processing company advertised here on dt's main page...and I'm looking for it now. They look like they could take care of it all from top to bottom so you don't have to be arsed at all (other than design the shell perhaps).

[edit]
found 'em...

Shopping Cart Software by Volusion Ecommerce Solutions

...and when I posted it up and asked about it, I was also recommended:

Shopify Marketplace

Perhaps you could just work the cost of either into your overall project pricing and make your life easier. Why reinvent the wheel if it's the one part you're concerned about?
[/edit]

[freelancr]

Originally Posted by forbes

you need a certificate def..

No you don't, you only need one if you are taking the credit card details directly on your website. If you are using something like paypal, worldpay or even Protx Form then they take the credit card details on their site, you just send across the amount they owe.

Protx Direct on the other hand requires you to take the credit card details on your website, and send them securely to their gateway to be processed, then a response is received by your website. This allows you to have a fully branded service, keeping the customer on your site, whereas something like Paypal looks tacky as you are sending them away from your site.

You should NEVER be storing ANY payment details from payments made on your website, you just don't need to, and it's just not worth the risk.

[pgo]

Good suggestion, roto! I'll definitely think about that.

Thanks for the clarification, Luke.

[roto]

Originally Posted by pgo

Good suggestion, roto! I'll definitely think about that.

Cool. It's something I've been approached about recently, too...but I haven't started either project as I have NO time for freelance. Let me know, if you choose my suggested route(s), what you choose and how it works out. Looking at the two again, I think I'd go with Shopify for the tiered pricing and flexible look & feel options.

[mike_m]

not sure if they cover the US market, but we use securehosting.com to deal with our clients whole secure payment gateway/transparent payment page stuff. They can either allow the clients to process the orders manually on a PDQ or interface directly with their bank to deposit money in place of a merchant account. They are very helpful if you want to talk to them about your requirements beforehand.

[pgo]

Thanks mike.

I don't think I'll really have time for this project at the moment, but I've been asked to provide an overview of what's going to be required for this contract so that either I can do it (depending on various circumstances over the next month) or it can be contracted out to another developer or agency.

[herkalees]

A little late to the thread, but I've heard all sorts of great things about Big Cartel: Big Cartel » Bringing the Art to the Cart

[pgo]

Yeah, only problem is that once you're ready to check out, it goes to PayPal. Not going to fly.

[herkalees]

You've insulted the PayPal - one or two kittens are doomed.

[pgo]

I hate PayPal ever since I had $25 stolen from me and they shrugged.

[herkalees]

Now it's four kittens.

[freelancr]

Paypal are shit.

[Cborrow]

Here is some info on SSL and getting one if you want to do that.

SSL: Your Key to E-commerce Security
How to Apply for an SSL Certificate and What to Expect - The Internet Security Learning Center from Network Solutions

and godaddy has pretty cheap SSL certs.

https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/ssl/ssl.asp?ci=8979

[cjgraphix]

PayPal does have something called PayPal Pro. Doesn't point users to paypal unless they want to use their paypal account to pay. When it comes to payment methods, best to put personal feelings aside and let people pay in any manner possible.

I've built payment systems for both PayPal, PayPal Pro, and Authorize.net. Currently building one for Intuit. Let me know if you have any questions onces you get into it.

[Larixk]

For your first question:
I've worked with OpenCart for a few days now. It gets really buggy when you switch to another language, not English. But that shouldn't be a problem for you. It is quite easily adaptable if you know a bit of php.