Hi all,

 

been designing sites for a good while now, however I have an upcoming project for a client that wants to have a debit / credt card payment method and shopping cart on their site, as most shop sites do.

 

Thins is I've never used online payments for my sites, so im not entirely sure how it works, how hard it is etc etc?

 

Can anyone point me in the right direction please?

 

I have a fairly good PHP knowledge (not so good with classes, but got the basics down and experimenting now). I could create a shopping cart on the site, but how to link it to a payment system, god knows??

 

Also im assuming there would be a payment company involved which I have to pay to use this service?

If they want to accept credit and debit cards on site the need to be PCI DSS certified with the security council at level 4 (Web, Phone, Fax, Mail)... You will require a dedicated server with secure backup facilities in place as well as a firewall of some description...

 

You would then interact using cURL to a gateway provider's API's such as PayPal Payments Pro, Protx, Cardstream, Streamline etc.... Personally I would recommend Cardstream as there rates are much MUCH better than the others + you get free fraud checking )

 

All payment processors have API's so its just down to you of finding the right company

If they want to accept credit and debit cards on site the need to be PCI DSS certified with the security council at level 4 (Web, Phone, Fax, Mail)... You will require a dedicated server with secure backup facilities in place as well as a firewall of some description...

 

You would then interact using cURL to a gateway provider's API's such as PayPal Payments Pro, Protx, Cardstream, Streamline etc.... Personally I would recommend Cardstream as there rates are much MUCH better than the others + you get free fraud checking )

 

All payment processors have API's so its just down to you of finding the right company

 

 

Thanks,

 

I was actually just looking around google, and happened to find "RBS Worldpay", whats your opinion on this? thanks.

There are also a number of really easy to integrate systems available straight from Paypal. The documentation that comes with the package is a breeze to follow and will get you up and running in no time.

 

https://www.paypal-business.co.uk/Products.asp

im currently building a basic php shopping cart which may interest you,

 

to include payments i would use external systems such as paypal and worldpay (its a credit / debit card merchant ran by rbs (i think) and quite cheap)... this means you won't need to deal with the securing the payment info

 

you will obviously need an ssl ceritifcate to control the security of the users data given at checkout.

Why don't you use something ready-cooked for that? Like CubeCart, Magento or Interspire? Or for something simpler, WordPress with an eCommerce add-on, all of the above have payment gateways readily built so you don't have to re-invent the wheel again

Have a look at http://www.romancart.com. It's totally self sufficient in that it's a hosted system so you don't need to worry about your own server being compatible. You can incorporate it into your own css so you can style it how you want it to look. You will need to pay for a payment gateway though, such as paypal, google checkout, sagepay etc etc. There are plenty of demos to help you as well.