Ask HN: Advice for Payment Processing?

2 pointsby palmsdevvor 17 Jahren3 comments

I need some advice for setting up payment processing.. I know it's been discussed extensively around here but it seems like our use case might be slightly different than other typical web apps, either requiring an extra step or different solution than the average e-commerce transaction..

The basic concept: An e-commerce site with multiple vendors showcasing their products, company will take a % of each transaction (listing fee) before sending each vendor the remaining funds. (somewhat similar payment structure to http://www.kickstarter.com/)

I am looking for the best solution to allow users to checkout on the site using a credit card - I do not like what I've seen with either Amazon Web Pay or Paypal Adaptive Payments so far.. it looks like both of these require users to be redirected to their site for secure checkout. Reading the development forums for Paypal, seems that there isn't any planned support for Website Payments Pro and Adaptive Payments together (unless I'm completely missing something).

Steps to Successful Transaction: 1. Customer visits site and makes a purchase using their credit card (without leaving our site) 2. For using our site the vendor is charged a % transaction fee 3. Remaining funds after fee deductions are sent to vendor

Need to think about the best way for these transactions to happen, and also look at all of the fees involved with moving the money each time. Should funds move to vendors each time a transaction is complete? At the end of each day? Once every 30 days? Without an elegant solution it seems like this could get messy rather quickly.

Many thanks for your help!

3 comments

wgjvor 17 Jahren

Paypal's new "X" service supposedly fits your needs exactly:

https://www.x.com/index.jspa

I haven't tried it yet myself, but am keeping an eye on it and would like to hear anyone's experiences.

I am currently working on a project that uses a traditional gateway (Chase/Paymentech) to collect funds, and then uses a payroll payment card provider for payouts. It has pros and cons vs. using Paypal. Biggest plus for us is nearly total control over the process. Biggest customer plus is fast turnaround and immunity from Paypal Purgatory where funds may not get released and you're suddenly at their mercy.

palmsdevvor 17 Jahren

Thanks,

I've read through the Paypal X site https://www.x.com/community/ppx/adaptive_payments

The Adaptive Payments / Chained Payments is exactly what I'm talking about, but it requires a redirect to paypal.com for completing transactions.

Would using PayPal Website Payments Pro to process and collect funds, then daily PayPal Parallel Payments (multiple payouts to all vendors in one api call), be a reasonable path here?

Am I missing a more elegant solution? PayPal vs. Amazon?

wgjvor 17 Jahren

I'm not the right person to ask. Maybe your post will get more attention if you specify in the title that you are doing payouts. Payment gateway advice has been asked on HN a million times.