I need to start an e-business.

September 3, 2007 9:53 AM

I'd like to design a small-scale e-commerce site that also accepts donations. I have no experience. Help!

First, I do have a lot of web experience, ranging from UNIX systems administration to development on a LAMP platform. I've just never done e-commerce, and development isn't my official field.

I'm a student at a business school, and I've recently come back from helping out a small school + AIDS orphanage in Africa. The children do some handicraft (and are learning artisan skills!), but there isn't a big market. I think it would be a huge help to them if they could sell their work online. I'd like something with a web presence as opposed to trying to sell via, say, eBay.

How do I go about this, from a technical perspective? I have Linux machines available, and the school would surely permit me use of a Windows server if it's preferable.

I am not concerned with logistics (such as how to get the products from Africa to buyers), which we're dealing with separately. I'm solely interested in how I should go about setting up an online shop. Are there pre-made applications for this that are good? Should I host it myself or are there places that do that? How do I ensure security of credit card information? How do I spot fraud?

posted by fogster to technology (3 comments total)

Paypal Merchant Services? You could also try smaller payment gateway providers like authorize.net.

I've used both, albeit for my then-employers. The API is generally straightforward. You redirect customers onto their site and they handle all the headaches of charging your customers and detecting fraud and so on.

Normally, you wouldn't even retain the credit card information on your system - the payment gateway sends you an OK or NOT OK back after the charging has been completed.
posted by geminus at 10:02 AM on September 3, 2007

Yeah, paypal makes this very easy. Paypal has other issues (as I'm sure a brigade of people will explain to you in this thread), but all in all I've been happy with them.
posted by phrontist at 11:31 AM on September 3, 2007

There are lots of ecommerce packages you can install yourself, and they can talk to a variety of payment providers. If you're worried about security then all of the payment details can be collected by the payment provider, so they don't even go through your server.

Every free/cheap install-it-yourself ecommerce package I've used has been a complete pain though, so if you want to get up and running quickly then consider using something like Shopify or put together a simple static site yourself and use PayPal's shopping cart/checkout (they generate the markup for the Buy buttons).
posted by malevolent at 11:53 AM on September 3, 2007