Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with creditcardprocessing

Sell a finite number of identical items on the internet

monkeystronghold — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:48:01 -0800

What is the best way to sell (and accept payment for) a finite number of identical items (50) on the internet? I expect the items to sell out reasonably fast, and so I'll need to be able to take orders as they are received, and stop accepting payment when the 50 are sold. I'll use it this one time and never again. The items will sell for a yet-undetermined price between $600 - 800. I have minimal coding experience.

I thought that a paypal link would be best, but then I have no way to stop people paying when the 50 are gone.

I considered just having people email, but then I have no way to separate people saying "Oh, I have the money, I'll get it to you next week" and taking the space of people who are actually paying.

I considered phone calls, but I don't know how to process the credit cards. And it would be a pain.

Is ebay an option? If so, how do I set that up? Are the fees comparable to other options?

The item will sell for between $600 and 800 and buyers will have to pay shipping.

I'll buy that for a thousand dollars... but no credit please.

lockle — Fri, 19 May 2006 13:00:50 -0800

My work wants to accept payments online but doesn't want to accept credit cards. Most banks issue debit cards that work as credit cards. Is there a way to determine the difference? Several years ago my boss went through some tough financial times that almost made him declare bankrupcy. He is a religious and moral man and after taking several credit courses, has become convinced that the whole concept of personal credit is immoral in some aspect.

In addition to the moral implications of accepting credit cards, there are some business decisions. I work for a company that does landscaping, landscape lighting, irrigation, and installs Christmas Lights during the holidays. There have been one or two occassions where customer was unhappy with an aspect of the work and rather than working with us to resolve it or with the BBB, they instituted a chargeback.

Currently when a customer accepts the service, we go and physically pick up a check or ask them to mail it. This year for the holiday lighting services, repeat customers will be able to just log into the website and select what service they want again this year.

We would like to be able to offer them the convience of online payment without accepting actual credit cards.

Gold stars for anyone that can suggest a payment processor that would allow us to just accept cards on the PULSE (ATM) network as well as electronic checking.

Explain credit card processing

letitrain — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 11:53:59 -0800

How does my client accept credit cards online? I'm a web designer, and I'm building a book site for an author. She would like to sell her books through the website. I don't know how to set up online credit card processing.

She definitely doesn't want to use Paypal or any other service where we have to send people to another domain for processing. She'd like for the entire thing to happen on her site, and she will ship out the books. Whatever I set up, it needs to be fairly inexpensive.

I figure we need a secure certificate, a credit card processor and some sort of database to store the transactions and keep track of purchasing/shipping. Does that sound about right?

I've looked at shopping cart software (OSCommerce, Zen Cart, etc.) and I understand basically how it works. I don't understand how the live online processing works. Is this some software the cc processor provides?

So here are the questions: how does it work? What do I need? Who do you suggest?

Experience with ipaybill.net ?

caitlinb — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 20:28:56 -0800

A client is asking me about iPayBill.net as an alternative to PayPal. They don't seem to have much info on their site or presence on the Web. What's the scoop?