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ixxalnxxi
11-09-2008, 04:06 AM
Hello all,

I was wondering where I should go in order to set up a donations section for a site. The only important detail is that the whole transaction stays on the site, that is the user is never redirected to another site.
wh666-666
11-09-2008, 09:26 AM
Your customer will always have to be re-directed somehow to a payment gateway merchant, you dont have a choice too much in that matter.




I would advise using paypal for donations. Easy for all groups of people to make a quick spur of the moment donation without digging out their credit card. Once they click on the link they'll be redirected to paypal, make the payment with a card or through paypal and then be re-directed back to the same page.
ixxalnxxi
11-09-2008, 10:23 AM
Your customer will always have to be re-directed somehow to a payment gateway merchant, you dont have a choice too much in that matter.

I just finished a site where the user does not need to switch site when purchasing products from the site. The site used Authorize.net. The reason I am choosing not to use that is because it seems that Authorize.net is used mainly for online sales, but I am needing to accept donations.
WebJoel
11-09-2008, 07:06 PM
PayPal works great.
ixxalnxxi
11-09-2008, 08:26 PM
PayPal works great.

So with paypal the transaction would be done completely on the site rather than on paypal's site?
wh666-666
11-10-2008, 09:23 AM
No, the user would complete the transaction on paypal and be re-directed back.

If you do set it up on your site you're going to have to set up the whole checkout script in something like php, use a merchant gateway to bill cards and then have to deal with ssh certificates, another expense as well. You'll have to do a good job of it as well to avoid looking like a scam site.

All of that is going to add extra expense and discourage users like myself donating. Ive donated to a few sites before using a couple of pounds out of my paypal balance. Ive never donated to a site using my credit card.
windycitycoder
11-10-2008, 11:09 AM
Hello all,

I was wondering where I should go in order to set up a donations section for a site. The only important detail is that the whole transaction stays on the site, that is the user is never redirected to another site.

Take a look at the First Data Global (formerly LinkPoint) API. You can do the same same thing you did with the Authorize.net API, and it'll be a better fit for donations than Auth.net (as Auth.net has a per transaction fee above what the merchant account provider charges). In addition, for a minimal additional cost, they've recently added linkages to PayPal which should allow you to capture donations from people who specifically want to use PayPal and keep them on your site.

I'll send you a PM in a few minutes that has some comparisons and other information that may be helpful.
#include
11-13-2008, 12:31 AM
+1 for PayPal. It's easy joe-blow people trusts it.
windycitycoder
11-13-2008, 12:22 PM
+1 for PayPal. It's easy joe-blow people trusts it.

True. However, after a certain donation volume / month of X (since we can't discuss costs here it'll just be X), the costs related to PayPal are more than an actual merchant account.

Also, for this particular project, the OP was looking for a solution that kept the donor on their site versus pushing them to an external site. The offering that PayPal has to do this is absurdly expensive - both in terms of setup costs and monthly costs.
wh666-666
11-13-2008, 03:43 PM
It really depends how much in donations they're expecting!
windycitycoder
11-13-2008, 05:26 PM
It really depends how much in donations they're expecting!

Because of costs, and what they want to do (donor stays on site), there's no scenario where a standard PayPal account makes sense. Take a look at the costs for PayFlow Pro (PayPal's gateway) and you'll see why I say that. Any other gateway solution (including ones with linkages to PayPal) will be much less expensive.