Processing credit cards using JSP/Struts/Java?

[Preston Crawford]

Does anyone know of a cheap service to process credit cards that can be
utilized from Java/JSP, etc.? I'm looking at setting up a site for my wife
that does this, but I'm unsure what's out there. All the e-commerce work
I've ever done has been for corporations that handled this internally.
This would have to be cheap.

Preston

 

[analogueboy]

Difficult question to answer, depends on who is dealing with the credit
cards. I worked with WorldPay on a project who supply Java servlets to
handle the communication with their server.

 

[Wendy S]

If cheap is the main priority, you can do a lot with PayPal buttons on a web
page... no Java involved. Is the goal to get it done, or to use Java to do
it? How much volume will there be-- or put another way, is it worth it to
actually go get a merchant account? There are going to be monthly fees in
addition to the discount, etc.

Depending on what the product is, there are third parties who will do the
whole "online store" with shopping cart and credit card processing, and take
a percentage of the sale.

 

[Preston Crawford]

If cheap is the main priority, you can do a lot with PayPal buttons on a web
page... no Java involved. Is the goal to get it done, or to use Java to do
it? How much volume will there be-- or put another way, is it worth it to
actually go get a merchant account? There are going to be monthly fees in
addition to the discount, etc.

Java isn't the priority. The reason I'm asking around is because my wife
and I (if we go ahead with this) have to choose a hosting provider. And
that hosting provider will be chosen based partly on what they provide
(JSP, PHP, ASP.NET, etc.). I can do all 3 platforms, so I'm looking for
what has the best hooks into a cheap system. PayPal would be doable, but
it would take away the seamlessness of the whole cart experience.

Depending on what the product is, there are third parties who will do
the whole "online store" with shopping cart and credit card processing,
and take a percentage of the sale.

Yeah, I know. I just like to have some control over things if possible.
The problem with this whole thing is what we're looking at selling is
small margin, so we can't spend a ton of money on this, really.

Preston

 

[Sudsy]

Java isn't the priority. The reason I'm asking around is because my wife
and I (if we go ahead with this) have to choose a hosting provider. And
that hosting provider will be chosen based partly on what they provide
(JSP, PHP, ASP.NET, etc.). I can do all 3 platforms, so I'm looking for
what has the best hooks into a cheap system. PayPal would be doable, but
it would take away the seamlessness of the whole cart experience.

I don't follow you. Have you read "The PayPal Shopping Cart Manual"?
You can use your own cart, a third-party's or PayPal's own. So flexible
that I plan on using it for a client of mine in a similar situation
(low margin).
Feel free to drop me a note off-newsgroup.

 

[Matt O'Toole]

Java isn't the priority. The reason I'm asking around is because my
wife and I (if we go ahead with this) have to choose a hosting
provider. And that hosting provider will be chosen based partly on
what they provide (JSP, PHP, ASP.NET, etc.). I can do all 3
platforms, so I'm looking for what has the best hooks into a cheap
system. PayPal would be doable, but it would take away the
seamlessness of the whole cart experience.


Yeah, I know. I just like to have some control over things if
possible. The problem with this whole thing is what we're looking at
selling is small margin, so we can't spend a ton of money on this,
really.

Hey Preston,

I've been through this issue with dozens of small business clients. No one ever
wants to hear this, because we're all such webheads we all want to do it
ourselves. But for an online store with fewer than about 50 items, the best
solution is a Yahoo Store. When you add up the cost of the hosting, merchant
account, and everything else, there's simply no comparison. For larger
operations it gets very expensive, but for small stuff it can't be beat. Do the
math yourself and you'll see. You can have plenty of flexibility in developing
your site -- you'd never know most Yahoo Stores were actually that. Most of
those thousands of small time whitebox computer and parts vendors on the web are
actually Yahoo Stores. Go to Yahoo, play around with it a bit, and see what you
think. The only time I would not recommend a Yahoo Store for a small ecommerce
operation is if it were necessary to integrate with an existing database or
inventory system.

Matt O.