b310 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello:

I hope someone can take me under their wing and point me in the right direction with this.

The director of my tennis club wants to setup a registration form for junior camp. He wants the ability for people registering to pay online.

There are three options:
1. pay at the club
2. charge to member account
3. pay via credit card

Dealing with options 1 and 2 is not a problem. He just wants an email stating indicating whether it is option 1 or 2.

It's option 3 I don't know how to handle. He wants the payment to be submitted into a PayPal account.

How do I begin? I know that when a customer clicks the process button, the information needs to be passed to PayPal. I don't know how to achieve this.

Can someone help me out? Thank you in advance.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Submit form for payment processing
by brian_d_foy (Abbot) on Mar 21, 2005 at 15:09 UTC

    PayPal has documentation that describes its API. See their Merchant Tools section.

    However, you don't need to know how to program anything to use PayPal. You can create a PayPal button (using the PayPal website), and PayPal takes care of the rest. You'll get a notice that someone paid via PayPal, how much they paid, and so on.

    --
    brian d foy <bdfoy@cpan.org>
[reply]
Re: Submit form for payment processing
by cbrandtbuffalo (Deacon) on Mar 21, 2005 at 17:56 UTC
    Some other general considerations:
    • The nice thing about using a service like PayPal is you never have to receive or store a users credit card number. I would recommend building your system so you never know the users credit card number. If you never have it/store it, a hacker can't get it from you.
    • If you are hosting things and you do receive any sensitive user data, you'll need to take care of some things in the server. Specifically, SSL should be enabled (https) so all data is encrypted.
    • If you have multiple steps to your forms, make sure the forms use POST rather than GET, and don't store any sensitive information on subsequent forms using hidden fields or URLs with a query string.
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Re: Submit form for payment processing
by ikegami (Patriarch) on Mar 21, 2005 at 16:18 UTC
    I have no advice on the directed question, but I have a comment. Paying by credit card and paying by PayPal are not the same, so be careful not to falsely advertise acceptance of one when you only accept the other. (I personally intend not to get a PayPal account.) Sorry if this comment doesn't apply.
[reply]

      PayPal will do credit card processing for users without PayPal accounts. You can pay by credit cards through PayPal. However, PayPal members can also "send money" from their PayPal balance, which is different.

      Having said that, I use Business::OnlinePayment::AuthorizeNet to handle credit cards. It's not as easy to set up an account (PayPal is almost instanteous), but AuthorizeNet its a lot easier to manage, in my opinion.

      --
      brian d foy <bdfoy@cpan.org>
[reply]
        In my experience PayPal will not let me make payments without signing up for an account.
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Re: Submit form for payment processing
by insaniac (Friar) on Mar 21, 2005 at 17:28 UTC
    or use Business::PayPal
    --
    to ask a question is a moment of shame
    to remain ignorant is a lifelong shame
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Re: Submit form for payment processing
by MrStretch (Sexton) on Mar 21, 2005 at 18:08 UTC

    I'm not entirely sure of the cost to set up merchant accounts so someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe to actual accept credit cards without paypal or another organization it requires a hefty fee along with monthly payments. If I am wrong, then please correct me, I'm interested in how this works

    As for using paypal, it is realy easy to set up a merchant paypal account and start recieving money from customers; however, the only catch is that if you recieve too much money, then they take a fee from you per dollar. I think it is somewhere aruond 1,000 dollars before they start taking a percentage of your money.

    If you read the tuts at paypal then setting up online payment with paypal can be a breaze, especialy if you take insaniac's advice and use a module such as Business::PayPal. Just look into it and figure out how you want to do it. Paypal is probly your best bet if you don't know how to set up ssl and other encryption methods or you are fairly new to Perl

[reply]
[d/l]

      PayPal takes money from the recipeint anyway, and it's a pretty hefty percentage compared to some credit card processors. It doesn't depend on the amount. The merchant rates start at $3,000 and offer a lower percentage, but they still have the transaction fixed-fee. See their rates.

      If you are handling a lot of money or lots of smaller transactions, the credit card processors will come out cheape. They usually have a recurring service charge and a set-up fee, but they also take a lower percentage in most cases and PayPal's transaction fee turns out to be higher than a credit card processor's monthly fee. Individual situations will vary based on number of transactions per month, average charge, and total receipts. PayPal does okay for low transaction rates, and credit cards do better for higher rates. PayPal is good for short-term situations where you won't need the service after a couple of months.

      --
      brian d foy <bdfoy@cpan.org>
[reply]
      Hello:

      You all have given me a lot of information which is all useful. I will also tap into the developer's network at PayPal.
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