Payment methods for an ASP.NET Web Application

Question

I want to add payment methods to my site, such as MasterCard or Payoneer. I don't know where to start, can someone give me an entry point? Is there an API for this?

Answer 1

Firstly, you need an Internet Merchant Account from your bank, this is where any money you take via card payments will end up. Now, each bank offers a variety of Merchant Accounts, aimed at different sized businesses and different risk levels, some will takex percentage of your revenue, some will take a flat fee, others will take a mixture of both.

Once you have a Merchant Account, you need a system to take credit card payments, AKA a Payment Gateway. There are again a number of these, just Google Payment Gateway (Authorize.Net and SecPay are 2 examples of these). Again Payment Gateways will take a percentage of any money that you process through them, some charge flat fees, some charge a percentage, others are a mix of both. Generally, there is a different charge for Credit Cards and Debit Cards.

The Payment Gateway will take all your Merchant Account details and set everything up so that, money processed through them ends up in your Merchant Account. However, you still need to have a form for customers to fill in and submit with their card details.

Integration of the payment gateway to your site, and there are 3 methods that are generally available:

1. You redirect your customers to the payment gateway, usually, you've had to call a web service beforehand to tell the payment gateway how much you want to charge the customer, what items, delivery charge, tax etc. When the customer arrives at the payment gateway, it's all covered with the payment gateway providers logo and details, so that the customer knows that they're paying via a reputable service.
2. Same as above, however you pay extra to the Payment Gateway provider so that you can customize the look of the payment forms (aka White Labeling).
3. The Payment Gateway provider supplies you with a web service API and you provide all the credit card payment forms, calling the API when required. You'll also need an SSL certificate for this.

This is great if you're taking a few thousand-a-week and want to provide your customers with a seamless payment journey. However, this can be costly if it's only a few hundred-a-week that you are taking. There are also PCI (related to risk and fraud) and chargeback issues to consider.

Paypal can make it quicker for you to start trading online as you don't need an Internet Merchant Account from your bank. All the rest still applies tho.

Answer 2

You would need to buy a paid payment gateway like:

1. http://www.ccavenue.com/
2. http://www.ebs.in/

You can also use free services like https://www.paypal.com.

Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_gateway for further information related to payment gateways.

Answer 3

There are lots of different ways, but here are the basic two:

1. Add PayPal, Google Check-Out, or Amazon Payment Services to your site - you usually just add a little HTML and you're good to go
2. Integrate with a payment gateway like Authorize.net and others. In .NET, the easiest way to integrate with Authorize.NET is with SharpAuthorize.

The real difference between these is the amount of control you need. If you need everything hosted at your site and do not want to pass anyone over to another site for check-out, then #2 is your only option. Otherwise, #1 is the easiest way to go...

Answer 4

Have a look at IPN.NET

Infralution IPN.NET provides a complete ASP.NET solution for automating your purchasing and product licensing system using PayPal's Instant Payment Notification (IPN) mechanism.

IPN.NET can be used in conjunction with the Infralution Licensing System for a complete licensing and purchasing solution or you can integrate your own licensing system into IPN.NET. We supply full source code for the IPN.NET Server so that you can customize it to your own needs.

IPN.NET includes a sophisticated IPN Test Tool (see below) that allows you to fully test and debug your IPN Server on your local development machine. This tool alone is worth the purchase price.

Answer 5

Content paraphrased from here, please visit to read full content and a list of third-party options.

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There are basically two ways for your website to accept credit cards:

1. Use your own merchant account
2. Through a third party merchant

Some issues to consider

(merchant account vs. third party merchant)

Setup Fee
Initial cost of opening a merchant account is usually higher than using a third party (some of which have no fee at all).

Transaction Fee
Much higher for using a third party as compared to using your own merchant account.

Convenience
Third party merchants are convenient when you don't know if you can actually make much out of your product or service. Additionally, the merchant takes care of everything for you. You can spend your time concentrating on your products, services and customers.
Having a merchant account accords your business with a certain amount of professionalism. However you have to be careful to minimize your credit card risks since you'll be processing the credit card payments yourself. This is not to say that there are no risks attendant in using a third party merchant.

Answer 6

If you've no idea how to get started and don't have an existing merchant account, then you might consider going for someone like Paypoint.net (they're UK based, but I've no doubt there are US and other worldwide equivalents) who will set up the whole whack for you.

Answer 7

I just did this search and for me it came down to PayPal or Authorize.NET. If you are a member of Costco you can use Elavon which uses Authorize.NET. Whichever way you go, check out NopCommerce an open source e-commerce solution that contains a lot of ASP.Net/C# code to deal with Paypal, Authorize.NET, etc.

Answer 8

You can use payment gateway from CyberSource, Cardinal Commerece, PayPal