CMS – WordPress – Donations

[orinj]

Hey Guys,
I’m newbie be gentle ;) . My question is, I want to take donations on my word press site using credit cards (No paypal). I just need a form with the person info and the donation amount and process a credit card. Anyone has any suggestions. I heard of Shopp is there something better out there.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. =)

Carlos

[davesgonebananas]

Shopp is a shopping cart plugin for WordPress, not a payment processor. You are going to need a payment processor, first and foremost. A shopping cart isn’t really necessary, since you can often set up ‘Buy Now’ buttons with the payment processor.

The two most common routes for e-commerce payment processors are either an all-in-one payment processor (like PayPal or Google Checkout), or the (expensive) combination of Shopping Cart, Payment Gateway and Internet Merchant Bank Account. Which one you choose depends on your circumstances, predicted turnover, etc..

I thought it would be good to offer some definitions, since I am often asked about e-commerce setups:
Shopping Cart – let’s you list items for sale, calculates totals, may handle shipping, taxes and other charges. Some payment processors provide simple carts (e.g. Buy Now buttons). This can either be self-hosted (e.g. Magento, WordPress + Shopp) or vendor hosted (e.g. FoxyCart).
Payment Gateway – this acts as an online credit card terminal. It takes the credit card details and turns them into cash.
Common Payment Gateways include Authorize.net (US), Protx (UK) and PayPoint (UK).
Internet Merchant Bank Account – an account that is enabled for credit card transactions. Money from the Payment Gateway is deposited here.
All-In-One Provider – an all-in-one such as PayPal provides you with a (very) simple shopping cart, a payment gateway and the ability to receive money without needing a merchant account. Funds from your PayPal account can be transferred to any standard bank account. Generally the per transaction fee is higher, but start-up costs are low and for small turnovers this option usually makes the most sense.

Which is best for you? Here is a comparison of the base charges for both scenarios:
PayPal Web Payments Standard = Free setup, no monthly fee, standard per transaction charges apply
PayPoint.net + Merchant Account = £20/mo + £18/mo + £250 setup fee + per transaction charges

Since you don’t seem to like PayPal you might like to look into Google Checkout.

NB If you want the credit card details to be input on your website as opposed to on the payment processors site you will require an SSL certificate and PCI DSI Level 4 certification, which will incur additional monthly costs. Also, most shared hosting providers are not suitable for PCI DSI Level 4 so you may need to upgrade your hosting plan.

[orinj]

Hi davesgonebananas,
Thank so much for your valuable advise.
Yes I need a Gateway and I thought of Authorize.net.

I want to have a form type deal that can process the payment donations. I contacted Authorize.net and they supply you with a Gateway key and Id so I can use for e-commerce payments. They don’t do the development, any suggestions which Payment Processor can utilize Authorize.net and have a form type deal process. I hope I’m making sense.

Again any information will be helpful.

[davesgonebananas]

If you go with Authorize.net you can use their Simple Checkout service to create a Donate button for your website:

http://www.authorize.net/solutions/merc … echeckout/

[orinj]

Awesome davesgonebananas. Thank you SO much for your help.

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