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Is paypal the only way to do it? Would the best way be to take the payment from the payer, take a cut, and then give money to the payee? Seems like I'd lose a lot in the two paypal payments

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4 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

Check into Amazon Payments. They have an API, flexible payments, specifically designed so you can create a marketplace where A sells x to B for a dollar, and you get 10% (10 cents)

Only catch - have to have a US bank account at this point.

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Amazon Payments sounds awesome - and very appropriate for what we're trying to do. Thanks! Any idea about their pricing structure though? It's not clear what the fees would be if for example B pays A $10 and we take 10%. Would there be two separate transactions of $9 and $1 with their separate fees or ...? Any idea? – sikakkar Feb 1 '10 at 11:17
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You should apply directly for a merchant account instead of going through a 3rd party processor like Paypal. There is a great article on the subject on Sitepoint: http://sitepoint.com/article/merchant-account-review.

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up vote 0 down vote

If you're planning on using Paypal for the actual processing, then it would fairly pointless to create your system - why wouldn't sites just use Paypal directly, and save themselves the cost of using your system.

If you're planning on replacing Paypal with an alternate system, then you have to look at working with various payment portals for accepting various forms of payment, becoming PCI-compliant for storing customer data, figuring out a way to differentiate yourself from Paypal (or any of the dozens of alternatives already out there).

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Oh, I guess I wasn't clear. The point isn't to recreate paypal, it's to implement a payment method on my website. The website involves the delivery of services from user A to user B, with B paying A in return. The site would take a small cut of the payment from B to A in return for facilitating the service provided. My question is what is the best way option to provide users for paying each other? – sikakkar Jan 31 '10 at 16:31
You factor that into the payment costs - $0.35 + 2.5% per transaction to Paypal (so $0.70 + 5% in total) plus the amount you want to make on the transaction. – Elie Jan 31 '10 at 17:31
Yeah, but that cost is completely untenable. I was wondering whether there is an alternative. – sikakkar Jan 31 '10 at 18:52
Yeah, process the payments yourself - but then the upfront cost would be huge, and make that unpractical as well. Unless, of course, you take the payments from people up front, and then pass it on at the end of the project when it's due, and collect either interest or other form of investment income in between. – Elie Jan 31 '10 at 19:17
I guess I'll just have to go with paypal. Probably with the same way eBay does with collecting fees from the earners at the end of every month. – sikakkar Jan 31 '10 at 21:04
up vote 0 down vote

CS-Cart vendor edition lets you create a market place which lets users signup sell their goods and you get a percentage

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