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I commented this on yesterday's jsbin article, and I'll write it again. Don't implement the payment processing code yourself. (And using Stripe is _still_ impl
by stevoski 11y ago
I commented this on yesterday's jsbin article, and I'll write it again.
Don't implement the payment processing code yourself. (And using Stripe is _still_ implementing it yourself - they supply only one part of the process.)
Writing this code will take time that you are not using to develop and market your product. (cf opportunity cost). Your code will be buggy. Your code will be weak. Your code will not support the various alternative payment options popular in, say, Holland. (Yes, this is a thing, and it is called iDEAL.) Your code will sooner or later be exposed to a campaign of fraudulent transactions.
Use FastSpring, or your alternative of choice. Yes, it costs more, if you don't put value on your weeks of time to create and support an alternative, and if are comfortable having a weak fraud detection, if any.
When your business becomes successful, when the fees to FastSpring start to dwarf the costs of implementing a payment system yourself, then - perhaps - consider re-doing it yourself.
There are indeed weaknesses in using FastSpring, which after seven years are becoming a pain for me. I'll be writing about that soon. But this is not an issue for a one-person endeavor getting started.
- nulltype 11y agoHow is FastSpring different from using Stripe.js or Checkout? Both claim "automatic fraud detection".
- bhelx 11y agoThis is true but in this case he's not directly integrated (he's using Recurly). Better fraud tools is something we are actively working on.
- djm_ 11y agoWould it be possible to give us a better ETA on when something is likely to be implemented? I was thinking of using recurly and this has put me off somewhat.
- bhelx 11y agoI'm an engineer so I can't really give you an ETA in public. You could certainly talk to one of our sales or product people about it. The thing you need to remember is that you do have options. If you choose a gateway with good fraud tools, or a gateway that integrates with them, we upstream that information to you. Traditionally Recurly has left fraud up to the gateway because they are much better at dealing with it, but we are now seeing the need to offer some more professional fraud tools by default at the Recurly level. Feel free to email me if you want to have a discussion about it: ben@recurly.com
- bengali3 11y agoFYI take a look at SiftScience and ThreatMetrix products. They wont process your transaction, but at least one of them offers a zero chargeback guaruntee, at $0.03 per transaction I believe.
- Maarten88 11y agoLiving in Holland, where everyone does online transactions with iDeal, I find it hard to understand why the rest of the world is using credit card payments at all, for anything. It is massively insecure, it's expensive for the merchant, and theft is ignored (when millions of stored creditcard records are stolen, those cards are not invalidated and replaced?). This is all at the cost of customers and other merchants. I'll keep trying to avoid using a creditcard as much as possible and use other payment methods when I can, both online and offline. And yes, when implementing payments on a website, use a service that does all of the complex things for you, and never store sensitive data yourself.
- pc86 11y agoThere are many reasons to use credit cards, and some of what you said is just not accurate: - The vast majority (probably 95%+) of cards have rewards built in. Everything from miles to redeem on travel and accommodations to the most common being cash back credited against your account. These can range anywhere from 1% to 5% outside of special promotions where you typically get even more. - They offer increased consumer protection in the form of warranties on items you buy in addition to the manufacturer's warranty. - They offer increased consumer protection in the handling of charge backs, fraud prevention and being able to easily dispute charges (typically online). - Of course if a card is stolen the number is invalidated and the physical card replaced - I don't know where you got the idea that this doesn't happen. - None of this is at direct cost to the customer - assuming you pay off your statement balance prior to the due date, you are not charged interest and unless you have a card with an annual fee (most do not and if you have even decent credit it's trivial to upgrade to a card without one) all these features are free.
- greedo 11y agoThose benefits don't come without a cost though, and not just from cardholders who do carry a balance and pay interest. The merchant fees, chargebacks and other costs get tacked on to their COG.
- Maarten88 11y ago> None of this is at direct cost to the customer Then who do you think is paying for those rewards/cashbacks? Who is paying for the extra warranty? Who is paying for the costs of the chargebacks and the replacement of cards that get stolen by the millions? The answer could be you, creditcard users who dont pay off in time, or people who use other payment methods. It certainly isn't the banks or the merchant who's paying all this.
- djm_ 11y agoDo you have an RSS feed or a link to where that post may show up? Thanks, highly interested!
- tokenizerrr 11y agoJust for the record, as a Dutch person, Holland refers to the two provinces North and South Holland and there is more to the country than just that. The Netherlands would be more accurate.
- stevoski 11y agoSorry about that. In future I'll be more careful to write The Netherlands.
- lenocinor 11y agoDon't feel too bad. My sister's husband is Dutch and even he refers to The Netherlands as Holland now and then (as does his family and other Dutch people I have seen). It's not the end of the world.
- josinalvo 11y agoTotaly ignorant here: Why would using FastSpring be safer than using Stripe?
- sovande 11y agoFastspring has a fraud protection system in place. Strip has not and does not prioritise it according to this quora comment by one of its co-founder. https://www.quora.com/How-will-Stripe-overcome-the-huge-losses-that-will-occur-with-fraud https://www.quora.com/How-will-Stripe-overcome-the-huge-loss... Fraudulent chargebacks is bad, both economical and psychological. As an online seller it is part of life, but you want to keep it to a minimum, say < 1% of all transactions. I wholeheartedly support the sentiment of the OP, do not use Stripe nor do this in-house. Instead, use a payment provider with a proven fraud protection system, such as PayPal.
- moron4hire 11y agoHow is FastSpring different from Stripe? I can't tell from the website.