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Shopping Cart Checkout API

Posted By admin On September 8, 2008 @ 4:46 am In Uncategorized | 1 Comment

 
Are you considering adding a shopping cart to your site?

Most shopping carts use API’s to process credit card payments. Unless you know how to code, you will need the help of an API shopping cart specialist.

What are the options for website credit card processing?

Authorize.net is probably the best known API shopping cart gateway. Authorize.net usually requires a higher upfront investment but for large shopping cart sites, it can be very cost effective.

 

  
 
Case Study: Gift Site Shopping Cart

GiftsForGeezers.com is a well known over the hill gag gift site which processes many gift orders per day. They needed support for a Storefront shopping cart using Authorize.net’s API to process credit card transactions. API Coders oversees their site plus has developed numerous addons for their shopping cart.

[1] Click here to see the shopping cart API code in action.

 
 

 
What about Google and PayPal API’s?

Many customers trust PayPal and Google so using their shopping cart checkout API’s is often a perfect choice. PayPal’s checkout system is better known and has evolved through the years.

 

If you have to choose between Authorize.net, PayPal and Google, we would recommend Authorize.net for large volume sites and PayPal for small to medium volume sites.

Why PayPal?

A few years ago, customers had to establish a PayPal account to use their system. Now PayPal is a sophisticated gateway comparable to Authorize Net without the steep overhead for establishing an account. You can test market ideas for a relatively low investment.

 

Using PayPal’s API is very cost effective. Customer credit cards can be processed without revealing that your site uses PayPal. You will look like you have an expensive merchant gateway.

 

  
 
Case Study: Inventor Uses PayPal and Google Api’s With Custom Shopping Cart

WheelDesks.com needed a custom shopping cart to process credit card transactions. The site chose to use PayPal’s API for regular credit card transactions plus direct PayPal transactions. Also, they wanted to take advantage of Google’s generous Adwords incentives for providing a Google Checkout option.

[2] Click here to see our shopping cart API code in action. 

 
 

 

An added advantage is that the same PayPal API system that silently processes credit card transactions can also be used to process PayPal payments. Studies have shown that providing both credit card processing and PayPal processing increases sales.

 

Many customers will choose to checkout directly with PayPal because their credit card information is protected and they can rapidly checkout without entering personal information.
 
What about Google Checkout?

Google has recently provided an API for their checkout system. It isn’t as sophisticated as PayPal’s API yet but in the future it may evolve to the level of PayPal’s system.

 

As in the early days of PayPal, customers will know that you are using Google for credit card processing. However, Google is providing financial incentives for web owners  to try their system.

 

You may want to consider adding Google Checkout as an additional option on your site. Your customers who have signed up for Google Checkout may very well prefer to use their system.

 

ApiCoders has worked with hundreds of shopping carts. We have used the API’s of PayPal, Authorize.net, Google and Linkpoint.

 

We have developed our own custom shopping cart code. Plus we have worked with shopping cart freeware, open source shopping carts and attached custom features to closed source systems.

 

Please contact API Coders today to discuss your shopping cart project.


Article printed from API Coders - Custom API / SOAP Programming: http://www.apicoders.com

URL to article: http://www.apicoders.com/api-programming-portfolio/shopping-cart-checkout-api/

URLs in this post:
[1] Click here to see the shopping cart API code in action.: http://www.giftsforgeezers.com/
[2] Click here to see our shopping cart API code in action.: http://www.wheeldesks.com/

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