What's a good way to accept Bitcoins in an Online Store?

[Tacticat]

I know about Bitpay merchant solution and other merchant solution providers... but what if I want to host my own Point of Sale / electronic shopping cart software?

What software could I install on my server that communicates with my Bitcoin wallet, creates new addresses and requests payments from my online shop?

Thanks!

[casascius]

BitPay does a good job of what they do, but if you want to avoid a third party service, I would recommend you pre-generate a large number of addresses, don't put the private keys on the server (for safety), and have your site dispense a single address for each order.

This is what I'm doing, and I don't even bother with any bitcoin software.  There's really no need.  I just make sure there's an easy link to look up the payment on blockchain.info when I go to actually ship the orders, and I click the link, and if they paid, I ship.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

I know about Bitpay merchant solution and other merchant solution providers... but what if I want to host my own Point of Sale / electronic shopping cart software?

What software could I install on my server that communicates with my Bitcoin wallet, creates new addresses and requests payments from my online shop?

Thanks!

I just heard about this today, I think its awesome

http://acceptbit.com/ (Its run by Jeremias Kangas and Stefan Thomas from WeUseCoins and other projects, but be careful before giving them your master key)

AcceptBit.com is the safest and easiest way to accept bitcoin payments. In the whole Universe.

AcceptBit me! Merchants accept payments using this website. No keys are stored by us. We simply provide a convenient overview. And your Electrum client remains synchronised through cryptographic magic.

[franky1]

create a whole bunch of addresses on a home computer that is not a server.

put ONLY the public addresses into a database on the server. and use the blockexplorer or blockchain.info api's to do your balance checks.

then use the home computer to sweep all the funds into your master address frequently. for you to be able to re-use those addresses

ensure your server only has public addresses. do not have a bitcoin client on your server. an EPOS is meant for receiving money, not sending it. so there is no requirement to be sending funds to customers.

if a transaction needed to be refunded due to customer relations issues or a problem with the product sold. then the shop manager would use their home computer/another office/customer service department computer for sending the funds. not the main servers computer.

again do not have a bitcoin client on your server

api's you can easily use
show QR Code on html webpage
<img src="https://blockchain.info/qr?data=putaddresshere">

get the balance of an address
http://blockchain.info/q/addressbalance/putaddresshere?confirmations=0

[bzzard]

I'm using http://bitcoinpayflow.com/ - it's exactly what I wanted, works with 0 problems so far (4 months)

[mrvision]

I like blockchain.info's solution.
Check:
http://blockchain.info/es/api/api_receive

Blockchain.info will generate addresses and forward the bitcoins to your address. Very neat solution in my opinion.

[Tacticat]

Hello there again!

From all the possible solutions, Acceptbit seems the easiests to setup and use. Mainly because it auto-generates the addresses as you need them and there is absolutely no risk since the addresses are generated from a public master key. It is also very convenients since they keys are automatically syncd with my electrum wallet.

The only problem is that I don't see how I could use it on a website? Is there any command or API to call for a new address to be generated and displayed?

Other options such as the Blockchain API, bitcoinpayflow and pre-generating addresses also seem interesting, but I'd like to explore Acceptbit first :3

Thanks!

[Technomage]

If you want a semi-do-it-yourself solution and you don't need extensive shopping cart integration or something like that, I would definitely recommend AcceptBit. If you want the whole package with integrations, invoices, support etc, then BitPay or similar services are the way to go. Also the conversion to local currencies is something BitPay provides and AcceptBit doesn't, but if you're fine with just getting bitcoins then it doesn't matter.

[franky1]

blockchain.info also has this simple api

https://blockchain.info/es/api/receive?method=create&address=<your address>&anonymous=false&callback=<your calback url>

it does these key things:
*creates a unique payment address
*informs you when you receive a payment to that address via <your callback url>
*links the payment address to <your address> so that your master address receives payment once confirmation has been done

all without needing a client on the server or telling blockchain any private keys