My business wants to accept bitcoins but I can't figure it out

[neutrinox]

Hi!

I have a small webshop and I would like to add bitcoins as a possible payment method.

I am using Mal's E-commerce solution and I'm having a hard time figuring out the way to implement this.

Here's where I get stuck:

I can add to Mal's a payment method called bitcoin without problems. But I'm not sure how I should convert the € value to BTC at the moment of the order.

I guess I should use somekind of API (which is a new world to me) to get the current MtGox price?

After that should I maybe try to write some javascript that picks up the € price from the cart and translates it into BTC. Even then there is the problem of the automatically generated email, which would still show the price in €. And I have no idea on how to edit the email dynamically on Mal's (might not even be possible).

I'm not sure if anyone can help me with this. But I hope the community can see the problems related to accepting bitcoin for a small webshop like mine. I think a lot more people would like to accept BTC but simply don't know how to overcome issues like the ones I pointed out.

[nitrous]

Hi!

I have a small webshop and I would like to add bitcoins as a possible payment method.

I am using Mal's E-commerce solution and I'm having a hard time figuring out the way to implement this.

Here's where I get stuck:

I can add to Mal's a payment method called bitcoin without problems. But I'm not sure how I should convert the € value to BTC at the moment of the order.

I guess I should use somekind of API (which is a new world to me) to get the current MtGox price?

After that should I maybe try to write some javascript that picks up the € price from the cart and translates it into BTC. Even then there is the problem of the automatically generated email, which would still show the price in €. And I have no idea on how to edit the email dynamically on Mal's (might not even be possible).

I'm not sure if anyone can help me with this. But I hope the community can see the problems related to accepting bitcoin for a small webshop like mine. I think a lot more people would like to accept BTC but simply don't know how to overcome issues like the ones I pointed out.

Hi,

I'm not too familiar with e-commerce, but one thing I will say is that you should not do the price conversion in javascript (or, if you do, make sure to verify it on the server side). It would be too easy for an attacker to change the amount of bitcoin they pay and end up ripping you off.

There are a few merchant services around, see here, and some of these aim to take away the hassle of manual price conversion. BitPay, for example, seems to be an easy to implement solution that will also handle the currency conversion for you - they will give your visitors an up-to-date bitcoin valuation, and then they will convert it to USD (I'm not sure if they support euros, but your bank should convert it for you if not), and deposit it into your bank. There are many other services listed on the URL I linked you, some of which will also enable you to take the bitcoins directly if you want, and there's also some helpful information, so hopefully that will help you get started.

I'm sorry I haven't given you information specific to Mal's E-commerce solution, hopefully someone else might know more about that.

Good luck!
Nitrous

[relmeas]

If you are not web programmer I doubt you will be able to modify a e-com system that does not support bitcoin to accept it.

I think the prices should be converted server-side, by fetching current trading price. There should be some kind of protection agains price spikes so it should be updated according to the period of time rather than current price snapshot.

After accepting bitcoin payment you should as soon as possible (ideally by server side scripts) exchange bitcoins to your fiat currency of choice since price can change not in your favor very fast so your original price will no longer be valid.

to do that you may want to keep enough bitcoins on the mtgox accound (or other exchange) so you can exchange immediately after purchase, and when the new bitcoins arrive to that account you'll have the same amount reserved as before. this way you won't have to wait while funds arrive by which time the price may change not in your favor.

so as you see this system is going to be rather complicated so only an experienced programmer can implement it correctly...

perhaps someone who is already accepting btc in their web shops would like to share their code to promote btc commerce.

[Kouye]

Try starting there, maybe ?

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Merchant_Howto

Good luck.

[joele]

Hi!

I have a small webshop and I would like to add bitcoins as a possible payment method.

I am using Mal's E-commerce solution and I'm having a hard time figuring out the way to implement this.

Here's where I get stuck:

I can add to Mal's a payment method called bitcoin without problems. But I'm not sure how I should convert the € value to BTC at the moment of the order.

I guess I should use somekind of API (which is a new world to me) to get the current MtGox price?

After that should I maybe try to write some javascript that picks up the € price from the cart and translates it into BTC. Even then there is the problem of the automatically generated email, which would still show the price in €. And I have no idea on how to edit the email dynamically on Mal's (might not even be possible).

I'm not sure if anyone can help me with this. But I hope the community can see the problems related to accepting bitcoin for a small webshop like mine. I think a lot more people would like to accept BTC but simply don't know how to overcome issues like the ones I pointed out.

Accepting BTC is simple using https://bitpay.com/

[Stephen Gornick]

I guess I should use somekind of API (which is a new world to me) to get the current MtGox price?

If you did that then at this very moment you would be accepting bitcoins at $112 but you might then be trading them at another exchange at $107.  Because of the temporary USD withdrawal halt at Mt. Gox, the price on their market has diverged from others/

When Mt. Gox "was" the market, there was essentially one source for determining price.  Now it might need to be derived with an algorithm, like how BitPay does it:
 - https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-exchange-rates

[halfawake]

I was going to recommend Coinbase, but I see that you're specifying prices in Euros, so that option is out because they currently only work with merchants in the United States.

If you don't want to bother with converting the price to bitcoins, you can use bitpay.  It lets you specify a price in any currency, and it'll automatically convert what you selected to bitcoin.  That way would end up with you offering a price in bitcoin, but the resulting email would end up with a price in Euros.  The email part wouldn't look pretty because they would be paying it bitcoins but seeing a price in Euros, but that may be the best you can do if Mal's doesn't support changing the template. 

This page has a link to Bitpay's API: https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway-api - it'll show you how to do that.