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