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A web search led to Ripple.com.

Is it possible to add the payments via Ripple payment to an e-commerce website? Where can i find source code to implement such Ripple payments?

For example, there are few websites which offer payment via Ripple such as PrivateInternetAccess.

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    You may want to start with ripple.com/partners/#merchants or ripple.com/merchants. And then move on to ripple.com/wiki/Main_Page#Merchants
    – dchapes
    May 26, 2014 at 15:37
  • @dchapes But what if the merchant's goods is the curency? Similar to bonus systems some merchants offer. Then the merchant should act as gateway, shouldn't they? And redeem real goods for their IOUs. And their IOUs can be traded by other people for other currencies, the price depending on how much the goods from this merchant are wanted, and how much they trust the merchant (that the merchant will keep the promise). I believe this is possible with ripple, and also looks like an interesting system.
    – imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev
    May 29, 2014 at 7:53
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    @imz--IvanZakharyaschev it sounds like you're talking about something like gift cards redeemable at purchase time. If so, with Ripple a merchant can just accept their own issued USD (or whatever unit/name they want to use) and just arrange to distribute/give/sell those. Unlike physical gift cards, Ripple makes it easy for others to trade/sell these. For further discussion on such things I'd suggest ripple.com/forum as SE comments aren't the best place for discussions.
    – dchapes
    May 29, 2014 at 15:40
  • @dchapes Yes, "gift card" is a good word for what I meant. I see now the option that you mentioned: accept their own issued USD. The option I thought about was like nominating the currency in the kind of goods one will be able to redeem: e.g., a promise to give 1 kg of potatoes or 1 Gb of network storage in exchange for the "gift card". Then we let the market determine the price for our goods...
    – imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev
    May 29, 2014 at 16:29

2 Answers 2

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There are some existing sources of information for merchants wishing to use Ripple:

If you are looking for something pre-implemented and easy to add to an existing automated web commerce check-out page, there isn't much available along those lines at the moment. Ripple is still in beta and the server and client code still appear to be the focus of attention. However, there has been a recent small bounty offered for the community to develop shopping cart plug-ins that use Ripple.

It's easier for sites that have a manual check-out process as they can just add a Ripple URI for customers to use and the merchant can manually check for received payments with the existing Ripple client (or use a third party tool such as wasipaid).

The basic process for a merchant to use Ripple is:

  • Create a Ripple address to receive funds (one time setup).
  • Create payment paths in Ripple for the funds you wish to receive (e.g. trust a gateway for USD or EUR, etc) (one time setup).
  • Supply a Ripple URI, possibly with a nice "Pay via Ripple" button that customers can use to initiate Ripple payments with their Ripple client. This can use a unique "destination tag" and/or "invoice ID" to distinguish individual Ripple payments. The Ripple client will offer the customer payment options using whatever assets they have for which it can find a payment path.
  • Manually or automatically watch for updates to the Ripple ledger to detect when payments are made. Make sure to handle partial payments (e.g. update a balance payable field) and to handle over-payments (e.g. return the excess, since Ripple payments are non-reversible and a reverse path may not exist for the currency being used this can be non-trivial). This is the "big" step where automation or plug-ins would be helpful, especially in handling all the corner cases.
  • Release/ship the thing being sold.
  • Periodically extract the received funds via Ripple, e.g. withdraw your balance in Ripple through a gateway into a bank account. Alternative, use the funds within Ripple.
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  • can u please provide an example code for ripple URI
    – user17010
    Jun 7, 2014 at 5:58
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From the description of ripple, I believe that an unusual system of payments for merchant's goods is possible, not quite like the ususal one in a fixed currency.

(So here I'll describe this interesting system, leaving the answer concerning organizing a traditional payment system for a customer to other people.)

What if the merchant's goods is the curency? Similar to bonus systems some merchants offer. Then the merchant should actually act as a gateway (shouldn't they?), and redeem real goods for their IOUs. And their IOUs can be traded by other people for other currencies, the price depending on how much the goods from this merchant are wanted, and how much they trust the merchant (that the merchant will keep the promise).

So, the merchant would initially sell their IOUs for other money, or give them out according to their wishes, and then these IOUs can be traded, and returned back to the merchant for the goods.

If the merchant constantly sells these IOUs, it shouldn't be a problem for someone to pay with other money, because he would be able to immediately buy the merchant's IOUs in ripple, and then redee, them for the goods.

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    The problem with this approach is that the trust process in Ripple is still quite 'scary'. So to ask your customers to trust you for XYZ 'Strange Coin (STR)' may prove difficult. The idea of Ripple seems to be that eventually banks would act as gateways and potentially automatically have you trust them for the amount of USD/EUR or whatever you have in your account. Think about it: your money is already in that bank so implicitly you are already trusting them with that amount. But would you put your money in 'Small Company Inc'?
    – Stijn de Witt
    Jun 6, 2014 at 19:12

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