NYCPHP Meetup

[Scott Mattocks]

cliff wrote:
> Why would you need a third party? Security? Fault tolerance. Why not just 
> store gift certificate values & IDs in a table in the shopping cart? A 
> unique gift certificate row id can be easily turned into a hash. And InnoBD 
> can be used to ensure the integrity of balance transactions.

If you are already using a third party to process credit card payments 
it is easier to use their gift certificate interface than it is to 
create your own. Instead of creating new tables in the database, a new 
class to verify and process the codes, and a backend to manage the codes 
for the customer support team, you just add a check for the payment type 
and then call a different method.

Debugging is a breeze because you only have a few new lines, whereas 
with a home grown system you need to do some serious testing to make 
sure that your system is secure and functions properly. With someone 
else's service you might even be able to be up and running with a few 
days left for the last minute holiday shoppers.

Also, it probably won't cost near as much to use a provider that you are 
already working with. There will probably be no or little set up fee. Of 
course there will be a small fee per transaction but it will take a few 
years before those add up the development costs it will take to build 
your own system.

Scott