Ask HN: Payment handler for "directory" type site (multiple recipients)

[da288]

Hi,

I'm toying with an idea which involves your standard "directory" type commerce site where you aggregate sellers (e.g. different restaurants) and let them receive their own payments off of the "food" they'd sell on the site. (I know this has been done to death, it's just for illustrative purposes). Is there any service that lets you implement this kind of payments system (i.e. let new sellers register and receive payments straight to their account) or would I have to handle the payments centrally and redistribute to end recipients myself? Any heads up much appreciated. Thanks.

[callmeed]

Talk to BrainTree about becoming a "3rd party payment aggregator" (that's the official term for accepting payments and then distributing them). You can get a merchant account that permits this, although the requirements are a little stricter and some money may be held in escrow.

We do this at nextproof.com. We take payments and then transfer $ to the business via ACH once their balance exceeds $50.

[byoung2]

http://aws.amazon.com/fps/

Facilitate transactions between a buyer and a third party seller, take a cut of the transaction, and have control over who pays the transaction processing fees

[da288]

Thanks, Amazon FPS seems to be exactly what I want, but I don't think it has UK merchant support. I am hesitant about the whole "escrow" system because that can introduce a lot of complications and does not scale easily.

[ig1]

PayPal is the defacto standard for what you want.