# Implementing Paymo or Boku Payment Gateway **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [August 25, 2009, 7:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/implementing-paymo-or-boku-payment-gateway/174364 "2009-08-25T19:11:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![elricstorm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/da6949/32.png) [@elricstorm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/elricstorm)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 7:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/implementing-paymo-or-boku-payment-gateway/174364/1 "2009-08-25T19:11:34Z")
Hi all, This is an intro thread to a project I’ll be working on in the next month or so. I spoke with Boku directly and they are finalizing new documentation now that all of their mobile payment systems will be under one roof. Therefore, the mobile payment plugin I’ll be working on will be usable under any mobile payment system that Boku owns, which includes Paymo. What is Boku or Paymo? It’s a mobile payment gateway which allows you to sell services/items to your users through their mobile phone. Each user simply enters in their mobile phone number at the checkout process and they receive a text message on their phone. When they bring up their text message and click yes, it processes the payment and Boku/Paymo sends the notification to your site informing you of the payment. Early Stages and Problems The early stages, after analyzing their API is that they make it a little more confusing than it has to be. I’ve been assured that the documentation and process might be changing over the next few weeks, mainly because they want to account for subscription based services. The other issue I see is the max point payment cost allowed for different countries. As an example, if you are in Canada, the max payment you can process over the phone is $20.00. In the US, all phone providers will allow $9.99 and only 70% of the phone providers will allow a payment to be processed in the amount of $19.97. So, if you have products or services that are over $20.00, you can see how implementing this type of payment process would be difficult to do. Points Top Off System What I will be trying to do is creating a PTOS based system where you can address the low based limits set by the phone carriers. So, if you have a product for instance that sold for $49.00, you would implement PTOS and the buyer would continue to purchase points on your site until they reached the $49.00 limit and the item could be purchased. Unfortunately, there’s no real way to get past this limitation until the phone carriers change their stances. BOKU will be implementing a subscription based service which could also be used with PTOS to help a buyer out with subscribing to a service. However, I’m still in the early thinking about how I want to go about implementing this. Encryption With a mobile payment system, handling encryption will not be as difficult as say Paypal/IPN transactions. I was assured of this by Boku and that the payment process is fluid and almost transparent. What I’m after I’m after an alternative payment gateway system that attracts more customers because some customers might not have credit cards or a paypal account. According to research studies, 60-80% more customers purchase an item on a site that houses mobile payment gateways than if the site didn’t have one implemented. Fees The downside of a mobile payment gateway is that there are a lot more costs involved with carrier service charges. Realistically, you are looking at a net profit margin of 50% of the normal fee. Therefore, if you are selling actual products, this system will not be good for you. If you sell virtual services, virtual items, etc. this system will be fine for you. Feedback I would like some initial feedback on this project, what you feel I should look into, what things you feel I should avoid, and what extra features you might want to see incorporated with it. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![elricstorm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/da6949/32.png) [@elricstorm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/elricstorm)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 7:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/implementing-paymo-or-boku-payment-gateway/174364/2 "2009-08-25T19:16:33Z")
Adding one additional note about products. There is a conversion gross/net setting that you can use to make it so that people using Boku/Paymo will pay higher rates in order for you to use the system with hard products. So, as an example, if after carrier fees the price of a widget was to be sold at $5.00, but the Carrier fees would make the net $2.65, the conversion process would systematically change the price to say $7.45 in order to account for the real amount you are after. On your site, you probably would have to account for this fluctuation by stating by applying the difference as a service fee for processing a mobile phone payment. This would allow you to use hard products with Boku/Paymo and I will try to account for this in the plugin. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![elricstorm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/da6949/32.png) [@elricstorm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/elricstorm)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 3:19am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/implementing-paymo-or-boku-payment-gateway/174364/3 "2009-08-26T03:19:17Z")
On Tue, 2009-08-25 at 19:11 +0200, Alpha B. wrote: > According to research studies, 60-80% more customers purchase > an item on a site that houses mobile payment gateways than if the site > didn’t have one implemented. Interesting stat. Mind sharing the citation(s)? Also, can I assume that when you say ‘customers’ you mean ‘customers who visited the site via mobile device’? Best regards, Bill ---
**Author:** ![elricstorm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/da6949/32.png) [@elricstorm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/elricstorm)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 6:36am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/implementing-paymo-or-boku-payment-gateway/174364/4 "2009-08-26T06:36:12Z")
bill walton wrote: > On Tue, 2009-08-25 at 19:11 +0200, Alpha B. wrote: > > > According to research studies, 60-80% more customers purchase > > an item on a site that houses mobile payment gateways than if the site > > didn’t have one implemented. > > Interesting stat. Mind sharing the citation(s)? Also, can I assume > that when you say ‘customers’ you mean ‘customers who visited the site > via mobile device’? > > Best regards, > Bill Hi Bill, It’s on either Paymo’s or Boku’s website. They’ve done the research and have the information there. I don’t have a direct link but I’m sure you’ll be able to find the data. I’m pretty sure it’s just visiting the site, not visiting via mobile phone. The idea behind the service is that the shopping experience is faster for the customer because one, they don’t have to enter any kind of information at all. They just enter their mobile phone number and click submit. Other payment systems you have to enter information in, or enter account info, etc. The reason why I will be implementing it is because there are times that customers won’t have credit cards and won’t have paypal accounts. Therefore, I want them to have the ability to easily purchase a virtual pass from my site. I hope that helps a little.