Hello everybody,

I will be very thankful for any advice concerning the following.

I consider opening a web-store to sell stock images that I create.

The regular script for such task, make everything automated, including the payment gateway to paypal (or other secure ones)

I have a concern about other issue-

Naturally, all customer's details(names, e-mail addresses etc.) are kept within the website.

My true concern, although seems far-fetched, is that no matter how secure is the server or the script are, some skilled hacker can (theoretically) obtain the customer database(I am talking about the simple info, such as- names and e-mails, not payment or credit card details)

I am trying to find an affordable and wise solution to make it impossible (zero risk) to hack such customer's database, so I consider to open a gallery website only and not only that the payments will be directed to a 3rd party service, but also that there will be no data collecting at all within my own web-site system and everything will be done within other platform.

Such 3rd party service might be a digital goods marketplace, for example, so the payments and the downloads are done within their platform.

In such case, and please correct me if I am wrong, even if a skilled hacker will get into the system of my own website, he will only find the images shown on the website, but no customer's database(that is my best wish- to have nothing but images on the website so I am not risking any customer's detail, even not their names)

Another alternative is the online services that allow images sellers to open a web-store within their secured servers, but again, I do not know if there is a difference between this and opening my own store, as still- a customer's database is built and stored within the web-site's system ( something that always makes me afraid that it can be hacked)

My question-

Do you have any other, more simpler, solution to achieve the complete peace of mind concerning both customer's database as well as the payment issue(which is the obvious one of course)?

As I see it, the solution might be to have a gallery website only and to somehow make the operation work, without building any customer's database that can be hacked within my own web-store, and additionally, If I use a 3rd party service(digital goods marketplace)- to find a place where it is not only the secure servers that help preventing reaching the customer's database, but also some kind of wise thinking( maybe a 3rd party service that does not separate customers of different sellers, so if a hacker is able to somehow hack the system, he will not able to know which are my customers and which are of other images sellers)

I will be very thankful for any idea, advice or solution in order to simplify the above as possible(so it will also be affordable and good for the long run)

Thank you, in advanced, for the help.

illustrationist

Hello Poncke,

Thank you for the reply.

Yet, but what about the delivery of the images- I need to ask for an e-mail in order to send the images(and the e-mails filled are kept within the customer's database)

And also, it is good to have an history of purchases, who purchased what (it is also beneficial for keeping the terms of use between me and the customers), statistic etc', but my concern is how to achieve this with 0% risks, thus look for a creative solution.

If possible, please elaborate as to how to achieve this with paypal only? (as far as I know, I will not able to get customer's details, only general statistics)

Any suggestions?

Thank you for the effort.

Illustrationist.

Yet, but what about the delivery of the images- I need to ask for an e-mail in order to send the images(and the e-mails filled are kept within the customer's database)

And also, it is good to have an history of purchases, who purchased what (it is also beneficial for keeping the terms of use between me and the customers), statistic etc', but my concern is how to achieve this with 0% risks, thus look for a creative solution.

If possible, please elaborate as to how to achieve this with paypal only? (as far as I know, I will not able to get customer's details, only general statistics)

Yes, what you want is possible.

I am in the process of redesigning my own website, and I have integrated Paypal in a similar manner.
The site operates without database at all.

All orders are sent to Paypal Digital Goods interface (https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/digital-goods. After completion of the order Paypal calls back my site and gives me all information about the customer (no credit cards, obviously). You just take the email address and sent the download links to the customer, and you can use all other customer data to collect your statistics.

Why is my second comment minussed? Was it that bad?

No, it was good.  I think it's best to ignore the + and - as there's clueless people that will press those and it really means nothing.

Why is my second comment minussed? Was it that bad?

I don't know why, but it is easy to click accidentally...