User buying/selling framework

[Msmart]

I was wondering if anyone has ideas of how a site like this would work logistically.

Basically, similar to an auction site like ebay where people list items(in this case textbooks) and other users can purchase. Once the purchase is made, a certain percentage of the payment goes to the receiving user, and the rest goes to the site. I don't know what kind of checkout/processing system would allow something like this. I'm also not sure how the seller would receive the money. I'm new to the idea of ecommerce so I wanted to figure out if this would be possible before contacting a programmer.

[NZWebster]

I am not sure if you can split a payment between 2 providers during a transaction. If you want the money to go directly into the seller, you will need to integrate with their payment gateway (paypal, or directly with their banks gateway). This could become tricky to interface with all the different gateways the sellers might use.

Also if you cannot split the payment, you will need to rely on the seller to pay the commission to you. This creates overhead for credit management. You might want to run a prepay system?

An easier option would be for the website to receive the money and then pay each seller via direct credit. This means the website only needs to interface with 1 payment gateway - its own. Most banks can easily allow you to send them a file containing all the credits you want to be processed from your account overnight.