Been looking at the PayPal API documentation, there is so much to look it i thought i would ask here to get a more clear answer from someone that's done similar.
I'm looking to add a 'pay now' PayPal button to invoices that are generated by users within a web app for their customers. So a payment should never reach me at all. I understand that the button is probably the best option however it will need to be the encrypted button to be more secure.
I understand i need to use my PayPal account to be able to access the API and generate these encrypted buttons? it's literally just a matter of setting the item, cost and business parameters really, I don't want any transaction hitting my account.
What are my options? and is this even possible.
Thanks!
If you're familiar with web service API's skip the standard buttons altogether and just go with the Pay API.
That will allow users to easily pay by signing in to a PayPal or using a credit card (guest checkout). In most cases users would be authenticating the payment during checkout, but you could also tie in the ability for people to use Preapproval profiles so that future payments are automatic (or one-click, or whatever you want.) You use the Preapproval API to generate a preapproval key for the user, and then future Pay requests can include that key for immediate payment without further authentication.
If you're working with PHP my class library for PayPal will make this very simple for you.
Related
What's the difference between PayPal buttons and PayPal Express Checkout?
The second one seems more complicated than the first one to integrate in a web site. When I should consider to use Express Checkout rather than Buttons? What are the advantages?
PayPal Standard buttons are indeed quick and easy, but they are limited. One of the biggest issues with it is with regard to Guest Checkout, which allows non-PayPal account holders to pay with a credit card without creating an account.
With Standard buttons this is browser cookie based, so if anybody has ever signed in to a PayPal account using the browser in use, then the cookie will trigger and assume that the user will be logging in to PayPal. This causes the guest checkout option to be less prominent, and buyers often miss it, which results in lost sales.
Express Checkout uses the APIs which gives you more flexibility, including the ability to force the Guest Checkout experience if you want to regardless of any browser cookies. This can lead to increased conversion rates.
Another thing to consider is that with Standard buttons there is no guarantee the user will make it back to your site. Even if you have Auto-Return enabled in the PayPal account there is a delay, and the user could simply close their browser before they are sent back to your site. With Express Checkout the user has to return to your site before the process can be completed, so this gives you the ability to tie more post-transaction processing procedures into your checkout flow.
Adding PayPal buttons to your website eliminates the need to enter your shipping address. You only verify the purchase details and confirm by the user and it gets supplied by PayPal but in case of Express checkout customer still need to supply their shipping address .
Also in case of express checkout you make API call initially to PayPal and in turn PayPal gives you token id for the payment you are going to make and you use the token(which is unique for every payment) to subsequently authorize and capture the amount from PayPal account once the customer confirms the payment after logging into PayPal account.
I am making a system in which user permits pre-approval of amount. I've used pre-approval with chained payment. But the problem is that my customer gets redirected to PayPal site and also he/she must have a PayPal account or need to create one. So can i make pre-approval payment using PayPal website payment pro? So my customers will not get redirected to PayPal account. And the process becomes more fast? Note :- I don't want to use authorization and capture method. Thanks.
Edit
One more question :- If i make the website in the UK and the currency in GBP, can I still use the American Paypal account for this?
Auth and Capture is what you're asking for, but then you say you don't want it..?? That's what gives you the functionality you're after, though.
You could do a $0 auth and then run DoReferenceTransaction when you're ready to process the payment as opposed to capturing an actual auth if you want.
Those are your only options when working with Pro, though, and it would give you the same sort of preapproval experience for the buyer.
Here are the steps to accomplish what you're after.
Use DoDirectPayment to run a $0 Authorization (card verification). Users will enter their credit card details directly into a form on your site without any redirection to PayPal (and without any knowledge PayPal is being used at all unless you notify them some way.)
Save the transaction ID that you get form this card verification into your transaction history for the customer in your database. This ID is what will be used to process future payments using that credit card.
When you're ready to process a payment for this customer, pull the ID out of the database and use it with a DoReferenceTransaction request to process any amount you need to.
So the card verification is your preapproval, and then running reference transactions are the same as running Pay requests with a Preapproval key. Both methods accomplish the same thing, but one is with direct credit cards and the other is not.
If you're using PHP you can use this PayPal PHP SDK to make all of the API calls very quick and easy for you. If you're using some other language then there are SDKs available for those as well I'm sure.
Please correct me if i am wrong, #Andrew Angell #Ved Pandya
Auth and Capture or Capture payments later method allows you to do direct payment, but it comes with additional charges, which might not suitable for crowdfunding model as refund/ cancel payment is very frequent
Auth and Capture: You are required to pay $0.30 for each "Card Verification Transactions"
Capture payments later: You are required to pay $0.30 for each "Uncaptured Authorization" that you triggered
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees
I am building website which requires customer to update paypal account.
Is there anyway to check the reality of customer's account?
When my customer fill out their paypal account in my site, I want them to be directed to paypal login page to login and paypal will return the result.
Does paypal api support this situation?
Pretty much any implementation of PayPal you choose would follow the flow you mentioned.
Payments Standard would allow you to create basic buttons or create an HTML form and POST directly to PayPal to process. It would send the user to PayPal for login and approval to complete the payment. The transaction details would include the payer status (verified or unverified) as well as the address status (confirmed or unconfirmed) and lots of other details about the order.
Express Checkout is basically the API version of Standard, but it's much more advanced and open to integrate in the way that works best for your site or application. In this case, some of buyer/transaction data is available during the process within your app through API requests and responses, and then you can also get to it via transaction details after the fact just like payments standard provides.
Another option would be to use Adaptive Payments, but if you're doing a general payment of any kind you probably don't need that. That's what you would use if/when you start wanting to split payments among multiple receivers within the same transaction, setup preapproval profiles, etc.
If you happen to be working with PHP my class library for PayPal will make the API calls very simple for you.
You could do what PayPal itself does when you register. Send them a few cents and have them tell you how many when they get it. The payment itself will fail if the account doesn't exist, and telling you how many cents proves that they own the account.
Is there a way to use the paypal API to send basic details of a payment without actually creating the payment itself? What I mean is, I'm working with a non profit organization that does not currently employ SSL. They want to use paypal to accept donations, but they want their own branded form on their page, they don't want to use the simple donate button. I had thought I might be able to send basic details, such as name and address along with the amount they wish to donate and a few other details using the paypal API, and then have the actual payment information processed on paypal's secure servers. All the examples I can find on how to use their API however are creating complete payments and sending them to Paypal, something I'm not able to do for obvious reasons. Short of employing SSL, something that we should probably do anyways, and capturing a complete payment, is there a way of sending just select information over the API and handling the rest on paypal's end?
If you want to control the form itself you don't have any choice but to go SSL. Any other route would require sending the user to PayPal, where you would no longer have that control.
Is there any known way (an api or something of the sort) that I could use to create my own user checkout experience for Paypal?
So, for instance, the user clicks my donate button which takes them to my donate page. I collect the needed user information and pass it securely to paypal using some auth method without ever redirecting away form my site or using their "Customize your Payment Page" (which is entirely not customizable enough for me).
I've looked through their myriad of api's but haven't found anything useful yet.
Thanks!
This can be done using the Direct Payment API. In order to use it, though, you need to have a Payment Pro account with PayPal.
If you plan to implement it with FuelPHP, then there is a feature rich, driver based, package here.