PayPal DOnate Button: Hidden note - paypal

I have paypal donate button and I wanna send hidden note with it.
How can I add it?
Thanks

PayPal has documentation on advanced donate buttons.
Step 5. could be for you:
Add advanced variables to the HTML
code of your payment button
(optional).
If you are familiar with the HTML
programming and the advanced HTML
variables supported by Website
Payments Standard payment buttons, you
can enter them here. Select the
checkbox, and then enter the variables
in the text box that appears below it.
Enter any advanced HTML variables in
the following, name/value-pair format:
variableName=allowableValue
On a side note, connecting your Forum's user ID with the real name you get from a PayPal donation could be a privacy issue, even a legal problem in some jurisdictions. I'm quite sure it would be one here in Germany, even though the users who donate to you will probably not mind you knowing who they are.

Related

PayPal Pay Now Button - Email Link

I have browsed this forum and been through the PayPal documentation but I am confused. I know what I need but cannot work-out how to specify it for my coder.
We have a .Net application that runs on our internal network. We use this application to create customer quotations. These quotations are emailed to our customers. I simply want the application to be create a link that I can send to the customer such then when it is opened it takes them straight into Paypal and allows then to make a payment for the quotation. Or maybe the link is embedded into the body of the quotation that I send. Either would be fine.
I know of programs that do this (Sage Line50 does it with Sagepay rather than PayPal) but I cannot get my head around the process. Most of my research is talking about taking payments from an external website but trawling through the PayPal documentation it looks like it should be possible. But I cannot figure out whether I need Smart Buttons or PayPal Me. The key thing is that I don't want to force customers to have a PayPal account so guest access must be an option.
Smart Payment Buttons would be ideal, and offer the best payment experience to your customers. However, they require your own server on which to host some HTML/JS for them. They do not offer a link that can take the customer directly from an email to a PayPal checkout.
I recommend using Smart Payment Buttons, if you are able to host one. The flow is:
Email -> page on your server with Smart Button -> PayPal payment.
The key thing is that I dont want to force customers to have a PayPal account so guest access must be an option.
PayPal.me does not meet that requirement
If your requirement is truly a link that proceeds directly:
Email -> PayPal.com checkout for payment (no webserver of yours) ... well, there two solutions for this.
One is to use PayPal invoicing, which can be emailed directly by PayPal, or can be a link which you share yourself (via your own email). A PayPal invoice can be created manually via: https://www.paypal.com/invoice/create . Or programmatically via the invoicing API (see developer.paypal.com)
The second way, which may work fine but is a very old web 1.0 way of doing things, is to start by going to http://www.paypal.com/buttons and create a Buy Now button for an item named "Placeholder", amount "777.88". Expand the section "Step 2", and uncheck the option to Save the button at PayPal. Do not change any of the customization options, particularly ones that add menus or input fields.
Once you have generated the code, click the option above it to remove code protection, and then switch to the E-mail tab.
This will give you a plain HTML link with a description and amount that can be set dynamically by your developer when sending your own email. Additional useful variables, such as invoice (for an invoice number that is unique for what is being paid for, and can't be accidentally paid twice) are documented here.
Again, Smart Payment Buttons should be preferred if you have a web server to act as an intermediary. Here is a skeleton demo of the experience.

How to make PayPal recurring donation button for OTHER nonprofits

I would like to include PayPal recurring donation buttons on my website so that users can donate to other nonprofits/charities of my choosing. My website would include many of these buttons, and all money would be sent directly to these charities. How would I go about this? As far as I know, one can only create donate/subscription buttons where the money goes to the creator of the button. Thanks!
When you create the button make sure to uncheck the option to save the button at PayPal, which would bind it to that account.
When you do that the HTML code provided will include a "business" parameter that would be the email address of the account the profile should be created with and the money should drop in to.
Another option would be using the Express Checkout API, with which you can specify the account the money should go to with the SELLERPAYPALACCOUNTID parameter.

Paypal: How do I create a Donate Now button with variable amounts

I want to create a Donate Now button that has variable amounts similar to what Paypal uses on its Giving site.
How is this accomplished? I tried using the button builders to no avail. I'd really like to be able to implement this client side.
PayPal's giving website uses Express Checkout solution to allow user enter the amount to be charged on the client website.
It's just that the button to initiate is pictured as "Donation button".
For more information on Express Checkout implementation: https://developer.paypal.com/webapps/developer/docs/classic/express-checkout/integration-guide/ECGettingStarted/

Edit Paypal's Return to Merchant link

I'm using Woocommerce with PayPal Standard as my shopping cart on a WordPress site. When a user purchases through PayPal, there is a 'Return to Merchant' link that the user has to click in order to get back to my website. It currently has my PayPal email address as the link, which is very confusing, as a user wouldn't think to click "Return to [email address]" in order to get back to a website. How can I make that link text the 'name of my website' instead of my email address?
I have "Auto Return" turned on with a web page specified in my PayPal Website Payment Preferences. However, it doesn't seem to auto return, leaving me with this merchant return link that isn't intuitive to click. I'm using the Sandbox to test the payment process...don't know if that makes a difference to this problem.
I'm assuming that the settings to change this link text are in PayPal and not in WooCommerce (couldn't find anything at all like that in my WooCommerce settings). If it is a WooCommerce issue, I will post on the appropriate forum. Thought I'd try PayPal first. Thanks.
Unfortunately there is no setting to alter the return link on the hosted page.
One of the limitations of the auto return feature is that if both the "auto return" and "account optional" features are turned on, customers who don't log in to PayPal can choose to go back to your website after checkout (using the link), but aren’t returned automatically.
You can navigate to either of these features on the "Website Preferences" page and click "Learn More" to confirm this.
In sandbox mode it seams to display your email address. Turning off sandbox mode you should see your business name now.

Inconsistent checkout screens for Paypal express checkout

We're developing an application that uses Paypal Express Checkout, and we're finding that we get two different landing pages. We're actually finding a problem that seems superficially similar to Can you force PayPal Payments Standard API to show credit card fields first?, but with a few differences:
Everything is fine with the sandbox, and we get exactly the appearance (credit card first) we want.
On the live site, about 50% of the time we get exactly the appearance (credit card first) we want.
Sometimes, we get a more "mobile-like" landing page, with the credit card stuff totally hidden in a "Check out as a guest" button, as shown.
This feels like a failing A/B test to me. We're sending exactly the variables in the question linked above, and as I said, all works fine with the older landing pages. I know there are also cookie issues, but in this case, we're seeing it even when Paypal is not able to identify an account and when cookies are cleared.
Does anybody know if there is anything we can do to work around this?
I can add code if needed, but the problem appears to be more data than logic.
I had the same question after I started to see users coming in from the 'new style' page.
I found the answer here:
Paypal express "order summary" page
I added the "force_sa=true" parameter to my Paypal URL:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_express-checkout&force_sa=true&token=…
The new page is definitely weighted to appear more often on mobile devices. Without the parameter I get the new style page on a iPad after about 5 refreshes, with the parameter I can refresh as much as I like and never see the new page.
Obviously, PayPal will roll out the new page to everyone in the end, but this technique allows us a stop gap while we get ready for it ;-)
The screen pictured is PayPal's new checkout. It is only partially deployed at this point, you can think of it as A/B testing.
Regarding whether the customer sees "credit cards first", this mostly depends on whether they have a PayPal email stored in their browser cookie. If they do, the top "Log in to PayPal" section will be expanded, the email filled out, and they just need to type in their password and do about 3 clicks to complete the checkout..
If they do not have a PayPal email stored in their cookies, the bottom Create an Account or Pay as Guest section will be expanded. (If you want guest checkout, pass SOLUTIONTYPE=Sole in your initial SetExpressCheckout request).
The customer can always switch between the two expanded sections, it's just a "smart default" of sorts.
Try doing all your "credit cards first" testing in an incognito / private browsing window.