PayPal Pro - your thoughts

ettera,

You can use PayPal to handle recurring billing with credit cards.

The point I tried to make is related to the checkout experience. Traditionally PayPal has required a person to have an account with PayPal to checkout. If you were checking out with PayPal for the first time you had to go through the hassle of setting up a PayPal account.

Just recently PayPal began allowing customers to checkout with PayPal without requiring them to have a PayPal account. The twist to this is that it is only for regular purchases, not recurring purchases.

If you do not have any products that are recurring, you can use the "paypal" plug-in. You will also have to make one configuration setting on your PayPal account. Then your customers can checkout with PayPal with out having a PayPal account.

If you have any recurring products you will have to use the "paypal_r" plug-in. When you use this plugging, all customers will have to have a PayPal account to checkout.

You can read an entire thread about this issue here:

http://www.amember.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2611

If you want to learn a lot about payment processing I would recommend you spend some time in the "Payment Processing" forum. Remember to change the setting at the bottom of the page to look at more than the last month's worth of postings.

Good Luck!

I think Pay Pal Pro will still be very popular for lots of applications. I think you should still complete the plug-in for it.

I just can't believe this is even being debated... the only problem is that it doesn't support recurring payments? Wow...

I would like this feature. Besides the recurring transactions and the fact that only certain countries are eligible, Paypal Pro seems like a really good deal. Paypal Pro includes virtual terminal, which allows you to accept phone, fax, and mail orders. I'm in no hurry though.

Alex,

Any update. I would like to get this implemented on our site.

Thanks,

John

Alex,

I would still be interested--actually the PayPal Website Payments Pro would be the best system for me because I don't take recurring payments. I hope you will still pursue this. I always have customers complaining that they have trouble with the traditional PayPal when they have used it (or someone in their family did) at some point in the past but then would just like to use a credit card without messing with the PayPal extra stuff. That's who I'm seeking to please. Anything that puts a potential customer off can be a lost sale.

Thanks,
Steve

Alex,

Any update?

Me too

I am also interested in Pay Pal Payments Pro. Can't wait to set it up. Peronsally, I think Paypal pro is going to end up dominating online payment processing. The fees are excellent.

BTW - for those that are curious -- the discussion surrounding "WHY" Paypal created this new "pro" or plus payments system tend to stem around Paypal's desire to convert many of their merchants from paypal's "third-party" account to that of a "private" merchant account. Doing so will ease restrictions on paypal and allow for less problems against paypal's main account.

It is an interesting theory when you consider the difficulties involved with visa and mastercard ...

Just fyi ...

Alex,

Any update????

Damn you! Someone beta pronto so I can renew my support subscription

Today

I am testing it today. I had some trouble sigining up for the paypal pro service, but they just approved me. I will post my results.

Alex, are you saying SSL is absolutely required?

Also, how do I tell on my hosted web service if I have "curl" PHP extension compiled-in with SSL support?

Thanks,

GigaEnvy

I spoke to soon... Now I'm waiting for an approval for an API certificate from PayPal...

To reply to Gigaenvy:

how do I tell on my hosted web service if I have "curl" PHP extension compiled-in with SSL support?

If you have amember, Go under amembmer/admin click on "Version Info" under Utilities.

Otherwise you'll have to create a file in your text editor called info.php with the following:

<?php

phpinfo();

?>

Upload the file to your server and then open it in a web browser. If you're lucky either under Version Info or with the file you just created, you'll find an entry that looks something like this:

CURL support enabled
CURL Information libcurl/7.10.6 OpenSSL/0.9.7a ipv6 zlib/1.1.4

I just completed a flawless real world money test of PayPal Pro using amember. So far, so good. I will be trying a few more tests later today with various credit cards.

Are you using 2.3.6 pro or 2.3.7 pro?