We have good news for PayPal users. We introduce one PayPal addon with a direct link to PayPal. This means that PayPal payments no longer have to go through another payment provider.
Payment providers
Most of the payment providers we support also offer the PayPal payment method. As soon as a PayPal payment is started with these payment providers, they pass this on to PayPal. The visitor is then redirected to the PayPal environment to pay. PayPal then informs the payment provider about the status of the payment. And the payment provider in turn informs the WordPress website about the status of the payment. In that case, the payment provider mainly functions as a conduit. This can have the advantage that you have all transactions (iDEAL, credit card, PayPal, etc.) clearly arranged in the dashboard of your payment provider. A disadvantage is that many payment providers also charge a fee for every successful PayPal payment.
Requirements
An advantage of a direct link with PayPal is that you are not dependent on a second payment provider. For example, if you cannot meet the conditions of a Dutch payment provider, you may still be able to contact PayPal. Many Dutch payment providers require a Chamber of Commerce number and a business bank account. In addition, they often also have a list of products and services for which they do and do not make payments. It is quite possible that PayPal is more flexible with this because of their purchase protection policy. On the prohibited activities page of PayPal can read more about what is not allowed.
WordPress plugins
Almost all WordPress plugins that we support also have their own direct link to PayPal. Many WordPress admins use the PayPal link that comes standard with a WordPress plugin. At Pronamic.eu we have also used the Easy Digital Downloads PayPal link for years. This PayPal link from Easy Digital Downloads works great, but it also had some drawbacks. For example, in our case, the PayPal payments could not be found in the WordPress admin dashboard under the Pronamic Pay payments. Which in turn meant that the PayPal payments were not included in the e-commerce tracking functionality of the Pronamic Pay plugin. That made us decide to develop the Pronamic Pay PayPal add-on.
WordPress admin panel
If you use the Pronamic Pay PayPal add-on, this has the advantage that all PayPal payments are listed in the WordPress admin dashboard under “Payments → Payments”. For example, we use for iDEAL payments Mollie and for PayPal payments a direct link to PayPal. Thanks to this add-on, the transactions of these different payment providers are now neatly grouped together. The PayPal transaction number is provided with a direct link to the PayPal transaction details page. This is very useful if you want to consult the details of the transaction with PayPal. In addition, PayPal payments are now included in the reports.
IPN and the REST API
As a PayPal user, you may have come across the term IPN. This abbreviation stands for iinstant Payment Notification, also known as 'direct payment messages' in Dutch. IPN is a PayPal technique that ensures that your WordPress website immediately receives a signal as soon as, for example, the PayPal payment has been successfully completed. Many WordPress plugins still use fairly old techniques to handle these alerts. The WordPress REST API is used within the Pronamic Pay. As soon as you activate the Pronamic Pay PayPal add-on, the REST API of your WordPress website will be expanded with a /wp-json/pronamic-pay/paypal/v1 endpoint. For every PayPal payments we initiate, we issue the /wp-json/pronamic-pay/paypal/v1/ipn-listener notification URL by. PayPal will send notifications to this URL for all events related to the PayPal payments. These PayPal payment messages are stored with the Pronamic Pay payments. In case of a status change message, the status of the payment will be automatically updated.
Google Analytics ecommerce tracking
A unique functionality of the Pronamic Pay plugin is that it is equipped with Google Analytics e-commerce tracking. As soon as a payment is successful, the Pronamic Pay plugin can send a signal to Google Analytics that a transaction has been completed. The PayPal payments initiated with the PayPal add-on are also tracked automatically.
Update or purchase
With a valid license for Pronamic Pay you can download the PayPal add-on from your account page.
