How to configure PayPal with WooCommerce – .com

In this tutorial we see how to configure WooCommerce with PayPal, to accept this payment gateway for one-time or recurring payments.

PayPal as payment gateway

PayPal is currently the leading payment gateway, since it makes payment much easier for its users, who can pay with a simple username and password, without needing to have cards or coordinates on hand.

If you want to know more pros and cons, I recommend episode 556 of my podcast, in which I interview .

At the moment the PayPal commissions are the following:

As we can see, they have a scaling system that starts from the 3.4% plus a fixed of 35 cents, if you invoice less than €2,500 per month. From there, we go to the section of €2,500 a €10,000which goes down to 2.9%+0.35€and so on until reaching the 1.9%+0.35€if you invoice more than €100,000 monthly.

It is important to understand that these fees apply the month after to which these figures have been reached. And the figures for that month will be those that will be taken into account for the next.

Another important point to note is that PayPal does not issue invoices of their commissions, that is, it is a bit cumbersome at the accounting level to do the numbers. Basically we have to make a list of everything that we have been charged, and pass it on as an expense. But we don’t have any official documents from him.

Set up PayPal using the wizard

The first way to configure PayPal is through the , which is a novelty that we have since version 2.4.5. This makes it very easy for us, because we only have to indicate our email address and nothing else:

As you can see, it doesn’t have any difficulty, it’s just putting the mail and that’s it, we’ll have everything ready. No extension or plugin is needed, as WooCommerce already accepts this factory payment gateway.

See also  29. Paper therapy with Charuca

So, just by indicating our email we already have it! We can now charge with PayPal. We can configure the rest of the gateways at this point or do it later.

Set up PayPal manually

In the event that we had skipped the wizard, or that we had installed an old version of WooCommerce a long time ago, we can always do it from the WordPress control panel, in “WooCommerce/Settings/Complete Purchase/PayPal”.

Despite having many fields on that page, the only ones required are the following:

As we can see, we only have to indicate:

  • Title: The name of the payment method that will appear on the order page.
  • Description: The description that will appear when someone selects that payment method from the list.
  • PayPal email: Our PayPal email, in which the amount of the sales will be entered.

The rest of the fields are optionalyou can skip them. But now, let’s review them. The two options below are for developers:

  • The PayPal sandbox it is to check if the gateway is configured correctly, but testing without real money, in a sandbox account.
  • The debug log It is a file that will remain in our hosting with the possible errors or logs of each operation, in case an error occurs, see what it is.

Then we have the advanced options, which we can use to further customize the user experience, or necessary for some special cases:

  • Recipient Email: In the case that it is not the same as that of our PayPal account.
  • PayPal Identity Token: In the event that we do not use IPN notifications, indicate here the token that we can find in our PayPal account.
  • Invoice prefix: Easy and simple, add a prefix before the number of the invoices/tickets issued by PayPal.
  • Shipment details: To send PayPal the shipping information, instead of the billing information. It refers to those that the user has filled out on the order page.
  • Override address: So that the shipping address cannot be modified in PayPal.
  • Payment method: Always leave it in “Capture” so that it is charged instantly, and choose “Authorization” to approve the payment but not yet. This is usually done in the case of crowdfunding.
  • Page style: In the case that you have made a special payment page in PayPal, with your logo and colors, you can indicate it here.
See also  Share on social networks from WordPress - .com

And finally we have the three options of the API credentials: User, password and signature:

This is for using the PayPal API and doing advanced things, such as managing refunds or other operations without having to go into PayPal. Again, this is advanced, I don’t recommend you touch it.

In any case, we already have everything ready… Or almost. It is true that in the WordPress part everything is perfect. But should we do something at PayPal? Well no but yes.

Setting the IPN

So, are we there or not yet? It is true that only by indicating the email we can receive payments, but it is highly advisable to take the next step, so that PayPal notify our website when someone makes a payment.

This is very important, because if we do not do so, the orders will not be completed. Especially if we are going to have recurring payments or .

We have to think that until now our website has sent information to PayPal, but now it must be PayPal that sends us information saying if the payment has been made or if there has been an error.

To do this, we must go to our PayPal profile, then “Sale Options”, and then “Instant Payment Notifications”. Here you see it:

Once there, you must Activate the IPN and indicate the notification URL:

The URL changes depending on each plugin, but in the case of WooCommerce, it is the following:

  • http://your-domain-here.com/?wc-api=WC_Gateway_Paypal

This is very important as it will set the order status as pending, completed or rejected in WooCommerce.

See also  Predefined carts in WooCommerce - .com

If we have not done it, it may be that we have an order paid without knowing it, and without it appearing as completed. The only case in which we can skip that is if we work with tokens, as we have seen before.

And now yes, we already have everything done! We can now charge by PayPal 🙂

Summary and conclusion

PayPal is the leading payment platform, due to its convenience for the user. Your commission starts at 3.4% + €0.35.

To configure it, the only essential information is the email, but we have some extras to customize the user experience.

Finally, for PayPal to notify our website that the payment has been made, we must configure the so-called IPN, which will make the order complete.

If you want to know more, take a look at , and at . In addition, you will also have access to more than 6044 video tutorials guided step by step, in real time. 🙂

Loading Facebook Comments ...
Loading Disqus Comments ...