Paypal Buttons

I’m building a soccer league registration site, and trying to use s2member to control access to certain pages. Here is the use case:

-The general public can become members for $30.
-Once someone is a member, they are eligible to join a league, or to purchase other things (such as tickets to group events.)

I’ve figured out how to restrict access to particular pages using s2member. What I want to do now is add PayPal buttons to those pages that are for arbitrary things (such as joining a league or buying tickets.) I tried following your instructions here: http://www.s2member.com/kb/using-paypal-created-buttons/

I put “1” as the Item ID and tested the button, and I expected that would restrict access to this purchase for level one members. However, the page on our site to which I returned after the purchase on paypal’s site indicated that I’d successfully registered, and that I needed to ‘click here to create a profile.’ This is problematic in two ways: 1) I don’t want this purchase to be for a membership; the return page should simply say ‘thank you for your purchase’. 2) I already had a membership and was logged in under that account, so I don’t see why I would have seen this response to begin with.

I can’t justify purchasing the s2member software to the board if I can’t satisfy this basic requirement. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Hi Bill.

The PayPal created button is only needed if you’ll use the button outside of your blog, since the s2Member shortcode would not be available in that case.

And the PayPal created button will only work for new registrations, since upgrades require the button to include the user’s ID, and that only happens with the shortcode when the user is logged into his account. That’s why you had that problem during the test.

If you want a registered user to purchase more access for his existing account, you need to use the shortcode for PayPal buttons and show it only to a logged in user. Video » s2Member (PayPal® Options/Buttons)

To sell the extra access, you may want to use custom capabilities. Video » s2Member (Custom Capabilities)

I hope that helps. :)

Thanks Cristian! I don’t want to sell extra access or upgrades. I want to sell things, but only to our members. A useful way to think about this problem is to imagine we’re the Toaster Shoppers Club (TSC), and TSC members are the only ones who are allowed to buy TSC toasters through the site. I.e., I need to be able to put PayPal buttons on the members-only pages that will allow my club members to buy toasters.

I looked at using custom capabilities, but there are (at least) two problems: 1) We’re not selling capabilities, we’re selling things. 2) If we created a capability for every thing we wanted to sell, the user table would get dramatically cluttered with capabilities that are for one-off items. (And I’m not certain what the upper limits are on the size of that field’s contents.)

What do you think? Is it possible for us to do this in s2member?

Hi Bill,

The only feature currently available in s2Member that would work for your scenario are the Custom Capabilities that Cristian mentioned. In fact, we even created the Capability Buy Now forms/buttons (see Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Capability (Buy Now) Forms and Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Buttons -› Capability (Buy Now) Buttons) for this very purpose: to sell additional stuff on a one-time basis to existing members.

If you don’t need to track what you’re selling to the member (for example, if that’s handled elsewhere or even offline), then you could always create regular PayPal-hosted buttons, totally unconnected to s2Member, and then show those on member-only pages. The member could make those one-time purchases and nothing would get added to the user’s account.

Thanks Raam! Two quick follow-up questions:

1) The Pro Forms are only accessible to paid subscribers, correct?

2) I tried creating a ‘regular’ paypal-hosted button before, but after the transaction when I was returned to the Web site, I got an error message from s2Member. Did I do something wrong?

Hello Bill,

1) The Pro Forms are only accessible to paid subscribers, correct?

Yes, you need the pro version of s2Member in order to use pro-forms. But it’s not a subscription, it’s a one-time deal. :)

2) I tried creating a ‘regular’ paypal-hosted button before, but after the transaction when I was returned to the Web site, I got an error message from s2Member. Did I do something wrong?

When you say PayPal hosted you mean that you generated it over at PayPal? If so you need to follow these instructions in order for those buttons to work correctly with s2Member: Knowledge Base » Using PayPal created buttons

Also, we can’t be sure what the problem is if you do not provide us with the error that you got. :)

– Eduan