Sign up first, then go to PayPal

Turns out that PayPal Advanced (the $5 per month upgrade) is not available to Canadians, nor can my client afford Website Payments Pro at $35 per month, so our plan to have a one-stop register/pay design flow isn’t going to work.

However, I thought I read somewhere that Pro Forms can be used with PayPal Standard (with a slight modification that looks simple), which suggests to me that we could at least have people register first and then be taken to PayPal (reversing the default method in S2). Need to confirm this before buying the Pro licence…

Thanks!

Hi,

here is what I found in the faq:

>>> http://www.s2member.com/faqs/#s2-faqs-paypal-pro-not-required

Hope this helps. ;)

According to that FAQ piece, though:

Using s2Member® Pro, does NOT mean that you must use PayPal® Pro integration. Just don’t generate any PayPal® Pro Form Shortcodes. Instead, you could use Standard PayPal® Buttons

Which suggests that without PayPal Pro I cannot use the Forms in s2Member Pro – only a PayPal button (we’re not concerned with any other payment gateway)…

So we’d be stuck with doing PayPal first and then coming back to do registration in s2Member.

There’s no way to use the s2Member Pro Forms (without PayPal Pro) and THEN send people to PayPal Standard…??

Read a bit further. Isn’t this an option/possibility for you?

Although not ideal, it’s also possible to integrate s2Member® Pro Forms with only PayPal® Express Checkout (no PayPal® Pro account required). If you are unable to obtain a PayPal® Pro account, and you’re unable to obtain an Authorize.Net® account, you can still use s2Member® Pro Forms with the free version of PayPal®, by following these instructions:

Ask PayPal® to activate Express Checkout for you (which is free, and usually enabled by default). PayPal® Express Checkout will give you API Credentials, and you’ll enter these into your WordPress® Dashboard, under: s2Member® -> PayPal Options.
In your s2Member® Pro Form Shortcode for WordPress®, change this: accept_via_paypal=”paypal” to: accept_via_paypal=”paypal,visa,mastercard,amex,discover,maestro,solo”. This way all customers are ultimately passed over to PayPal® Express Checkout to complete their purchase. You won’t have the ability to process on-site credit cards if you only have PayPal® Express Checkout, but for some site owners that’s not an issue.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by  keyhanjun.

Sorry, I’ve never used Express Checkout – my impression was that it ONLY accepts PayPal accounts, with no Credit Card link. But as I reread the details of your FAQ, is the adding of the credit card names here:

accept_via_paypal=”paypal,visa,mastercard,amex,discover,maestro,solo”

enough to trigger PayPal’s Express Checkout to display the “use Credit Card instead” link??

EDIT: Oh wait, according to this further down:

It is NOT possible for a Customer to go through PayPal® Express Checkout without having and/or acquiring a PayPal® account, regardless of the transaction type (i.e. Buy Now functionality is no exception to this rule).

Even if a link to pay by credit card is generated with Express Checkout (and it’s not clear it is),
we don’t want to force members to have a PayPal account.

So using s2Member Pro Forms to send Credit Card paying members over to PayPal is not practical for us… shame.

Hi George,

I apologize for the lack of clarity in the FAQs on this topic. The following quote is actually incorrect:

In your s2Member® Pro Form Shortcode for WordPress®, change this: accept_via_paypal=”paypal” to: accept_via_paypal=”paypal,visa,mastercard,amex,discover,maestro,solo”.

It should read,

In your s2Member® Pro Form Shortcode for WordPress®, change this: accept_via_paypal=”paypal,visa,mastercard,amex,discover,maestro,solo” to: accept_via_paypal=”paypal”.

Without PayPal Pro, you cannot accept credit cards on-site. However, you can still utilize the Pro-Forms by setting accept_via_paypal=”paypal” in the shortcode attributes. The Pro-Form will simply show a PayPal Checkout button, which then sends the user to PayPal to complete their payment.

Does that clarify things?

Thanks for that Raam!

Now to just clarify a bit more:

which then sends the user to PayPal to complete their payment.

When the user gets to PayPal, do they HAVE to have a PayPal account or will it be the usual “Use your PayPal account or Click here to use Credit Cards” (not CC on our site, but on PayPal’s).

We don’t want members to have to have a PayPal account, and from what I understand of Express Checkout – you MUST be a PayPal member…

Sorry, I’ve never used Express Checkout – my impression was that it ONLY accepts PayPal accounts, with no Credit Card link.

Right, Express Checkout will require your customers to login to a PayPal account to pay. The PayPal account may have funds or be tied to a credit card or bank account for funds.

This is not different from PayPal buttons for subscriptions, because they require the person to have a PP account, but it is different for buy-now transactions, since PP Standard lets him pay without a PP account, but Express checkout will still require it.