How to accept small payments? Paypal?

[mickie]

I set up a Paypal account and it is working fine in GeoClass Basic to collect payments for ad upgrades.

However, These upgrades are generally $.50 and Paypal charges $.30 or so PER TRANSACTION.

Is there any payment service out there specifically for small value transactions?

Mickie

[geomodules]

I set up a Paypal account and it is working fine in GeoClass Basic to collect payments for ad upgrades.

However, These upgrades are generally $.50 and Paypal charges $.30 or so PER TRANSACTION.

Is there any payment service out there specifically for small value transactions?

Mickie

The Enterprise product does what is called Micro payments. Check the docs on micropayments

[mickie]

I searched the Interactive manuals on the geo website for "micropayments" and "micro payments" and got nothing.

Clue?

[geomodules]

I searched the Interactive manuals on the geo website for "micropayments" and "micro payments" and got nothing.

Clue?

have a look at the image I uploaded. I took a screen shot for you.

[Matt]

The Paypal Micropayments functionality is new as of version 4, and is available for all levels of the software. In the Admin, go to Payments > Payment Gateways > Paypal > Configure to get to the screen geomodules linked above.

[pitzerwm]

You need to set this account set up at PayPal also. Unless, you are taking really small payments, turns out that the fees are just as bad as for regular payments. The other issue is that the micro fees will be appllied to all of your payments. Appears to me that you have an account for micro payments and another for payments over $12.

[jonyo]

You need to set this account set up at PayPal also. Unless, you are taking really small payments, turns out that the fees are just as bad as for regular payments. The other issue is that the micro fees will be appllied to all of your payments. Appears to me that you have an account for micro payments and another for payments over $12.

Yup, that is how Paypal micro payments work, it is worth it to use for payments under $12 but it is cheaper to use a "normal" account for payments over the $12 thresh-hold, which is why the software has a mechanism in place to use one paypal account for payments above $12 and another for payments under that amount. You can find more info in the user manual (http://geodesicsolutions.com/support/wiki/admin_menu/payments/payment_gateways/paypal/start), which links to this help page on paypal (https://www.paypal.com/IntegrationCenter/ic_micropayments.html).

Also look at the date on the last reply to the thread, surely the original poster has things figured out by now...

;)

[Lotta1]

I think though now paypal only allows you one account and you must choose either micro or not for that account. frying pan or fire. does anyone have recent proof you can get 2 accounts? Scratch this last "2 accounts" question. I decided to try it inspite of what I'd been told.

They did let me create it & I've applied to switch it to micro payments (an extra step you have to do). what they DIDN'T let me do was use the same bank account to become verified. They took it during the create process, but won't let me become verified with it once I created the account. I will have to see if adding a savings account will do the trick, later this week. Will

[jonyo]

Just to clarify, the page I linked to before, this one (https://www.paypal.com/IntegrationCenter/ic_micropayments.html), instructs you to maintain two seperate accounts. One for macro payments, and one for micro. That is on paypal.com so it's official, just so you know it is recommended by paypal to do it this way. If you haven't had a chance to read that page on paypal I would highly recommend to take a few minutes to read it over.

[Lotta1]

correct. your link is why I decided to go for it. previously someone at PP had told me I could have one account & had to choose whether it was micro or not. A search on paypal does not offer a link to <your link> only to the sign up page after at Paypal labs. So if you didn't know opening a new account was recommended....

[rmoss]

How exactly would the micropayment system work for non $ transactions, ie for £ GBP ? would it still use $12 as the micropayment threshold or would it convert the $12 to GBP (about £7).

[jonyo]

How exactly would the micropayment system work for non $ transactions, ie for £ GBP ? would it still use $12 as the micropayment threshold or would it convert the $12 to GBP (about £7).
You would need to adjust the for transactions less than (http://geodesicsolutions.com/support/wiki/admin_menu/payments/payment_gateways/paypal/start#for_transactions_less_than) setting to be the equivelent of $12USD for your site currency, it does not do the conversion for you.

[garryskaggs]

Go to PayPal and do a search on Micropayments I just set mine up. The page won't work with Google Chrome so make sure your using IE or FireFox

[rmoss]

I've set the transaction less than field to £7 which is about the right currency conversion for $12, but regardless of that the transactions im trying to test are only 0.10p which is way below the transaction limit for micropayments.

I've checked through the debug log and it does appear to be passing on the correct information to PayPal but something is going wrong somewhere, if you'd like a copy of that log I'd be happy to supply it.

Its not just that micro payment issue though, the logo and title are not being passed over even though they do appear in the logfile.

[jonyo]

I've set the transaction less than field to £7 which is about the right currency conversion for $12, but regardless of that the transactions im trying to test are only 0.10p which is way below the transaction limit for micropayments.

I've checked through the debug log and it does appear to be passing on the correct information to PayPal but something is going wrong somewhere, if you'd like a copy of that log I'd be happy to supply it.

Its not just that micro payment issue though, the logo and title are not being passed over even though they do appear in the logfile.

It sounds like when you get to paypal you are still in process of making a payment for a previous transaction or something. All the software can do is send the information to Paypal, once you are at paypal it is out of the software's hands. We've gotten reports like this in the past, so far not sure what was causing Paypal to not listen to what was sent to it but I suspect it was because it was still finishing a previous transaction or something like that.

[rmoss]

I've had a play around with it now, turns out paypal were receiving the correct information so macro and micro payments were working correctly, the issue arrises from the business name which seems to pull the primary paypal email address from the database regardless.

Line 485 in the paypal.php file currently reads as

$paypal_url .= "&business=".urlencode($gateway->get("paypal_id"));

By changing it to the code below, I get the correct email shown on transactions for business name, although this should be the sites Domain name and/or logo anyway.

$paypal_url .= "&business=".urlencode($paypal_id);

Company logo's are not showing either, the jpg file is present and an absolute https URL supplied but paypal wont display it, it is sent to them via paypal.php though.

[jonyo]

I've had a play around with it now, turns out paypal were receiving the correct information so macro and micro payments were working correctly, the issue arrises from the business name which seems to pull the primary paypal email address from the database regardless.

Line 485 in the paypal.php file currently reads as

$paypal_url .= "&business=".urlencode($gateway->get("paypal_id"));

By changing it to the code below, I get the correct email shown on transactions for business name, although this should be the sites Domain name and/or logo anyway.

$paypal_url .= "&business=".urlencode($paypal_id);

Company logo's are not showing either, the jpg file is present and an absolute https URL supplied but paypal wont display it, it is sent to them via paypal.php though.

Thanks for reporting what you found with Paypal using business as e-mail used instead of receiver email (like it should use), I'll make the change needed for the next release 5.0.3. For the header image, make sure the URL is using SSL (so that it starts with https://). Also one site I found via Google says that there is a limit of 750px X 90px.

edit: Upon further reflection on the business name, that is what appears at the top of the page, so since it uses the main paypal ID it appears the payment is going to that instead of to the micro payments e-mail. But I believe if they go through with the payment, it actually posts to the correct e-mail address. In the next release we'll make it use micro payment e-mail if that is what is used for the payment, so there is no confusion.

Also, for the header image, it might be that since the company name is specified it does not use the header image, not sure if that is the case or not. Just to test it you might comment out the line that sets the business name and see if it displays the header image or not.

[rmoss]

I've submitted a ticket with regards the company logo as I am using a SSL secure url, but your welcome to have a look at the above if it would help.

[rmoss]

I tried commenting out the business variable but that results in paypal not allowing the transaction, so not sure why it wont use the company logo.