PayPal

Many merchants wish to offer shoppers the ability to pay seamlessly via PayPal, one of the most common payment methods. BlueSnap makes it easy to accept PayPal by connecting your PayPal and BlueSnap accounts, and then using the BlueSnap API to process PayPal payments.

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To offer PayPal as a payment option for your shoppers, you must have a PayPal Business or Premier account. If you do not yet have a PayPal account, you can sign up for one on the PayPal website.

See:

• Benefits
• The shopper experience with PayPal
• Implementing PayPal via the BlueSnap APIs

Benefits

These are some of the great features available when you offer PayPal:

Currencies

You can accept payments in several currencies by syncing your PayPal currency balances. We currently support the following currencies for PayPal:

Payout to your PayPal account

PayPal funds will be directly transferred to your PayPal Account. To avoid any double charging, BlueSnap will reduce from its own transaction charges, the standard transaction fees charged on your sales by PayPal.

Shopper info saved and shipping info automatically updated

Shoppers already keep their details updated in PayPal, so you can automatically keep your own shopper records up-to-date by pulling the shipping info right from PayPal.

PayPal Shopper Experience

There are three types of PayPal checkout flows available via the BlueSnap APIs:

• Standard redirect - One step flow
• Two step flow to include taxes and fees
• Three step flow with delayed capture

All checkout flows are compatible with PayPal's in-context-checkout which displays PayPal screen as a popup within your site. See What is In-Context checkout

Standard redirect - One step flow

This in the standard Express checkout flow that directs the shopper to a PayPal page to make the purchase, and then redirects the shopper back to your site (to the pp-return-url you specify) once they have completed the purchase. With the standard checkout, this is what the typical checkout flow will look like:

Two step flow to include taxes and fees

Based on your business model, the standard one-step flow may not be ideal for you. For instance, if you need to apply additional charges such as TAX/VAT or shipping fees according to your shopper’s location, and you prefer to remove friction at checkout by not asking your shopper for their address, as you can retrieve it from PayPal as part of their two-step flow.

This checkout flow allows you to direct your shopper to PayPal in order to approve the purchase, retrieve their address, calculate and apply additional charges, and display the new final price to the shopper. Once the shopper approves the final price, the transaction will take place for this final amount.

We are calling this the "two-step" checkout flow because you will need to complete these transactions via two API calls to BlueSnap, instead of using a single call for the one-step checkout flow.

Three step flow with delayed capture

From a shopper’s perspective, the three-step checkout flow is identical to the previous option as the only difference is on the last step. Once the shopper has confirmed the final amount, the merchant leaves the transaction as an approved Authorization, until such time when the product(s) are ready to be shipped/delivered.

This could be a convenient flow for merchants selling physical goods when the goods being sold are not in stock when the transaction takes place. You direct your shopper through the purchase flow, allow them to approve the purchase and final amount, and you can "capture" the transaction once you are ready to deliver the goods.

We are calling this the "three-step" checkout flow because you will need to complete these transactions via three API calls to BlueSnap, instead of using a single call for the one-step checkout flow.

In-Context checkout

The In-Context checkout flow keeps the shopper in the context of your site while they complete the PayPal checkout. In the web solution, the PayPal page opens as a popup over the your site, while in the mobile solution it is displayed as a mobile-optimized full-page checkout window, as shown below.

Web

Mobile

In-Context checkout also has the benefit of shortening the checkout experience and providing a simplified design that is consistent across devices, as well as helping to improve conversion rates by making it easier for the shopper to complete checkout.

All out-of-box features for Express checkout are also supported for In-Context Checkout.

Please note that PayPal support for In-Context checkout but has limited availability.

The supported currencies include the following: US Dollar, Euro, British Pound, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, Brazilian Real, Danish Krone, Norwegian Krone, Polish Zloty, Swedish Krona, and Swiss Franc.

The supported browsers include the following: Internet Explorer version 9 and later, Chrome version 27 and later, Firefox version 30 and later, Safari version 5.1 and later, and Opera version 23 and later.

Enabling In-Context checkout

To enable In-Context Checkout, include the PayPal JavaScript SDK script configuration on the page that hosts your PayPal button.

Next, you can enable In-Context checkout via the BlueSnap APIs as follows:

• Payment API: Set the inContext property in the paypalTransaction resource to true.
• Extended Payment API: Set the pp-in-context property in the paypal resource to true.

After In-Context checkout is enabled, the URL to the PayPal page will look like this:

https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/checkoutnow?token=XXX

Compared to the URL for an Express checkout flow, which looks like this:

https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_express-checkout&token=XXX

Implementing PayPal via the BlueSnap APIs

To use PayPal with BlueSnap, begin by connecting your PayPal and BlueSnap accounts. See Connecting PayPal and BlueSnap.

Once you have connected your PayPal and BlueSnap accounts, you can begin offering PayPal as a payment method via either of the BlueSnap APIs. For details, see:

• Payment API PayPal Guide
• Extended API PayPal Guide