Currently WooCommerce has an in-built PayPal gateway, but they also offer various PayPal plugins. Classic Commerce will include the in-built option, but for now will have to rely on the WooCommerce plugins for any “extras”.
I’m trying to work out when, or if, I might need these extras.
It looks like the PayPal Checkout Plugin is similar to the in-built version, except it adds PayPal’s “smart buttons” to the site, which allow your customers to purchase directly from the product or cart page, instead of just the checkout page.
But there’s also PayPal Pro, and PayPal Advanced, and Paypal HERE, and so on.
What are people using, and is it necessary or useful?
I’ve got to admit, I’m usually a bit overwhelmed about the “diversity” of the available PayPal gateways, as in: I don’t really understand which one is offering what feature.
Thus I cannot really pinpoint which one is better, too.
It certainly is confusing. You get offered these thing in the setup wizard without much explanation. I have just been looking at a small e-commerce site I set up a year ago. I’d installed the WC PayPal Checkout plugin, but I’ve only now realised that I never even used it! I’m taking payments with the in-built gateway.
Perfect candidate for switching to Classic Commerce.
I might do some research and try and work out what all the features are for the various offerings.
And, by the way, the Classic Commerce setup wizard does explain about the in-built Paypal option and should make this clearer.
PayPal is one of the worst things to work with in my experience. Their range of services is confusing but what makes it worse is that they have different services in different countries.
I set up a site using PayPal Pro Hosted but this is only available in Australia, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Spain and UK. It seems to be increasingly popular with businesses and you do need a PayPal Business Account. But you have to use this plugin at $99 a year. I’m not sure what the equivalent is in other countries.
I’ve always found this guy to be a useful source of info (and software):
I need more than luck. I started looking at this but I have given up. There are a million plugins all with vaguely similar names, basically the same words in different arrangements. Trying to unravel what they all do is beyond me.
I’m somehow reminded of the Judean People’s Front, the People’s Front of Judea, the Judean Popular People’s Front, etc.
So, is Stripe considered the best option for the uninitiated? Also, have you considered adding Stripe as a core processor? I just had to register for an account on wp.com to download the extension.
It’s actually 10 extensions… it seems Stripe’s got just as many options as Paypal…I may just use Paypal since (I think) there are existing dev accounts there I can use.
I’m planning on using ClassicCommerce to handle payments with the Tutor LMS plugin for WP. It looks good and seems to be working well…just, no way to test anything yet.
Certainly the inbuilt basic paypal option with CC is the easiest. No extra plugins and no compatibility issues to worry about. I’m already using it on a live site.
Awesome! It’s going to take me a while to configure CC and the LMS…and that’s before even creating any courses. Glad to hear CC is already working out there in the wild!
This is for the official WooCommerce Stripe extension. I would suggest avoiding this with Classic Commerce. I am currently setting up Stripe on a new site (it’s WP/Woo but I may look at switching to CC in the future). I have found 2 Stripe extensions that look promising:
I don’t use paypal’s applications or plugins on my website for this reason.
If you scrol down to the section that says
License grant from you to PayPal; intellectual property warranties
you are going to find this clause:
PayPal does not claim ownership of the content that you provide, upload, submit or send to PayPal. Nor does PayPal claim ownership of the content you host on third-party websites or applications that use PayPal services to provide payments services related to your content. Subject to the next paragraph, when you provide content to the PayPal companies or post content using PayPal services, you grant PayPal (and parties that we work with) a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free, transferable, and worldwide license to use your content and associated intellectual property and publicity rights to help us improve, operate and promote our current services and develop new ones. PayPal will not compensate you for any of your content. You acknowledge that PayPal’s use of your content will not infringe any intellectual property or publicity rights. Further, you acknowledge and warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the rights of the content you provide, and you agree to waive your moral rights and promise not to assert such rights against PayPal.
As far as I know “PayPal service” is considered to send and receive payments.
Exactly. How one is supposed to post content using the PayPal API or something related is beyond me. So its an interesting, but probably meaningless addendum. Maybe this was still relevant when PayPal was part of e-bay, where you indeed post content.
This clause is harmful even if you don’t use the app but simply the "buy now " buttons.
Back in 2015 there was a bit of fuss about this clause and paypal claimed back then that it was badly worded. But in between not only didn’t rephrase the clause but also hided it.
I posted it here because it still exists in the user agreement and it is harmful with or without the app.
You can of course deal with this clause by not connecting your content or products with the services. The solution is called “conduct me for purchasing options” something that makes also the communication with the customers a bit more personal.
The customers that communicate with you, will probably visit again your store or business and will spend more money than the first time.
Glad to hear CC is already working out there in the wild!