Hack 28 Create a Buy Now Button

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figs/beginner.gif figs/hack28.gif

Accept payments on your web site with a simple button that sends the customer, along with all necessary payment information, to PayPal .

The most basic way to accept payments on your web site is to deploy a Buy Now button, which essentially consists of an HTML form.

In order to use the Buy Now system, you need to have a Business or Premier account at PayPal.

Use the Merchant Tools section of the PayPal web site to generate the necessary code to sell goods from your web site. Once you have the code for one item, you can modify that code for any of your other products by changing a few variable values.

4.2.1 The Code

To generate a simple block of button code, follow these steps:

  1. Go to http://www.paypal.com, log into your account, and click the Merchant Tools tab.

  2. Click the Buy Now link under the Website Payments section to open the PayPal Button Factory, as shown in Figure 4-1.

    Figure 4-1. Using the PayPal Button Factory to create generic button code you can modify later
    figs/pph_0401.gif

  3. Create a basic button by entering the item name and item number. Leave the Buyer Country as is, and enter 1 for the amount. Skip the rest of the settings, but make sure to change the Encrypt Button option to No.

  4. When you're done, click Create Button Now to generate the code.

The resulting code should look like this:

 <form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">     <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick">     <input type="hidden" name="business" value="sales@payloadz.com"> 1.  <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="Widget"> 2.  <input type="hidden" name="item_number" value="Wid-001"> 3.  <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="1.00">     <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="1">     <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">    <input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-but23.gif" border="0"                 name="submit"> </form> 

Most of the variables will not change, regardless of the item you're selling. The variables on lines 1 ,2 , and 3 are the only ones you'll need to customize for each particular product.

Modifications to the variables are straightforward and can be done directly in the HTML. For instance, to specify a price, replace 1.00 with the price of your item, in dollars and cents (but no dollar sign). Likewise, set the item_name variable to the name of the product, and set the item_number variable to a unique product number or SKU code that makes sense for your store.

4.2.2 Hacking the Hack

In addition to the aforementioned variables, there are also other PayPal-supported options you can add to your purchase buttons . For example, the return and cancel_return variables define the addresses of web pages to which the user should be taken after the payment process has been completed or if the process is cancelled, respectively:

 <input type="hidden" name="return" value="   http://yoursite.com/thankyou.html   "> <input type="hidden" name="cancel_return" value=                 "   http://yoursite.com/cancel.html   "> 

Simply insert additional variables anywhere in your button code, so long as they appear between the opening <form> and closing </form> tags. Other variables include:


cn

The text label to appear above the note field (maximum of 40 characters ).


cs

Sets the background color of your payment pages to black ( 1 ); the default is white ( ).


currency_code

The three-digit code indicating the currency in which the payment is to be made.


custom and invoice

Both custom and invoice are pass-through variables, never shown to customers, to be returned to you when the payment process is complete.


handling

The shipping surcharge, applied regardless of the number of items ordered.


image_url

The address (URL) of your company logo. The image can be up to 150x50 pixels. If this variable is omitted, the customer will see your business name if you have a Business account or your email address if you have a Premier account.


no_note

If this variable is set to 1 , the customer will not be allowed to include a note. It's probably best to specify the no_note option (as in the example earlier in this hack) if you'll be automating your operation and are unlikely to see any notes your customers would enter here.


no_shipping

See [Hack #34] for more information on this setting.


on0 , on1 , os0 , and os1

See [Hack #33] for more information on these four settings.


page_style

Sets the Custom Payment Page style for payment pages. This variable should be the name of one of the styles listed on the Custom Payment Page Styles page. To add or edit custom payment pages, click the My Account tab, click Profile, and click the Custom Payment Pages link. See [Hack #51] for further details.


return

The URL of the page on your web site to which the customer will be sent when the transaction is complete.


rm

Specifies the behavior of the return URL (see the return option). If this variable is set to 1 , the buyer will be sent back to the return URL using a GET method, and no transaction variables will be submitted. If rm is set to 2 , the buyer will be sent back to the return URL using a POST method, to which all available transaction variables will also be posted. If rm is omitted or set to , GET methods will be used for all Shopping Cart transactions in which IPN is not enabled and POST methods with variables will be used for the rest.


shipping , shipping2

The amount to charge the customer for shipping, per item. If you specify an amount for shipping2 , the shipping amount will be charged only for the first item ordered and shipping2 amount will be charged for each additional item (all of which applies only if the customer orders a quantity of more than one).


tax

If this variable is omitted, the sales tax specified in your account preferences will take effect. Otherwise, use tax to specify a flat tax (in dollars and cents, rather than a percentage) to apply to the order.

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PayPal Hacks
PayPal Hacks
ISBN: 0596007515
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 169

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