paypal button and IPN questions

multitaskinman · #1 09-09-2008, 07:52 AM

1. I'm using BV to put paypal 'add to cart' buttons on my site. I'm using a custom image, installed through the BV add to cart form. Is this automatically encrypted or am I supposed to do something else to encrypt the botton. I read something about button encryption and not sure if it's relavent here?

2. Also read on P/Pal website about instant payment notification and need for a notification URL? How neccessary is IPN? What is a notification URL? Paypal do not explain it in a way I can understand! Help please?

multitaskinman

www.zhizhengtea.com

Karen Mac · #2 09-09-2008, 08:57 AM

You dont HAVE to encrypt the buttons, if you click.. you will see it goes https. IPN is if you have a cart that notifies you of an order and when they return from paypal it triggers an email and sends the order to a data base.

Usually you use button encryption to hide information that you are transmitting to paypal..like a download link etc.

Karen

multitaskinman · #3 09-09-2008, 01:52 PM

Hi Karen,

Thanks for your reply. I read something that I think you wrote, or referred to (couldn't find it just now) about making buttons and the dangers of them not being encrypted, so I wanted to check if that was the case when using custom button images in BV's paypal set-up.

On the IPN question, do you/have you used it?
I was thinking it might be useful but wasn't sure what the notification URL was or how to set it up. Can you point me to some clear instructions for this?

Thankyou
Multitaskinman

Karen Mac · #4 09-09-2008, 04:55 PM

If you are using buttons.. you dont have an ipn. This is usually built into carts like soho or osc etc.

You can make a return url. I suppose you could also SCRIPT in an ipn. If you arent using a database to start with this is alot of work for an ipn. Paypal should email you right away that you have a payment...so it sort of works the same way

Karen

navaldesign · #5 09-09-2008, 05:48 PM

IPN = Instant Payment Notification.

In other words, whenever a transaction is done in your PayPal account, Paypal sends the transaction details back to you, using the POST method (which means that the info is sent to your site just as if it was submitted through a form). Using them or not depends on you. If you have a script that can receive this info, you can do whatever you like with it.

In example, if you have a simple mailing script in the notification_url, the script can mail you all the details of the transaction, like the payers address, email, name and surname, the transaction ID, and much more.
This is the simplest way to use IPN.
A more complete script would use these details, to "activate" an order, to store the info in the database, and most important, to verify with PayPal the authenticity of the info received (which is acheived re-sending the info to PayPal and requesting a verification- Then PayPal answers back through yet another communication, with a False or True answer). This becomes ABSOLUTELY necesary when there are downloadable products that you want to allow instant download after payment.

IPN has no visual output, the entire process is invisible to the user, as it is a communication between the script on your site and PayPal. However, the actions taken by the script (in example activating a membership account, or renewing it, or enabling a product download, or updating a database with the customers details or other) can affect, in a dynamic environment, the way that the site will behave towards a user that has made the payment.

My Cart, my Instant Download Cart and my Customized Logger (membership script) use IPN exactly for the above purposes. However, since IPN informs you of ANY transaction, you can use it also for cancellations and pre-payment authorizations.

multitaskinman · #6 09-12-2008, 12:23 PM

Excellent. Thanks to you both for your replies.

Multitaskinman

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