PayPal in E-Commerce Applications
Issue 65, Dec 15, 2002

Dear friends,

In this issue we're focusing on PayPal's growing use as an e-commerce payment vehicle:

• Exploring PayPal Instant Payment Notification (IPN)
• Shopping Cart Implementation of PayPal

PayPal has received a lot of criticism. (On this, see my article "Assessing Criticism of PayPal," Web Commerce Today, 3/15/02. http://www.wilsonweb.com/wct5/paypal_assess.htm ) But PayPal has forged on, adding banking interfaces with most European countries and elsewhere, and now offers merchants the ability to accept payment in a variety of currencies. With their acquisition by eBay, PayPal is here to stay and needs to be understood and used by more online merchants.

PayPal provides merchants a way to receive credit card payments as a lower-cost alternative to merchant credit card accounts and payment gateways. Merchants like PayPal's successes at combating fraud and building a secure, safe marketplace using buyer and seller validation and histories. Some customers actually prefer to pay via PayPal. It has come a long way since its first appearance as a payment alternative for eBay shoppers.

Most small business shopping carts now allow PayPal as a payment option and a few offer PayPal's new Instant Payment Notification (IPN) system that corresponds to real-time credit card authorization. This issue explores some ways merchants are now using PayPal's tools to sell both hard and soft goods in online stores. I hope you find it useful.

Enjoy this wonderful holiday season!

God bless you,
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, Editor

Exploring PayPal Instant Payment Notification (IPN)

Until now, PayPal has lacked an automatic way of notifying e-commerce applications that a shopper has completed a purchase. Instead it has relied on e-mail notification. Recently PayPal has implemented a new Instant Payment Notification (IPN) system that sends full payment information to the merchant's server in a manner similar to real-time credit card authorization. This article introduces you to the system and looks a some of its strengths and current weaknesses. Read the Article

Shopping Cart Implementation of PayPal

Most small business shopping cart applications now offer PayPal as a payment method. This article lists which popular e-commerce applications offer PayPal, and which include PayPal's new Instant Payment Notification (IPN) interface. In addition, you'll find specialized e-commerce software that supports PayPal IPN and code that implements PayPal IPN in a variety of programming environments -- Perl, ColdFusion, ASP/VBscript, PHP, and Java/JSP. Read the Article

New Ecommerce and Web Marketing Articles

Each month our team of link editors scours dozens of online periodicals and resources to find key information on e-commerce and Web marketing. With so much new literature available to you, how do you find what you need quickly and painlessly? Here's a selective and searchable database of article and resource links to help your research and keep you up-to-date in the field. (Links gathered in a given month are usually available during the second week of the following month.)