Creating a Website That Can Recieve Payments
If you have a business and would like to be able to accept payments online, one option is to establish online merchant accounts with banks or credit-card-processing companies. A shorter and perhaps less expensive route is to take payments through a web page linked to a PayPal business account. There are several types and levels of these accounts that are based on the expected dollar value of the transactions.
- Difficulty:
- Moderately Easy
Instructions
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Using PayPal
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1
PayPal Account Signup
Sign up for a PayPal "Website Standard" account. This will allow you to accept credit-card payments on your website for a small percentage fee, even when the buyer doesn’t have a PayPal account. You can collect other types of payments as well (including donations and email payments) and automatically renew subscriptions.
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2
Choose a Payment Button
Open a web browser and use secure access to the PayPal site (see Resources below). Click on 'Merchant Services." Click on the "Buy Now" button if selling a single item. Select the "Add to Cart" button if there are multiple sales involved.
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3
Enter What Is Being Sold and Other Information
Complete the information on the next screen, providing information about the item(s) for sale. Fill in the type of item in the “Accept Payments For” box. Provide the remaining information: item name, price, shipping costs, taxation and any customization desired.
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4
Generate the HTML Code
Click on “Create Button” at the bottom of the screen. This brings up a new screen with some HTML code. Click on “Select Code,” then press “Ctrl-C.” Save this code in a text editing program such as Notepad. Log off from PayPal.
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5
Create a Web Page
Create a new basic web page or add text to an existing page, either with HTML code directly or using web creation software. This will be the page that tells the user what to do to purchase something. For example, this page might just read, “To buy this very old book, click the ‘Buy Now’ button below."
Uploading to the Internet
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1
Add the Buy Button Code
Insert the code snippet that PayPal created for this item between the <body> and </body> HTML tags on the page.
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2
Website that Will Receive Payments
Upload the page to an existing Internet site. Once accessed, the page should contain both the text and a link to PayPal.
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3
Test the new feature by completing a very small transaction on the website
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1
Tips & Warnings
Create shopping carts in the same process described above.
PayPal has another option that creates a virtual credit card terminal to allow you to accept credit cards by telephone without owning a machine to run off the card.
Always select the encrypted processing option when creating a button to prevent hacking the PayPal link.
Never log on to the PayPal site without ensuring a secure connection. Always use a URL in this form: https://www.paypal.com.
Related Searches
Resources
- Photo Credit Charles R. Anderson
