Best way to receive payments?

[Glottis]

Hey all quick question --

Basically, I am trying to figure out the best way to receive payments to make it super easy on my customers.

How my website works is they sign up for a newsletter and receive a catalog of items that I will be selling.

The catalog lists the item, price, description, etc.

Now, the problem I am having is how can I get them to send the correct amount with the item that they want

so I know exactly what item I will be shipping and to where.

I would assume that it would be a hassle for the customer if they have to

add up the items themselves, then send an email to me explaning which items

they want and where to ship them to.

Any advice on how to get around this?

Thanks so much!

[3022ml]

How do I tell people to send me money for my daughter's shower via paypal?

[PayPal_Frank]

Welcome Glottis and 3022ml! 🙂

Glottis, there really wouldn't be any way to make sure they are entering or calculating the correct amounts if they will just be paying you using the "Send Money" option in PayPal.  Another option would be to host your catalog on your website and link to it from the newsletter (I'm assuming this is an electronic newsletter, not physical).  If you do it that way, then you can create PayPal buttons or use shopping cart software to automatically set prices and remove the need for your customers to calculate and manually send payments.

For information on using PayPal buttons see:

PayPal Payments Standard

To see a list of PayPal compatible shopping cart solutions see:

PayPal Partner Directory

If you need to find a developer to help you integrate PayPal into your website see:

PayPal Developer Directory

3022ml,

There are a few ways to do this.  One way is just give them the email address on your PayPal account and they can use the "Send Money" option.  If you want to make it easier for them, you could use the "Request Money" tab from your PayPal account to send them a money request or invoice.  Lastly, you could create a payment button or link and send that out to all the recipients via email or put that on a website or site that you're using to coordinate the event.  For example, if you are using facebook, you could create a payment link that you could put on your facebook wall.

One of our Integration experts has put together a nice tutorial for creating a payment link here:

Nate's Blog  (Scroll down to the "Custom PayPal Buttons" or "Facebook with PayPal" sections)

I hope this helps! 🙂

- Frank

[djrob]

I'd recommend using a shopping cart solution that is already built for paypal.  We happen to use pdshop which is an asp.net shopping cart. its a certified solution from paypal, but of course you can use others too.  but a pre-integrated solution is your best bet.