How to Set Up Pay-Pal eCommerce on a Website

For individuals wishing to engage in e-commerce on their websites, PayPal provides a solution that does not require the developer to set up their own shopping cart or process their own payments. While PayPal charges a fee for this service, retailers may find that they save money by not having to pay the initial expense costs associated with shopping cart applications and credit card processing. Before accepting payments on your website, you must create a PayPal account and add the PayPal button code to your pages.

Instructions: 1. Go to the PayPal website and click the "Sign Up" link to create a new PayPal account if you do not already have one.
2. Choose to make either a Premier or Business account. Personal accounts may not use the PayPal shopping cart, and will be upgraded to Premier or Business accounts automatically if the merchant services are accessed. Choose a Premier account if you are an individual, or choose the Business account option if you are a merchant with a business name.
3. Provide all of the information required on the registration form. Premier accounts will require much less information (needing only a name, address, email address and password), while Business accounts require more (including the business's name and information).
4. Click on the Merchant Services option under the Business tab once you have logged in to your account.
5. Choose either the Website Payments Standard or the Website Payments Pro option for your cart. While the latter has a monthly fee, it also allows you to process credit card payments on your own website rather than forwarding customers to PayPal's website. With either option, your customers do not need a PayPal account.
6. Select the category that matches what you will be receiving payments for. This option affects only which parameters you must supply and what your button will look like. For instance, the "Products" option will give you a "Add to Cart" button, while the "Donation" option will give you a "Donate" button.
7. Enter the name of the item, its price, the shipping cost and tax rate. Other types of buttons (for example, donations) will allow you to enter a fixed amount associated with the button, or will generate a blank form into which your customer may enter any amount.
8. Click "Create Button" and PayPal will generate code that should be copied and pasted to your website. Select all of the code in the box and copy it by choosing "Copy" from the Edit menu. Then, paste the code into the source of the webpage on which you want the button to appear.
9. Create buttons for every specific good or service you plan to sell on your eCommerce website and continue to add the button code to the appropriate pages on your website.