Take PayPal payments

Buyers can pay with their PayPal balance, or with a card on PayPal's own page. The money goes straight into your own PayPal account. ContentMetric charges no transaction fee and never holds your money. PayPal's standard fees apply to each payment.

PayPal is optional. Most shops are fine with Stripe alone. When PayPal is connected, buyers see PayPal as one more way to pay, next to card and the other ways you switched on.

To connect, you give the Shop two codes from your own PayPal account: a Client ID and a Secret. This is a one-time job of about 5 minutes.

Before you start

• You need a PayPal Business account. In Hong Kong a Business account is required. If you only have a personal account, upgrade it inside PayPal first.
• You need to be able to sign in at developer.paypal.com with that same PayPal login.
• You must be the site owner or an admin.

Get your PayPal API credentials

1. Go to developer.paypal.com and log in with your PayPal Business account.
2. Make sure the switch at the top of the page says Live, not Sandbox. Live is for real money. (To only try things out with pretend money, leave it on Sandbox. See "Test PayPal first" below.)
3. Open Apps & Credentials.
4. Click Create App.
5. Type any name, for example the name of your shop. Under App Type, choose Merchant. Click Create App.
6. On the next page, copy the Client ID.
7. Click Show beside Secret key 1 and copy the secret.

Keep that page open until the next part is done, in case you need to copy something again.

Paste them into Shop settings

1. Open your site's editor, then Shop settings.
2. Open Payment gateways.
3. In the PayPal row, click Connect PayPal.
4. Paste the Client ID and the Secret.
5. Click Save and connect.

ContentMetric checks the keys with PayPal. If they are right, the row shows a Live tag (or a Test mode tag for sandbox credentials) and the last 4 characters of your Client ID, so you can tell which app it is. At the same time ContentMetric sets up PayPal's payment notifications for you, so you do not need to do anything in PayPal's webhook settings.

If the keys are wrong, the row tells you PayPal rejected these credentials. Check that you copied the whole Client ID and the whole secret, with no spaces, and that you copied them from the same app.

The keys never show again after you save. The Shop keeps them locked away and shows only the last 4 characters of the Client ID. If you lose them, nothing is wrong: open your app in PayPal, copy the keys again and save them again. Saving new keys replaces the old ones.

What buyers see

At checkout, under How will you pay?, buyers see PayPal. They press the pay button, sign in to PayPal (or pay as a guest with a card), approve the payment and come back to your order confirmation page. The order is created as soon as PayPal confirms the payment, and the receipt says it was paid with PayPal.

If a buyer goes to PayPal and then closes the window without finishing, no order is made and no money moves. If they approved the payment and then closed the window before coming back, the order is still created within about 15 minutes and they get their receipt, as long as the items are still available.

If an item sells out while the buyer is on PayPal, they are not charged. The payment is left unfinished and no order is made.

Real payments and test mode

Live PayPal keys take real money, so they work on a paid plan, in the same way as card payments on Stripe. While your site is not on a paid plan, the Shop works in test mode only: use Sandbox keys from PayPal to try it out. The row then shows a Test mode tag.

Test PayPal first

1. At developer.paypal.com, switch to Sandbox, open Apps & Credentials and create an app the same way.
2. Paste those keys into the PayPal row. It shows a Test mode tag.
3. Place an order on your site and pay with a sandbox buyer account from PayPal's Sandbox accounts page. No real money moves.
4. When you are ready, click Use Live credentials, enter your Live keys and save them in the same row. They replace the sandbox ones.

Refunds

Refund a PayPal order from the Orders page, the same as any other order. The money comes out of your PayPal account and goes back to the buyer's PayPal. You can refund all or part of an order. PayPal only allows a refund for a limited time after the payment (180 days). After that, the refund box says so, and you need to pay the buyer back another way.

If you refund from inside PayPal's own site instead, the order is still marked as refunded, but items are not put back into stock.

Disputes

If a buyer opens a case with PayPal, the order shows that it is disputed, and you should not ship it until it is settled. You answer the case in your own PayPal account, in PayPal's Resolution Centre. When it is settled, the order is updated.

Disconnect PayPal

Open Shop settings, then Payment gateways, and in the PayPal row click Disconnect. ContentMetric removes its payment notifications from your PayPal app and deletes your API credentials. Buyers stop seeing PayPal at once, and your past orders are kept. You can also delete or turn off the app in PayPal.

Common questions

Which currencies work? PayPal takes most of the currencies the Shop sells in, including Singapore dollars and Hong Kong dollars. A few it cannot take, such as Korean won, Indian rupees and UAE dirhams. If your shop sells in one of those, PayPal is not offered to buyers.

Does ContentMetric take a fee? No. PayPal charges its own fee to your PayPal account on each payment. ContentMetric takes nothing.

PayPal stopped working after I changed my keys. If you create new keys or switch off the app in PayPal, the old ones stop working. The PayPal row shows Action required: click Update credentials, enter the new ones and save. Customers do not see PayPal at checkout until you do. Check again asks PayPal whether the old ones work after all.

Can I use PayPal without Stripe? Yes. PayPal on its own, or Pay at pickup and Bank transfer, is enough for buyers to pay.