PayPal available as payment method within your "branded" checkout process

PayPal is now available as a payment option for merchants powering their e-commerce site with Total Blue System. The Paypal Express Checkout feature can be enabled for the shopping cart checkout process. Web shoppers will then have the option of using a PayPal account to pay for their order instead of using a credit card.

• Note that this is the advanced method of integrating with PayPal, whereby your website shoppers will appear to stay within your own, branded shopping cart checkout pages. The exception to this will be when a shopper must login to his or her PayPal account at www.paypal.com to authorize the payment. Then the shopper is returned to your branded checkout page and shown a finalize order and receipt page. Many "PayPal" enabled shopping cart programs simple send your shopper off to a PayPal branded checkout page and do not return the shopper to the merchant's website.

To read about why you should consider offering PayPal as a payment option on your site and to find out how to get started, please read our previous PayPal announcement that discusses these topics. And if you have your Total Blue System site integrated with MOM, be sure to read our post about PayPal and MOM integration.

Remember, PayPal positions itself as a way for a shopper to ease anxiety about sharing with you, the merchant, his or her credit card information. It's appeal is in the apparent security of keeping the payment details in one place, i.e., with PayPal, and not sharing it all over the Internet with lots of web merchants. If you're looking to increase your first-time new customers who may not yet be convinced they trust you yet, then PayPal becomes a useful feature for you. In our beta testing with one client, shoppers chose PayPal almost 2 out of 10 orders.

Contact us at E-Business Coach to discuss integration steps for your Total Blue System site if you'd like to take advantage of this new feature.