WooCommerce and PayPal were made for each other. WooCommerce is one of the world’s most popular eCommerce platforms, and PayPal is among the most widely used payment methods for online transactions in North America and around the globe. WooCommerce users can choose from among over 70 different payment gateways for their online stores, but PayPal’s basic service comes built-in—and PayPal also offers a long and growing list of other tools and features to help WooCommerce websites succeed.
Payment Gateways: Secure Services for Online Transactions
From credit cards to cryptocurrencies, online entrepreneurs have a multitude of options for accepting payments for goods and services rendered. These interfaces, called payment gateways, are the means by which online transactions are handled securely and safely. A fully functioning payment gateway has tools for verifying a customer’s billing information, checking the availability of funds, and processing and confirming the payment.
A variety of different payment gateways are available, and online entrepreneurs can choose to set up their sites with the ones that are most relevant to their visitors. Some are specific to certain countries, languages, or currencies. Others are limited to certain payment methods, like credit and debit cards. In general, though, payment gateways of all kinds provide a secure interface for managing sensitive data such as customer credit card numbers, and for handling issues such as refunds or erroneous billing. Some companies, like PayPal, add a variety of other merchant services as well.
Setting Up Payment Gateways in WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a free, open source plugin designed to add all the essential features of an online storefront to any self-hosted WordPress site. Those core features include a full suite of shopping cart and payment tools for handling transactions for products, digital downloads, and services. WooCommerce payment options can be customized even more with more than a hundred free and paid extensions for adding payment gateways to meet specific needs. In this way, site owners can set up a custom suite of payment gateways that are relevant to their niche and marketplace, while skipping those that they don’t really need.
WooCommerce comes with a set of basic payment processing tools, but other payment gateways such as Stripe, Authorize.net, and WorldPay can be installed from WooCommerce itself or from the WordPress Plugin Directory. These gateways allow eCommerce sites to accept a variety of payment methods, currencies, and card types. The basic version of PayPal is included with WooCommerce, but this popular and long-established payment system also offers a range of more specialized tools and services designed to support online entrepreneurs of all kinds.
PayPal Solutions for WooCommerce Sites
PayPal is one of the oldest and best known of the many online payment gateways used to send and receive money around the world. Originally designed as a payment processing system for eBay, PayPal now handles both personal and business accounts with a simple system that has aspects of both a simple transaction manager and a bank.
PayPal users can set up a PayPal account that acts as an intermediary between a seller and buyer so that customers can set up a PayPal account and move money into and out of the account in order to make payments anywhere PayPal is accepted. PayPal accounts are also linked to users’ personal bank accounts so that if a transaction made through PayPal comes up short on funds, that transaction can be backed up by a user’s bank.
PayPal offers a range of key support for small business owners of all kinds, such as invoicing, issuing, and accepting tax-related business forms, and handling other key financial tasks that relate to running an online store.
All of PayPal’s tools are designed to make online transactions easy and secure. To use them, WooCommerce store owners need to sign up for a business PayPal account and install the extensions they want from WooCommerce and PayPal itself.
PayPal Checkout
PayPal Checkout is a free extension that expands the functions of the basic PayPal payment gateway to offer customers more ways to pay, including PayPal Credit, PayPal’s own credit card, as well as local payment methods. The PayPal Checkout extension also includes Smart Buttons, a feature that dynamically displays the payment options most relevant to users from any location.
PayPal Powered by BrainTree
This free PayPal extension adds a secure, single payment gateway for PayPal and traditional credit and debit card payments to any WooCommerce site. Like most other PayPal extensions, it can be installed for free from WooCommerce.
PayPal Business in a Box
Along with its well-known online payment options, PayPal also offers a range of management tools for small businesses. Business in a Box from PayPal is a complete set of tools for managing all aspects of a business powered by WooCommerce.
Business account holders can sign up for the service at the PayPal site. Once registered, users get access not only to the many ways to process payments with PayPal, but also to tools such as PayPal Here, a way to accept in-person payment with PayPal, and Seller Protection.
PayPal Business in a Box also includes Build an Online Store, a suite of basic eCommerce tools for managing an online store with WooCommerce. Build an Online Store includes tools for tracking finances, accounting, invoicing, email marketing, and more.
PayPal Business Loans
PayPal also offers WooCommerce entrepreneurs options for business financing. PayPal business loans provide funding for new and established businesses, and PayPal Working Capital makes funds directly available to users without a qualifying credit check. These options are available in the Business in a Box set of services, and separately for WooCommerce site owners of all kinds.
PayPal remains one of the most popular and trusted payment gateways on the web. With multiple payment options and a suite of general business tools, PayPal has the tools WooCommerce entrepreneurs need to succeed.
Commentaires