PayPal standard and PayPal express are two popular payment services offered by PayPal. Most WooCommerce store owners choose these methods because of their affordability (has no monthly fee, set up fee, or termination fee) and availability.
While WooCommerce comes with a built-in PayPal standard feature, you have to integrate PayPal express payment gateway to WooCommerce using the plugin. This article helps you learn about the perks of adding the PayPal express payment gateway to your store and how you can easily do it with the PayPal Express Payment Gateway Plugin by WebToffee.
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Why Choose PayPal Express Over PayPal Standard?
There are pros and cons of using multiple payment gateways in an eCommerce store, and WooCommerce supports a long list of payment gateways.
While PayPal standard is built into WooCommerce, PayPal express needs to be integrated into your WooCommerces store using one of the available addons.
Before we begin to explore the easy ways to do that, let us understand why you should choose PayPal express over PayPal standard to accept payments in your WooCommerce store.
Although PayPal standard is built-in to WooCommerce and offers support for 190 countries, transactions via PayPal standard are processed on PayPal’s site, not in your store. If you do not want your customers to leave your website for completing their purchase, PayPal standard isn’t the best option for you.
Other than that, since checkout is completed on PayPal’s site, you have to rely on Instant Payment Notification (IPN) which PayPal sends you to notify regarding the payment success or failure. Using the PayPal IPN may not be a reliable option all the time, which results in the orders not being completed correctly in your store.
When it comes to PayPal express, which also supports all the countries as PayPal standard, it offers a different checkout flow than PayPal standard. One with no IPN involved.
With this payment mode enabled, your buyers first go to the Paypal website to approve the purchase, and they go back to your website to finalize the order. That is, while checkout is completed on your site, payment is done on PayPal’s servers.
WooCommerce PayPal Express Gateway Plugin Benefits
Following are the features/benefits that make the PayPal express checkout for WooCommerce plugin by WebToffee a popular option among WooCommerce store owners and developers alike.
Faster Checkout
Faster checkout is key to reducing cart abandonment and increasing sales. By setting up the PayPal express payment gateway plugin on your website, you can enable your customers with a faster checkout experience.
This PayPal plugin supports checkout from your store’s product and/or cart pages, thus helping you reduce the number of clicks from 7 to 3. Your buyers can go through the checkout process using the shipping information or funding source already stored in their PayPal accounts, eliminating the need to re-typing any information.
Once the transaction is approved, the money will show up in your PayPal account in minutes. Not having to redirect to PayPal to complete the transaction hugely helps buyers speed up their checkout process.
Payment Options
The PayPal Express Checkout plugin allows you to accept payment via different methods. The plugin supports all popular credit cards and debit cards, plus you can accept payments made using the Paypal balance of the buyer.
The plugin supports both instant payment capturing and the option to authorize payment for capturing later. This mode of payment is more flexible and reduces the chances of fraud.
Guest Checkout
Although payment is processed through the PayPal payment gateway, with the plugin, your buyers don’t need to have a PayPal account to complete their payment transactions with your store.
The plugin supports a guest checkout facility that allows your buyers to checkout using their credit/debit card via PayPal.
Test/Sandbox Mode
The plugin supports test or sandbox mode, which you can use to test payments in your store before customers make actual payments. This mode lets you troubleshoot issues without incurring any loss. If payments work okay in the test mode, you can switch to the live mode.
Full & Partial Refund Processing
Easy and quick refund processing enables buyers to trust your business and encourage them to come back for more purchases. With the PayPal Express checkout plugin enabled, you can issue both full and partial refunds at your store and process them promptly.
Subscription Payments
In addition to single purchase payments, the plugin supports recurring or subscription payments as well. If your store sells products on a subscription basis, you can easily accept and manage subscription payments.
Ease of Setup & Customization
An easy setup process is important to have the PayPal payment gateway up and running in your WooCommerce store quickly and with minimal effort. This PayPal plugin comes with an easy setup that you can complete in a few minutes.
In case you run into any issues, you have a great support team to get quick help along with a great knowledge base, simple documentation, video tutorials, etc.
You can also make use of the checkout customization options offered by the plugin. With the plugin, you can customize the checkout buttons and similar elements to reflect the rest of your website’s styling or design.
How To Integrate PayPal Express Payment Gateway?
You can easily connect your WooCommerce store with PayPal Express using the PayPal Express Checkout plugin for WooCommerce. You can purchase and download the plugin by visiting the WebToffee site.
There is also a free version that you can install right from the WordPress plugin directory. The free version of the plugin has the basic features and can help you test out the plugin before purchasing it.
Once installation is complete, you can open the plugin’s settings page by navigating to WooCommerce > Settings > Payments from your WordPress dashboard.
As a result of activating the plugin two additional payment methods, PayPal Express and PayPal Credit Card Checkout will be seen under the payment methods list. You may enable both by toggling the buttons and clicking the ‘Manage’ button to configure the rest of the plugin settings.
You can configure the settings by entering the relevant details. For guidance on the setup, you may refer to their documentation page or watch the video.
WooCommerce PayPal Express Conclusion
Providing your customers with a seamless WooCommerce PayPal checkout gateway experience coupled with secure transactions will help in the immediate success and the long run. In addition to PayPal, you can add Stripe Payment gateway or any other local payment methods prevalent for your customers to make checkout easier and flexible.
As an alternative, you can try the WPPayForm plugin, and for more info regarding PayPal, be sure to check PayPal vs Payoneer comparison.
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