Dave Gillen

www.50startups.com.au

On the 50 Startups blog we discussed several ways to

manage payments from multiple websites with a single

Paypal account. For a recap of your options see One

Paypal Account, Multiple Websites: Solved

Linking one PayPal account to several email addresses

was found to be the best solution.

•Trust – We want to provide a seamless buying experience

during & after a transaction, with consistent naming and

branding throughout

•The default PayPal settings provide a sloppy experience

for your customer

We walk through your PayPal settings step-by-step to show

you:

1. How to link additional email addresses to your Paypal

Account.

2. How to customise the checkout pages for each of

your websites

Once logged into paypal, you can access your account

settings by clicking (not hovering) the “Profile” tab at the top

If yours is a „personal‟ account, you need to upgrade to a „premier‟ account.

It doesn‟t cost anything, and is virtually the same but it allows you to accept

credit card payments from people without a Paypal account.

There should be an option to upgrade if required

On the left menu (still on the Profile page) click „My Personal Info‟.

You may currently have only 1 email address listed but you can have up to 8. Click „update‟ then „add‟ and add your new email address (addresses should preferably contain your website domain such as dave@50startups.com.au).

Now when a customer makes a payment to any email address listed here via PayPal the money will go to your account.

Steps 3-6 will customise your account to control what the buyer sees

when they purchase. These options are accessed by clicking “My

Selling Tools” in the “profile” area.

Click update and scroll to the bottom of page. Here we can control

what appears on the credit card statement of a buyer. This is done so

that they recognise who the payment was made to.

Note: This is the only setting that cannot be customised to each email address. You can set it to

whatever you want, but Paypal only allows this to be set for the entire account, so your own name

or an umbrella business name must be used.

Click Update, then ADD to add a new page style

The important settings to edit are:

Page Style Name: You can use your website name or an abbreviation.

Header Image URL: This option allows your website banner to be shown

at the top of the Paypal payment pages.

Note: Your image must be hosted on a secure (https) server (why?

Read more here).

The next slide outlines a very simple solution for this step!

1. Go to www.sslpic.com

2. Upload the desired banner image from your computer (size

750×90 pixels and less than 50kb)

3. Enter your email address and submit

4. Check your email. They send you a link to your (now securely

hosted) image.

5. Copy and paste this URL into the Header Image URL field

Then SAVE

This has added our website banner to the payment page in paypal.

If you‟re doing this for multiple sites, you need to add a new page

style for each different website.

Click update and check/edit the following preferences:

“Auto-return” (returns buyer to your website after purchase) should be

OFF if you‟re selling from multiple sites, because we can only specify

one auto-return URL.

Return URL (if using for a single site): enter URL for the page you want

the customer to be returned to after payment (usually a „payment

confirmation‟ or „thank you‟ page)

“Paypal account optional” should be ON (IMPORTANT so you can sell to

non-paypal buyers)

The remaining options won‟t need touching (should all be off).

The final step required for selling a product is to create a “Buy Now‟

or “Add to Cart” button for customers to click.

This button contains the details of your product (e.g. Name and

Price), the particular email address you are directing payment to, and

(once we are done) the appropriate banner (or Page Style) that

Paypal will show.

On the „Create a Button‟ page, enter the vital info such as product

name and price (and which of your email addresses you want it

linked to)

Then at the bottom you‟ll see Step 3 – Customise Advanced

Features (Optional). Click on this step and scroll down to Advanced

Variables at the bottom (see image below).

Check the “Add advanced variables” box, then in the box, enter:

page_style=PageStyleName

So if you created a Page Style in step 4 called bobstrees, then when

you create a Buy Now button on your Bob‟s Trees website, you‟ll

enter page_style=bobstrees.

Result: When the customer clicks your Buy Now button, your

matching website banner will be shown even after they move onto

the Paypal site.

You must must must test your setup once you‟ve finished.

Have your husband/wife/family member/friend make a purchase on your

site (you can refund them afterwards).

Look over their shoulder and note all the identifying features on each

new page the customer sees during checkout and afterwards

Review their Paypal payment receipt (for consistency) and any

confirmation emails from your website.

Best practice would be to take a screenshot of every point of contact or

communication between the customer and your business during your test

run.

If you are having trouble with any of these steps, please visit this blog

post, which describes the steps in more detail. Please leave a

comment if you get stuck or have any questions.

This guide was created by Dave Gillen www.50startups.com.au