Integrating PayPal into your Yahoo! Store

The following post about using PayPal comes courtesy of Michael Roebuck, General Manager of All Web Promotion, Inc. a full service Search Engine Optimization and Yahoo! Store Web Site Design company. With the recent Yahoo! PayPal Checkout promotion, as well as an extra special announcement coming soon, there are more reasons than ever to incorporate PayPal into your checkout.–Paul

If you are a Yahoo! Store owner and are using Checkout Manager, then you must be accepting payments from PayPal. This isn’t a question, it’s a statement!

Before Yahoo! integrated PayPal with the checkout process, we were using a PayPal workaround that inserted a PayPal link on the order thank you page. This was nice because it allowed customers to pay via PayPal and still comply with Yahoo! Terms of Service. Unfortunately, customers could check the PayPal button to place an order and never go to PayPal to pay. Nevertheless, it was the only option available to sell product on your Yahoo! Store via PayPal. Below is a graphic of what it looked like:

Notice how you are already on the order confirmation screen? This order has already been sent to the merchant for processing and the customer hasn’t paid yet. It’s a nice option as the customer can click on the PayPal logo and the PayPal account is automatically loaded and populated with the sale amount, but the merchant needs to log into PayPal before shipping to ensure payment was paid. (Note this option is no longer available with the release of the Payment Center. In order to add PayPal, you must sign up or set up your account through the Payment Center.)

Now enter Checkout Manager. This new version actually integrates with the PayPal API and takes you to PayPal to pay for your items before finalizing the order. Here is what your payment section of the shopping cart will look like with the Yahoo! Store PayPal Integration:

Since this is located in the shopping cart and uses an API, this means that the payment is approved in PayPal before the order is even completed. No more customers “forgetting” to pay! It’s a beautiful thing.

What I didn’t realize was exactly how beautiful it really was. Here is one case study.

One of my clients sells green widgets. Now these green widgets are fairly expensive and not something you’d find on eBay. In other words, not something that I would say demanded a PayPal checkout option. After all, only eBay people use PayPal right, and this was not an eBay product. Also, with the current PayPal workaround, PayPal amounted for only .6% of sales (Yup, less than 1%). Therefore it was low on the priority list. We eventually upgraded the shopping cart and eventually added PayPal as a payment option.

Now, with the PayPal integration in place, PayPal revenues are amounting to just under 10% of total sales. I know, amazing right? An increase of over 300% as well as now 10% of sales are being paid for with PayPal! Now, keep in mind that I don’t see all this as 300% additional revenue, but I do see where we did receive an increase. PayPal is an alternative method of payment. Would all the orders have come in anyway with a credit card? I don’t know. That’s just something that will remain unknown for now. But regardless, lots of people obviously want to pay using PayPal and not a credit card.

We aren’t talking chump change either. Here are the sales numbers:

• PayPal Revenue Before PayPal Integration = $7,500 per month.
• PayPal Revenue After PayPal Integration = $35,497 per month.

So before you jump in and think sales will increase 300%, don’t hold me to that. It’s simply another way for customers to buy from you. And as my Dad always told me; “If someone is willing to give you their hard earned money, take it any way you can, and thank them very much.”

Michael Roebuck
Guest blogger for Yahoo! Small Business

Learn more about setting up PayPal Express Checkout