How do I automate a sale?

Hi,

If you use namecheap or godaddy etc.. you can use paypal to top up your on site account. I need to know how I can allow the customer to use paypal to buy points of my site. So they'll pay $10 or whatever, and then it will automatically give their account 100 points. Is this easy to do? How would I go about doing this?

Thanks,

Lee.

 

In CMS Joomla there is a component called vodes that can be used to make credits and it uses paypal to buy credits, maybe this is not what you were looking for, but a little customization of it might give you what you need.

 

Hmmm I don't know joomla at all, I only know PHP. Do you know if there's a PHP version?

 

I believe joomla is written in PHP. Therefore you might be able to rewrite any open sourced modules which are available for the system. I offer a subscription based system at two of my websites -- payment is by credit card instead of PayPal -- but the notion is the same. You need to associate the payment with the user's account on your system. For new users I follow these steps:

1 - user chooses subscription period
2 - user creates account
3 - account saved to a temp database
4 - user is forwarded to the payment portal with local ID tag
5 - payment portal contacts a local script on success
6 - returned ID tag is matched with temp database
7 - user information in temp database is inserted in customer databases
8 - customer is live

For renewals -- new points purchases:

1 - customer picks renewal period
2 - account info saved to a temp database
3 - sent to payment gateway with ID tag
4 - payment portal contacts a local script on success
5 - returned ID tag is matched with temp database
6 - user information in local databases is updated

Instead of a subscription period, you are offering a points period. The tricky part is creating an ongoing eCommerce module so that they can use the points to buy things at your site. It needs to know the opening balance. New purchases are subtracted and a closing balance is left. The user will also want to be able to review purchases.

I do not know how far along some of the eCommerce software goes in meeting your needs. I have played with OpenCommerce and it might fit your needs with a lot of tweaking.

I know I am not solving your problem. But, I hope this helps you wrap your mind around it.

 

Thanks for that, I need all the help I can get

I'll look into it,

Thanks,

Lee.