I'm trying to set up my Paypal seller's account, but I'm really not understanding this IPN stuff, even with Paypal's tutorials. Do I even need it? What is it? How come as soon as someone starts talking about scripts and such I begin to foam at the mouth? And secondly, is there a way to automatically send an email to a customer with the download link in it, in case they miss the Thank You page?
Definition IPN :: Instant Payment Transfer Process Visitor checksout Visitor redirected to PayPal and makes payment PayPal sends a post to a file you specify with all the details of the transaction The file sends the information back to PayPal PayPal confirms information and sends back reply to the file again The file can now process whatever it needs to, e.g. change status in DB to paid, send an email etc... Try going to this site :: http://www.belahost.com/pp/ and download the file they have written a file for use with IPN for you. You just need to change bits and pieces I assume you can code PHP? I was confused about this IPN thing until recently - I'm still getting the hang of it actually
A Script to automaticly email the customer after payment is below. You need to set your paypal options as <input type="hidden" name="notify_url" value="http://yourdomain.com/ipn1.php"> point towards the script location. It's easy enough to personalise with your own product details and domain name.
Your responses to date are full of great infomation all accurate btw. Let me try to answer the questios you asked. For a really secure download site you do need it. It is the communication between PP and your server that ensures that you have been paid and that the transaction has "cleared". The what is has been well answered. Because you haven't worked with them enough. The right IPN script will process your order after payment is confirmed. The better ones provide an encrpted, expiring download link to your digital merchandise. They also send an email confirmation to the purchaser. It is possible to add the email feature to the basic ipn script that you can get for free. I wasn't sure I was smart enough to that so I bought a first class back end script for $20. More questions?
Sheesh. That's a lot of great stuff. Although I can't code PHP. I'm a visual person with ideas and an able writer with no fear of computers, until I see gobbledygook like that. Programming is not for me. Unless it's QBASIC. Ahhhh.. those were the days... sad, really, to see them gone... OK, so I need a script to send emails to a customer, and I gotta put set my Paypal to <input type=(*&@#($^*(#$&%^(> and put the lime in the coconut and drink them both up. Ug. Paypal's myriad PDF manuals are useless for me, if anything because they give too much info. There's gotta be a simple step-by-step idiot solution to this somewhere, no?
The easy way to do it is to just put your download link in the return URL. If you change the filename and directory weekly, you will be faily safe. Of course you have to redo your buttons at the same time. Added insurance is make sure your page can not be reached unless it is called from the PayPal site. This step involves a little more work and you should still rename stuff on a regular basis. No IPN or knowledge is needed for either of the above. A scripted solution is one time to set up and it works forever. As forever as anything is on the web.
IPN is really great if you want to programatically and instantly process payments for downloads that require unique cd keys, or add discounts to products with coupon codes, etc... but I did find it very complicated to figure out. Actually got a call from my bank because when I was testing it i was accidentally making a bunch of live bank transactions lol. There is pretty good support for it on the paypal site though, and if I remember right, directions to safely play around with the code and figure it out.