Google Checkout and PayPal Integration

One of the important capabilities offered by WuFoo is the ability to integrate with payment systems. These include:

PayPal
Google Checkout
Authorize.net

We use PayPal to pay and get paid on eBay, however they are not a trustworthy processor in terms of ethics (has no one brought up the fact that eBay’s poor business ethics are responsible for its drastically slowed growth?), and they have certainly gone down hill since being purchased by eBay. Here is a great article on epinions explaining the difference between PayPal and Google Checkout.

http://www.epinions.com/review/Google_Checkout/content_455948144260

However, the problem is that Google Checkout does not do monthly billing and a number of the sites we manage do need monthly billing (unfortunately).

As for Authorize.net, we are not familiar with it, however, their reviews on epinions are awful, and make them seem something closer to a fraud. Here is one excerpt..

“The worst customer service I have ever seen, and some
(to me) strange business practices. Right now, after 5 days, CSI will
not release our funds to us but has reached into our bank account for
their fees. They are holding a pretty substantial sum of our money and
no one took the time to call us or try to rectify this situation. “

Furthermore, the company’s positive reviews seem suspicious, as if they are planted there by someone who works for the company. They seems to have all 1 star ratings, then a few 5’s which bring them to an average rating of two. Sounds like their real average is 1 star.

http://www.epinions.com/bsrv-Financial_Services-Merchant_Account_Processing-All-Authorize_net/display_~reviews

Thus, we thought we would document our attempt to connect WuFoo with Google Checkout as it seems to be the best of the payment processors that can integrate with WuFoo.

Digression

[As as side issue, it is truly amazing how bad the business ethics are of so many companies. Not many people mention this, as most of the argument seems to focus on taxes, however, how is the US supposed to incubate new companies if they can't rely upon non-fraudulent web services? This is where regulation comes in, regulation is often pitched as stopping companies from flourishing, however, regulation is required in order to create an environment where companies can exist, unmolested from companies that are more powerful than them. Again and again Google leads the way in business ethics, and providing opportunities through things like Adwords, and Google Checkout, Google Apps, to actually run their business with. As soon as I write this, I imagine some raving Bill O'Reilly watcher scolding me for being either a communist, socialst and or homosexual -- for even proposing the idea that businesses should have ethics, or that there should be rules and standards in society. That is how poorly educated vast vast groups of Americans are presently]

Setting Up WuFoo with PayPal

We already have a PayPal merchant account setup with the different items setup. However, we don’t like the PayPal buttons and think they will drive away business. You can add multiple your own custom buttons to PayPal, however, we have two or more alternatives for a number of our websites, and we want it integrated in a from selection, rather than offering two separate buttons on one page. We have that currently, and here is how it looks.

Not so good, not professional, and guaranteed to drive some business away.

So in order to create payment form we first need to create a new form by going to the Form Manager. Next we need to add both fields like Name and Email and then enter a drop box with two different options.

Next we save the form and then goto the payment selection on the Form Manager and select the payment button.

Now we need to select the drop down field that we selected and enter the two different prices. Next we do the same for the second item (Gold Plan Price). Then save this form.

Now we will test the form.

Actually, after testing this we decided to simply stay with our regular PayPal, but use our custom buttons, instead of the rather unattractive ones provided by PayPal.

The first step here is going to PayPal and finding our old Buy Now buttons. This is highly confusing, but we go to create a PayPal Button, and then underneath it is a link called our saved buttons.