PayPal is a payment provider allowing customers to pay using payment methods saved to their PayPal account. This section is intended to help you implement PayPal based on your preferred integration workflow.

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Note

PayPal is different from PayPal (with Braintree) in the following ways:

• PayPal only supports customer-present transactions, whereas PayPal (with Braintree) allows for customer-not-present (also known as "merchant-initiated") transactions via a saved token.
• PayPal supports the multi-iframe, individual iframe, and custom redirect integration methods and PayPal (with Braintree) only supports the individual iframe integration method.
• PayPal only supports a "Checkout page" flow while PayPal (with Braintree supports the "Continue button" and "Checkout page" payment flows
• PayPal supports the AUD, BRL, CAD, CHF, CZK, DKK, EUR, GBP, HKD, HUF, ILS, INR, JPY, MXN, MYR, NOK, NZD, PLN, RUB, SEK, SGD, THB, TWD, and USD currencies; PayPal (with Braintree) only supports the AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, and USD currencies.
• For a checkout page flow, the required fields for the two payment methods are the same. However, PayPal (with Braintree) requires additional parameters for either the "Continue button" payment flow or the merchant-initiated transactions.

Services and compatibility

Gateway-specific information

PayPal does not support merchant-initiated transactions for a subscription or payment plan. For that feature, you must integrate with PayPal (with Braintree).

However, PayPal does support Pay Later messaging, which acts like a subscription or payment plan from the customer point of view. For details, see the Pay Later messaging topic.

Configuration

Apart from working with Integrations to add PayPal as a payment method, you do not need to do any other configuration steps.

Integration flow

The general integration flow is the same for all APMs and depends on which APMs you want to integrate with.

First, the decision about which APMs to use affects the possible integration methods and the required parameters for the APM one-time-use token request. Use the information from this integration guide with the information from any other applicable integration guides as you plan your integration. In order to integrate an APM after it has been added to your merchant account, you need to decide which integration method you want to use, which may be dependent on the method you have used with other APMs. Note that you can mix and match those methods for each APM but your page may not look as usable or clear as when using a single method. There are pros and cons to each method. For additional information, see the Supported integration methods for APMs topic.

After deciding on the integration method, you need to make sure that you know which currencies are supported (for an overview of all APMs, see Supported currencies for APMs) and which parameters are required in a request. This is especially important for integrations with multiple APMs. Make sure that all the required parameters are accounted for across all the APMs used. For an overview of common parameters across the APMs, see Common required parameters.

You also need to decide whether you want to specify where you want the APM to return the customer after they pay or just to the page that opened the APM payment page. If you specify a page, you must include the customerRedirectUrl parameter in the APM one-time-use token request, you need to create that page on your site, and you need to create the code for the page that parses the query string parameters passed along with that redirect URL. Note that you must use this option when using the custom integration method. If you use the referring page, that page needs to listen for event messages.

In addition to either of the previous options, you should also configure webhooks to get event messages. This is especially helpful for instances where the APM process fails or there are problems with a transaction request.

Next, decide on where you are displaying the APM as a payment option (on a product page, shopping cart page, checkout page, or some combination of those. For example, PayPal (with Braintree) has a “Continue button” flow that you can use on a shopping cart page, which may affect how you integrate.

On each page where you are putting the APM option, first you need an APM one-time-use token. This is where you can send most of the required parameters. If necessary, you can also send customization options for the iframe display (whether multi or individual). This returns URLs and an APM token that you use for the integration method you want. Use this URL for the iframe or link. Each APM gets a different URL (except for the multi-iframe method, which gets one for all APMs that are supported).

You will also want to note the asyncTraceId (it is the same for all APMs returned from the APM one-time-use token) because you can use that to track the status of the transaction and narrow down the problem when troubleshooting.

Many of the APMs open a new webpage when the customer selects to pay using that method. The ideal payment flow returns control to the merchant website after the customer authenticates and pays from the APM website. As mentioned previously, your integration needs to include code that gets the data returned from the APM. This will be in the URL query parameters or as event messages or as webhooks. Use this information for display a payment success or failure message for the customer.

Required fields

The following table shows the required and optional fields for PayPal transactions in the Create APM one-time-use token request.

Example requests

The following are example one-time-use token requests for PayPal.

curl -X POST https://api.nexiopaysandbox.com/apm/v3/token \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic [Base64_encoded_login]'
  -d '{
  "data": {
    "amount": 4.00,
    "currency": "USD",
    "paymentMethod": "payPal",
    "customer": {
      "orderNumber": "12345678",
      "firstName": "John",
      "lastName": "Doe",
      "email": "[email protected]"
    }
  }
}'

{
  "expiration": "2018-09-18T15:43:05.664Z",
  "token": "830d36f6-a5e3-4455-9600-3a55b63e2fc2",
  "asyncTraceId": "830d36f6-a5e3-4455-9600-3a55b63e2fc2",
  "expressIFrameUrl": "https://www.api.nexiopaysandbox.com/v3?token=830d36f6-a5e3-4455-9600-3a55b63e2fc2",
  "redirectUrls": [
    {
      "paymentMethod": "payPal",
      "url": "https://www.api.nexiopaysandbox.com/v3/popup?token=830d36f6-a5e3-4455-9600-3a55b63e2fc2&paymentMethod=payPal"
    },
    {
      "paymentMethod": "applePayCyberSource",
      "url": "https://www.api.nexiopaysandbox.com/v3/popup?token=830d36f6-a5e3-4455-9600-3a55b63e2fc2&paymentMethod=applePayCyberSource"
    },
    {
      "paymentMethod": "nihaoPayWechatPay",
      "url": "https://www.api.nexiopaysandbox.com/v3/popup?token=830d36f6-a5e3-4455-9600-3a55b63e2fc2&paymentMethod=nihaoPayWechatPay"
    }
  ],
  "buttonIFrameUrls": [
    {
      "paymentMethod": "payPal",
      "url": "https://api.nexiopaysandbox.com/apm/v3?token=830d36f6-a5e3-4455-9600-3a55b63e2fc2&paymentMethod=payPal"
    },
    {
      "paymentMethod": "applePayCyberSource",
      "url": "https://api.nexiopaysandbox.com/apm/v3?token=830d36f6-a5e3-4455-9600-3a55b63e2fc2&paymentMethod=applePayCyberSource"
    },
    {
      "paymentMethod": "nihaoPayWechatPay",
      "url": "https://api.nexiopaysandbox.com/apm/v3?token=830d36f6-a5e3-4455-9600-3a55b63e2fc2&paymentMethod=nihaoPayWechatPay"
    }
  ]
}

For the multi iframe integration method: You use the expressIFrameUrl value in the steps for the transaction.

For the individual iframe option: You use the buttonIFrameUrls.url of the paypal APM for the transaction.

For the custom redirect option: You use the redirectUrls.url of the paypal APM for the transaction.

Transaction types and integration methods

Regardless of the integration method workflow you implement, consumers are redirected to PayPal to complete their transactions.

Nexio supports the following transaction types for PayPal:

• Auth Only

• Sale

  • In an iframe that displays all payment methods available to the customer (based on the customer’s location and the merchant’s configured payment methods). For example, for USD or EUR:
    or
  • In an individual iframe
    or
  • Using your own button or image

• Void

• Capture

• Refund

PayPal also supports Pay Later messaging. For details, see the Pay Later messaging topic.

PayPal payment flow

The following show the general flows for a customer accessing a merchant site through payment using PayPal from the checkout page.

Customer adds item to cart and clicks Checkout button

1. The customer adds one or more items to a shopping cart.

2. The customer goes to that cart, the order amount displays, along with a Checkout button.

3. Customer clicks the Checkout button and is redirected to a Checkout page with all available payment options (potentially including PayPal). Customer address information is collected (or retrieved) and is used to generate tax and shipping costs.

4. If the customer clicks the PayPal button, they are asked to log in to PayPal and to select their payment options.

   If the customer clicks a different APM button, the process for that specific APM continues through to confirming the payment options.

   If the customer submits payment for card or ACH, the process continues based on the entered payment options.

5. The customer is redirected to a Receipt page.

Testing data

For testing information and data, see PayPal’s Sandbox Testing Guide.

Response handling

In the one-time-use token request, PayPal gets returned in the paymentMethod parameter as payPal.

Nexio responds with transaction results in one of the following ways, depending on your integration workflow:

• Event messages: This applies to integrations that do not pass a customerRedirectUrl in the request.
• Response fields in the URL: This applies to integrations that do provide a customerRedirectUrl in the request.

For information about how to run each of the integration workflows, see Transaction types and integration methods above.

Webhooks

In addition to one of the above, if your merchant account is configured to receive webhooks, Nexio provides responses to the webhook URLs that have been registered. For additional information about webhooks, see the Webhooks topic.

The response you get depends on the type of webhooks you have configured.

• New - The new Nexio webhooks.
• Legacy - The legacy webhooks.

New webhooks

For PayPal, the new webhook eventType will always be TRANSACTION with a processMethod value of 20 (for APMs).

Those TRANSACTION webhooks will also contain a numerical value for transactionStatus whenever that status changes. For specific information about the status values, see the Transaction status reference tables in the "Constant transaction values" topic. You can also reference the "Status workflows" table below.

For information about what information gets received in a webhook and how to use it, see the Receiving webhooks topic.

Legacy webhooks

For PayPal, these are the possible legacy webhook event types:

• TRANSACTION_AUTHORIZED
• TRANSACTION_CAPTURED
• TRANSACTION_REFUNDED
• TRANSACTION_SETTLED
• TRANSACTION_VOIDED

For further explanation of the webhook event types, see the legacy webhook Event types table.

Status workflows

The status of a successful transaction with PayPal varies, depending on the options you choose.

* Pending status displays as "authorized" or "AUTHORIZED" in the Nexio Dashboard; it displays as 10, meaning "authorized", in the response when querying transactions (for more information about transactionStatus, see the table).

Next steps

Now, you are ready to get started with running transactions:

• Run a sale transaction

If you have any additional questions or feedback, see Contact us.