What options do i have to split payments to my platform and the user?

[alextselikas]

Hello,

I am building an ecommerce platform and i want to add PayPal for my users.My users will be shops that sell to consumers.The consumer will pay the shop and a comission will be sent to the platform.I knew that it was possible with the adaptive payments but it's deprecated now.There is also the new PayPal marketplace but i think you need to be a business to apply.I am not registered as a business and i work alone.Is there another API i could use?

Thank you

[angelleye]

The PayPal Checkout API supports a parallel payment. You can add multiple receivers to your request.

[alextselikas]

Do you mean the Express Checkout API?Am i correct that with this way it shows the amount that goes to the platform in the customer cart?

[angelleye · Accepted solution]

Well, "Express Checkout" is what they called it on the Classic API (NVP/SOAP).

They dropped the "express" and now they just call it PayPal Checkout, and it all runs on the new REST APIs now.

Both support parallel payments. Yes, typically the payer would see the split happening during checkout, which is one of the things that separates it from a chained payment.

That said, about a month ago I was reviewing some of our demo kits and samples for parallel payments with a client of ours, and I swear I noticed that it was NOT showing the split during checkout, even though the split did indeed happen.

We were focused on other things, so it just sort of caught my eye and I didn't get a chance to dig deeper into that. I may have been mistaken, but it's worth playing with it to see.

It might have been something to do with the line items and whether or not they get included. Without line item details maybe it leaves out the split as well. I'm sorry I can't remember for sure, and again, I may just be wrong.

There are other options for work-arounds, but they aren't exactly ideal. Here's an article I wrote about that awhile back.

[alextselikas]

Hi AngellEye,

Thank you for your detailed response.So you suggest that i start with this API and in the future try to get into the PayPal Commerce Platform?

Funnily enough,i contacted PayPal  Developer and Technical Inquiries and they said that PayPal is a payment processing platform and not a selling platform to take commission from sales.And that my business model wouldn't be supported by PayPal😂.

[angelleye]

Uh, yeah, that's very odd they would say that. That's exactly what the PayPal Commerce Platform is for.

Have you specifically submitted a request for that yet?

[alextselikas]

Yeah,i even mentioned the Paypal Commerce Platform on my message.Anyways,no i have not applied for PayPal Commerce Platform yet.I see that it's directed to business,which i am not registered as one since i am working solo as of now.I don't know if it's a hard requirement but they do make you sign a contract before you launch.I don't like the idea of getting so deep without having first a little success on my platform.

[angelleye]

Well, if we want to get into the technicalities of what exactly is a business and what isn't...you are indeed a business. If you are working solo for clients, getting a 1099 at the end of the year, and reporting that income (and hopefully ALL your eligible expenses) on a Schedule C, then you ARE a business.

You should treat yourself that way starting today, and make sure you understand all of the tax benefits that brings you. That will send me down an entirely different rabbit hole here, though.

Anyway, that doesn't mean you have to register an LLC or any of that. However, for something like this, that does help.

PayPal is only approving limited people to act as partners and build out on that platform right now. This can be more difficult as an unregistered business without much history or volume with PayPal to show.

It's really pretty simple to do all of that stuff, though, and again, while a separate topic, it's recommended to at least get a DBA and a business bank account, and depending on what you're doing, maybe even go with an LLC for some liability protection.

Doing this is not expensive, and would give you that extra bit of authority with the ability to provide a business EIN and other documentation when applying for things like this.

It is indeed a series of steps and carries a little bit of cost, though, and some extra responsibility. If you're not comfortable with that yet, you can start with basic parallel payments in the regular PayPal Checkout API.

Sorry, I can go off on a tangent with this sort of topic. Hopefully that's at least somewhat helpful in some way. 🙂

[alextselikas]

Don't be sorry,knowledge is power!And your post is helpful,knowing how to run a business is as important as writing the code itself.Otherwise,it will be just worthless MB's taking precious space in a server 😋 

However i am not based in the US,so the bureaucracy will be a little different for me...I will probably start with the PayPal Checkout API and act according to the  demand.