PayPal is one of the most popular and commonly used methods of payment on The Internet. In this article, you will be guided through how to integrate your own personal or business PayPal account with your Freestart website or Buegle Store.

Integrating Paypal

When you click on the PayPal subheading, you will be presented with the following options:

*Note - not all options may appear straight away. You may need to click the Save Settings button (7) to gain access to these additional options.

You will need to enter the primary email address that you use to log into your PayPal account in the box labelled Signup Account (1) first of all. Next, you will need to choose your PayPal account type from the drop-down box (2), which is dependent on your PayPal account encryption preferences.

*Tip - in laymans terms, encryption is an extra level of security that you can add to the payment process in this case. Technically, "Encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key" - source wikipedia.org

There are some additional steps involved in enabling encryption through PayPal if you have not already done so, otherwise this may not work through your website or Buegle Store. Full details of the steps involved are covered here.

Additional Settings

To enable PayPal on your shopping cart, you will need to tick the box labelled Gateway Active (3). You also have the opportunity to direct your customers straight to PayPal after filling out the checkout by ticking the Straight to Gateway box (4).

*Note - enabling Straight to Gateway on any of your payment methods will completely disregard any other payment methods you already have set up. You cannot enable Straight to Gateway on more than one payment method.

If you offer more than one method of payment, you can change the ordering of them on the payment screen the client see's after completing the checkout by selecting the number from the Ordering of Gateways list (5). The smaller the number selected, the higher your payment method will appear in the list.

With PayPal enabled, your customers are presented with the following message at the checkout:

If you would prefer to add some text of your own, then you can do so by entering text in the box labelled Alternate Text (6) instead. Once you are happy with the settings, you will then need to click on the Save Settings button (7) to complete the setup.

Congratulations, your website/Buegle Store is now set to take online payments via PayPal!

To complete their purchases, your customers can log directly into their PayPal account after the checkout screen and finalise the payment.

It is not compulsory for your clients to register with PayPal to complete the order as they can simply enter their credit/debit card details instead of agreeing to any long-term commitment with PayPal.

If you need any further assistance with adding PayPal to your website or Buegle Store, please feel free to place a support ticket by clicking here, emailing support@freestart.com, or calling our support line on 0844 774 2974 and one of our dedicated advisors will be more than happy to help.