Enhanced Recurring Payments

[Jason Caldwell]

s2Member ( and s2Member Pro ) are both compatible with (ERP) Enhanced Recurring Payments, as they apply to Subscriptions. So if you add ERP to your PayPal account ( it's an upgrade ), your Customers will no longer be required to have a PayPal account during checkout, and this is compatible with s2Member. Nothing to change, and nothing special you need to do. All you have to do is simply upgrade your PayPal account, by adding the ERP service. PayPal charges $19.99/mo for this service. https://merchant.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/ ... p_overview

However, s2Member is NOT integrated with Automatic Billing or Installment plans, which are another part of the ERP package. These concepts have not yet been tested against s2Member. s2Member supports ERP "Recurring Payments" which is the only portion of ERP that is applicable to s2Member, and works just fine, even without support for those additional concepts, which we consider "fluff" anyway.

[Jason Caldwell]

* NOTE: Upgrading your PayPal® account ( by adding ERP service ) will also mean that you CANNOT add PayPal Pro to your ERP account. It seems that PayPal's accounting system is not capable of equipping your account with both ERP, and PayPal Pro service.

In other words, it's important to decide which service is right for you.

If you add ERP ( Enhanced Recurring Payments ) to an existing PayPal Standard Account, then your Customers will NOT need to have a PayPal account in order to complete checkout, EVEN if you're going to do recurring billing. So this is a great alternative to PayPal Pro. It prevents your Customers from being "forced" to signup for PayPal during checkout. However, they still MUST go through PayPal ( so they do leave your site during checkout ). In other words, it's not the same as PayPal Pro, but it will help you to increase conversion rates slightly.


Also see: PayPal® Services ( A Quick Comparison )
On this post you'll find a wonderful comparison video;
along with a breakdown of how each PayPal® service works.

[webnola]

I have ERP set up on a client's site. Now, the button for subscription cancellations don't work. How can ERP non-paypal customers cancel their subscription?

[Jason Caldwell]

Thanks for the excellent question.

I have ERP set up on a client's site. Now, the button for subscription cancellations don't work. How can ERP non-paypal customers cancel their subscription?

Yes, I understand your concern. This circumstance in which a site owner uses PayPal ERP, has the potential to generate a Customer who would normally have a PayPal account of their own, but they actually DO NOT ( hence, the ERP dilemma with Customers being able to cancel their own Subscription ).

This bug is currently under investigation by PayPal support, and until they offer us a way to achieve this, there is not much we can do except to process cancellations purchased through PayPal/ERP manually. You might find further information here: https://www.x.com/thread/44309 ( bug report ).

Unfortunately, there is no ideal solution for this bug ( yet ). If anyone else out there becomes aware of one, please update this thread and/or contact us via support and we'll have it integrated w/s2Member.

[highfive]

Is this still the current status of ERP and subscription cancellation?

[Jason Caldwell]

Is this still the current status of ERP and subscription cancellation?

Yes, this remains an issue on the PayPal end of things. The last update that I'm aware of was long ago, and they've basically said that it's not possible. If you have a Customer that signed up for recurring charges through a credit card via the ERP service, they have no way to cancel the account in a way that gives them complete control. The only way for future charges to be cancelled, is for you to do it yourself ( i.e. manually ) inside your own PayPal account, as the merchant. You, as the merchant, have exclusive control of this feature, because the Customer has no PayPal account of their own, and PayPal makes no API methods available for s2Member to improve upon this aspect either.

[highfive]

Jsaon, thank you for the update. Luckily we are just starting so we can choose PP Pro and just move forward. I don't understand enough about it to understand why they can do this with Pro and not with ERP on their side. It makes ERP pretty much useless.

[Jason Caldwell]

Thanks for the follow-up.

Jsaon, thank you for the update. Luckily we are just starting so we can choose PP Pro and just move forward. I don't understand enough about it to understand why they can do this with Pro and not with ERP on their side. It makes ERP pretty much useless.

I completely agree. In my experience, ERP is really a waste of money. You're better off going with PayPal Pro. Bottom line, skip ERP and go straight for PayPal Pro

[hollybret]

I am setting up a micro-membership site, where I'm selling an 8-week course for $1,497 that I need to offer a 3-time installment plan option for, charging $597 for 3 months. It seems that the only way to handle this is by adding ERP to my PayPal account. However, I just saw from this thread that you do not support Installment plans through ERP. Does this mean that it absolutely will not work with s2Member or that you're not sure?

I looked into PayPal Pro as you suggested, but my concern here is that I will need to comply with all sorts of additional requirements to accept credit cards on my site.

Please let me know if you know of a better way to handle this micro-membership, installment payment option. Thank you very much.

P.S.: I just found this thread that refers to setting the "srt" to a fixed number: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=452&p=2152&hilit=fixed+term+payment+installment+payment#p2152
So, in my case I guess I would need to set this up as $597 per month with the "srt" at "3"? In order to accomplish this, would I need to set up one membership level for the 3-time payment plan and another level for the one-time payment of $1497?
P.P.S.: I just realized that this would then end the member's access to the site after 3 months, but I want them to continue indefinitely. Please let me know a way I can accomplish all this. Thank you!

[Jason Caldwell]

To clarify. s2Member will work with an ERP-enabled PayPal account. You just need to create your PayPal Buttons with s2Member. PayPal's ERP service will work with standard PayPal "Subscriptions", allowing customers to complete checkout for a "Subscription", without being required to have a PayPal account.

Nothing special you need to do, just use PayPal Buttons generated by s2Member.

If you want to limit the number of recurring installments, you can use s2Member's rrt attribute for this in your Shortcode. Please see the attached screenshot. This is also available in your Dashboard, under: s2Member -> PayPal Buttons -> Shortcode Attributes (Explained).

If you don't want s2Member to demote or delete them after the Subscription expires, you can turn off s2Member's Automatic EOT System to accomplish this. Please see: s2Member -> PayPal Options -> EOT Behavior. Please see attached screenshot.

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