Misleading Information - Please Update Documentation

[ifanatics]

Both the documentation and several forum threads I have read regarding s2member pro are a little misleading and have caused me hours upon hours of wasted time and frustration.

It clearly states in the documentation that s2member pro forms can be used without a PayPal Pro account, by enabling "PayPal Express Checkout" and using it that way. While PayPal express Checkout does work with pro forms, people should be aware that Paypal Express Checkout ONLY allows customers to pay using a PayPal account, and does NOT allow them to pay with a credit or debit card, unless they sign up for a PayPal account. This is not an optimal choice for most people for obvious reasons.

All I'm trying to do is use the pro forms so that I can accept coupon codes, plus I like the layout of the pro forms. However, in order to do this I am FORCED to make my customers sign up and pay with a PayPal account, which I absolutely do not want to do. I've tried everything, there is no way around this.

Unfortunately, a PayPal Pro account is not an option for me, since PayPal decided to revoke my Pro account without explanation (a warning to others considering signing up for it).

I think it should be clear in the documentation that if you decide to use s2member pro forms without a PayPal Pro account, your members will be forced to pay with a PayPal account. I would have put much more careful consideration into purchasing s2member pro if I would have known this ahead of time. Even though it's a great product, it is now worthless to me since I do not want to force my customers to use PayPal.

[Cristián Lávaque]

I understand your frustration, but they are separate things. Using pro-forms without PayPal Pro doesn't require customers, as far as I know, to have a PayPal account. What could be causing that is the fact that you're trying to sell a subscription. Here's an explanation of how that works with the different PayPal services viewtopic.php?f=36&t=2634

I hope that helps.

[ifanatics]

Cristian,

While I appreciate your reply, using pro-forms without PayPal Pro DOES require customers to use a PayPal account. This is the case with both subscriptions AND single purchases of of posts/pages. Jason has even confirmed this in another thread on this forum.

On top of that, in order to use Coupon Codes you have to use pro-forms. This means that there is no way to use coupon codes without requiring customers to use PayPal, unless you have PayPal Pro.

The entire reason I bought s2member Pro was so I could include coupon codes. I have already started a marketing campaign with these codes, so I can't go back now... and now I'm forced to make my customers use or signup for PayPal accounts, which is definitely not what I wanted to do.

Why not just make the coupon code functionality available for use with PayPal Buttons? This would at least be a "work around" for me and anyone else who may be experiencing similar problems.

[cassel]

Oh... i hope there is a way around because i just purchased the Pro version exactly for the use of the coupons.

[Cristián Lávaque]

ifanatics, could you please point me to where Jason said that customers need to have a PayPal account if you use the pro-form? Maybe I'm misunderstanding something...

In the PayPal services comparison I linked to above, it explains that the customer is required to have a PayPal account when you're selling him something that requires recurring billing and you have a PayPal Standard account. This requirement can be removed if you get PayPal's Enhanced Recurring Payments, which then doesn't require the person to have a PayPal account and can just pay with his/er card. Buy Now purchases (one-time) don't require a person to have a PayPal account to pay you even if you just have PayPal Standard, there's nothing recurring.

About the coupons, there isn't a place to enter a coupon code with a button, but they belong fine in the pro-forms. How do you suggest coupons would work with buttons, though? This may be something that could be added in the future if we figure out a good way to implement it and enough desire is expressed for the feature.