Gift Subscriptions - there's gotta be a way somehow?

[mrstth]

Hi,
I've been using S2Member pro for a site which sells subscriptions to access a catalogue of downloadable audio stories for children (palaceofstories.com)

We just use membership level 1 for subscribers and that's all.
The plugin works brilliantly, but obviously, children don't have paypal accounts and credit cards, so we are regularly being asked by people how they can buy a gift subscription for a child.

I've been searching for a solution for this for a long time, and it's seemed that it's just not something I can do with s2member, despite it's general awesomeness. However, I'm wondering whether it's possible to somehow configure either another membership level to be a gift subscription option (can s2member send different 'welcome' emails based on the level?) Or.. maybe include a custom 'is this a gift subscription?' field in the registration process, that would then effect the welcome email that's sent?

I understand that someone could fill out the registration form in someone else's name, so the welcome email would go to whichever email address is used during the sign-up process, but it would obviously be desirable for that welcome email to say 'Hoorray! Xxx has bought you a gift subscription to the Palace of Stories!'

Is there any way at all that this could be done?
It seems that s2member is so capable and I feel like I'm so close.. yet so far from solving this.
Thanks for any help anyone can offer!
-sam

[mrstth]

I'll take that as a 'no' then...

Thanks all who at least read my post
-sam

[Cristián Lávaque]

Sorry I didn't see this sooner.

s2Member doesn't have Gift Certificates yet, which is what you'd need here.

When someone clicks the PayPal button that integrates with s2Member, the person goes pay over at PayPal and after completing the payment is returned to your site to register. Now, PayPal also notifies s2Member about this and s2Member sends a confirmation email to the user, which includes a registration link. If the person doesn't register an account himself, he could give that registration link as a gift to someone and have him register instead. It's the closest I can come to a Gift Certificate.

You can edit the confirmation email to customize it, and you could instruct the buyer from the salespage not to register the account himself if he wants to give the link away. WP Admin -> s2Member -> PayPal Options -> Confirmation Email

I hope it helps. Oh, and thanks for the kudos!

[foliovision]

Hello Cristián,

I set up what you suggested on our website.

Now what we see is this:
1. person pays for a gift membership
2. site receives payment notification, account gets created
3. PayPal cancels the subscription (as gift membership is just for 1 year with no auto-renewal)
4. site receives this cancellation and demotes the user to free subscriber

That is not what we need. How can we overcome this?

I set s2Member -> PayPal Options -> Automatic EOT Behavior -> Refunds/Reversals ( trigger immediate EOT )? to "Neither ( I'll review these two events manually )"

Will that fix our problem? We will have to demote the users which do Refund or Reversal by hand, but at least our gift membership will work. Is that right?

Any other suggestion?

Thanks,
Martin

[Cristián Lávaque]

Martin, why does PayPal cancel the subscription? Is the buyer who cancels it because it's for someone else and the he doesn't want a subscription in his PayPal account?

If that's the case, you can use a buy-now button instead of a subscription one.

[foliovision]

Hi Cristián,

sorry, I'm not sure about Buy Now. You are right about the cancelling of the subscription on PayPal, however I thought it was happening automatically, so I assumed it works.

I was searching for Buy Now button in your plugin (s2Member® / PayPal® Buttons) until I discovered that I'm able to design a button which buys first 1 year for a fixed price with no renewal. So I used that.

Here's the button code. Could you have a look at it?

Code: Select all

<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded">
<input type="hidden" name="business" value="..." />
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick-subscriptions" />
<input type="hidden" name="notify_url" value="http://www.....com/?s2member_paypal_notify=1" />
<input type="hidden" name="cancel_return" value="http://www.....com" />
<input type="hidden" name="return" value="http://www.......com/?s2member_paypal_return=1" />
<input type="hidden" name="rm" value="2" />
<input type="hidden" name="no_shipping" value="1" />
<input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="1" />
<input type="hidden" name="modify" value="0" />

<input type="hidden" name="custom" value="www.....com" />
<input type="hidden" name="page_style" value="paypal" />
<input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="Gift Membership" />
<input type="hidden" name="item_number" value="1" />
<input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD" />
<input type="hidden" name="src" value="0" />
<input type="hidden" name="srt" value="" />
<input type="hidden" name="sra" value="1" />
<input type="hidden" name="a3" value="30.00" />
<input type="hidden" name="p3" value="1" />
<input type="hidden" name="t3" value="Y" />
<input type="submit" value="Buy Gift Membership" /></form>

Tool for creating some "Buy Now" button appears only in "PayPal Capability (Buy Now) Buttons" section of s2Member plugin - that section is for "existing" Users/Members only.

Where should I get the right BuyNow button from?

Thanks,
Martin

[Eduan]

Check under WP Admin -> s2Member -> PayPal Buttons -> PayPal Buttons For Level #1 Access, when creating the button you'll have a dropdown menu and scrolling down you'll see the PayPal ( Buy Now ) options.

Hope this helps.

[foliovision]

Hello Eduan,

thank you, that looks good. I hope it helps.

Martin

[Eduan]

OK.
Thanks for reporting back.