PayPal Guest Checkout with s2Member Pro?

[ckhicks]

Greetings, I'm looking for a way to enable guest checkout on my license of s2Member Pro. I've turned on the feature within my PayPal account to allow guests to purchase...but I can't seem to get it working with s2Member. Any ideas?

[Cristián Lávaque]

Are you using an s2Member Pro-form with PayPal Express Checkout?

[ckhicks]

Correct! I'm using a PayPal pro form with a Business account, running Website Payments Standard, so nothing but Express Checkout is available as far as I know.

I should have the option to enable guest checkout within s2 though, since PayPal allows non-PayPal users to pay using Website Payments Standard accounts, right?

[Cristián Lávaque]

I see, that's what I thought.

With s2Member Pro Forms, PayPal requires you to integrate what's known as PayPal Express Checkout. Normally, PayPal Express Checkout is to be offered to your Customers as the PayPal alternative, for those who prefer to pay with PayPal. Thus, PayPal Express Checkout assumes that you are operating with a PayPal Pro account, whereby your Pro Forms would allow the Customer to checkout with a credit/debit card "on your site", and the only reason a Customer would choose PayPal Express Checkout, is to pay via PayPal, because they prefer that method.

In other words, s2Member Pro Forms are only integrated with PayPal Express Checkout on your site, and with PayPal Express Checkout, each Customer is required to have a PayPal account, regardless of your PayPal account settings and/or checkout configuration, because PayPal Express Checkout integration itself, is designed specifically for PayPal account holders.

If you want to continue to use Pro Forms, the only way to allow your Customers to pay with a credit/debit card (without having a PayPal account or signing up for one), is to acquire a PayPal Pro account. Once you've done that, s2Member Pro Forms will be able to facilitate the checkout process with a credit/debit card "on your site", and offer PayPal Express Checkout only to those Customers who actually prefer to pay with PayPal. This is the ideal configuration. It's the way s2Member Pro and PayPal are intended to work in a ideal fashion.

I hope that helps understand why you're having that problem.

[ckhicks]

Very good, thanks much for the information! I'll toy with some options and see what I can do.

[Cristián Lávaque]

Cool.