When PayPal makes sense in B2B sales
PayPal is an online wallet: the buyer logs in to their account and pays from their balance, a linked card or a bank account, without giving the seller any card details. In wholesale it is rarely the main payment method, but it is a good addition to the checkout in three situations:
- you sell abroad and some of your customers do not use Polish instant bank transfers or BLIK,
- you serve small companies and sole traders who reorder parts or consumables and want to pay on the spot,
- you run a retail channel next to B2B and want a recognisable payment method in it.
For large orders on deferred terms PayPal is not the right tool. In the platform that job belongs to bank transfer and the credit limit, with PayPal sitting next to them as one of the methods to choose from. The PayPal module, like the other online payment gateways, is a paid module, while bank transfer and the credit limit are part of the open-source core.
Two checkout modes
| Mode | What the buyer sees | When to choose it |
|---|---|---|
| Redirect | After placing the order they go to the PayPal site, approve the payment and return to the shop. | The simplest option, with no extra elements in the checkout. |
| Buttons on your shop page | Smart Payment Buttons appear in the checkout and approval happens in a PayPal window, without leaving the shop. | When you want the buyer to stay in the shop checkout. |
In the buttons mode the shop itself creates the payment in PayPal and captures the funds once the buyer approves. In both modes the final status returns to the shop by webhook, so the order is marked as paid even if the buyer closes the browser tab right after paying.
What you need on the PayPal side
- A PayPal Business account. It is required to go live with payments.
- A REST app in the PayPal Developer Dashboard (the Apps & Credentials section). This is where the Client ID and Secret come from; you enter them in the integration settings in the shop admin.
- A webhook. The Endora admin shows the URL that you register in the same PayPal app.
- A separate set of credentials for sandbox and production. PayPal issues different credentials for the test and live environments, and the integration keeps a separate configuration for each, so you can check the whole flow on test accounts before the first customer reaches it.
The provider-side details are covered in the PayPal REST API documentation and the webhooks guide.
What you set up in the shop admin
PayPal is an ordinary payment method of the platform, so it follows the same rules as the others:
- you assign it to selected sales channels, for example only to the export shop (more on channels in the article on sales channels in one admin),
- you can switch PayPal methods off for specific organisations, that is for individual buying companies,
- you can add a surcharge for choosing this method,
- you decide which status an order gets when the payment is pending, succeeds or fails. By default a failed payment puts the order on hold instead of cancelling it, and another attempt can be started from the admin. The statuses themselves are described in the post on order statuses.
The history of payment attempts is visible on the order.
Refunds from either side
You can issue a refund from the Endora admin or directly in the PayPal dashboard. In both cases the information reaches the other side, so customer service and accounting see the same state without manual reconciliation.
One PayPal-side limit is worth keeping in mind: a refund, full or partial, can be issued within 180 days of the payment date. With the long complaint processes typical of B2B, a later refund has to be settled another way, for example by bank transfer.
Billing and currencies
You pay PayPal’s rate and nothing on top. Endora does not add its own intermediary fee to the transactions, and your contract and settlements are directly with PayPal.
PayPal supports a closed list of currencies, which includes the Polish zloty and the euro among others. If you sell in a less common currency, check it in the PayPal documentation before enabling the method in a given channel.
PayPal and the other gateways
PayPal does not replace local gateways, it complements them. Polish buyers who pay with BLIK or an instant bank transfer are better served by PayU or tpay. For card payments across many countries the natural choice is Stripe. All of these methods can run side by side in one checkout, each in the channels you assign it to.
