Working closely together since 2008, Magento and PayPal have an impressive record of shared success due to their partnership. Both are unquestionably part of the Web’s e-commerce fabric and account for over 150,000 web properties (Magento) and 100+ million active online buyers (PayPal). As members of eBay Inc’s family of brands, the outlook for both companies is bright. This March, Classy Llama was presented with an opportunity to both serve a client with excellence through a custom extension and enhance the larger Magento community by making that extension publicly available through our partnership with PayPal.
Growing Together
The PayPal Partner Program was launched in 2007 to communicate the company’s commitment to the e-commerce industry by providing a trusted, flexible, and fully integrated payment solution. Due to eBay’s acquisition of Magento in June 2011, it seemed natural to expect the two companies’ partnership to expand moving forward. As part of this new relationship, PayPal has reached out to Magento Gold Partners through the PayPal Partner Program for assistance to strengthen the existing integration of PayPal and Magento. As a member of the program, Classy Llama has a unique interest in creating efficient and convenient payment solutions that satisfy our clients’ needs and the expectations of their customers. We firmly believe that PayPal products are an integral part of producing a pain-free purchase experience. Whenever a client presents a unique payment situation for us to solve, PayPal is frequently a part of the conversation.
Putting Down Roots
Just such a situation presented itself early this year when Classy Llama engaged in a full Magento site build relationship with UniformsAndScrubs.com (UAS), an online retailer of high-quality medical apparel, footwear, and accessories. Since both phone orders and repeat customers represent a large portion of their sales, UAS required two specific features related to payments.
- The site must feature the ability for customer service representatives and online customers to charge a saved credit card when performing returns, exchanges, new orders, and reorders. Since a traditional saved credit card solution requires additional security measures to meet PCI Data Security Standards, including such an option is often difficult and costly.
- Administrators must be able to re-charge PayPal billing agreements from the admin, just like they will be able to recharge credit cards.
Faced with this issue, Michael McGrath (CEO, UniformsAndScrubs.com) and Rob Tull (Director of Solutions, Classy Llama) led the solution effort in cooperation with PayPal. PayPal reference transactions offer a great alternative for allowing the reuse of past payment methods without needing to store credit card data on the merchant web server. One of the primary tenets of the inquiry was Mike’s belief that PayPal and Magento should provide specific support for Reference IDs on credit card and PayPal transactions due to the two companies’ relationship through X.Commerce. Upon review, the PayPal team identified a larger need for the functionality and engaged Classy Llama to build an extension that serves both UAS and the larger Magento community.
Bearing Fruit
During the Payment Method step of the checkout process, customers will be presented with the option to save their credit card information for future use. The customer will also be able to manage their saved cards from the new “My Credit Cards” section of their customer account that is included with the module. Administrators will also have access to the PayPal credit card or billing agreement payment method used on an order for the purpose of charging additional amounts or creating a new order from the same payment details.
With development on the extension currently underway, PayPal and Classy Llama expect a Summer 2013 release date via Magento Connect. UniformsAndScrubs.com expects to launch their new site June 2013.
Quick Facts
- Create new registered customer and guest orders using a previous order’s credit card or billing agreement in the Magento Admin
- Reference ID support for saved credit card transactions
- My Credit Cards page in customer account
- Release Date: Summer 2013