CODEWITHSUNDEEP
paypal
Ashish
Ashish

Reputation: 246

Paypal Not too sure about IPN, when to use?

Is there any need to use IPN with

1. EXPRESSCHECKOUT (SETEXPRESSCHECKOUT => DOEXPRESSCHECKOUT)
2. RECURRING PAYMENT (SUBSCRIPTION)

Upvotes: 1

Views: 91

Answers (2)

Adrian Salazar
Adrian Salazar

Reputation: 5319

It depends on how you operate your business...

If you ship physical goods, then, of course a human will check if you received a payment before you send the goods to the customer...

But with digital goods it's another story, you want to deliver the digital content as soon as you get the payment in your account. That's the main usage for IPN. If you get the IPN confirmation, you fire an email with a download link directly to the customer's email.

Other use cases would be, automate tasks, like accounting, mailing, renewing subscription status, reverting all you need to revert in case you get a payment cancelled notification, etc.

Upvotes: 3

Drew Angell
Drew Angell

Reputation: 26056

Yes, IPN can be very useful with any PayPal transactions. It is simply a POST of transaction data sent to your listener script on your server. This script receives the data and can process it however you wish, which allows you to automate tasks like updating databases, sending custom email notifications, hitting 3rd party web services, etc.

IPN works with all transactions once you have it configured, so you can use it to process payments, refunds, disputes, cleared e-checks, subscription payments, canceled profiles, suspended profiles, etc.

Whether or not you need to utilize it is up to you and your project requirements, but it is indeed very useful for Express Checkout, Subscriptions, and any other transaction types.

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions