CODEWITHSUNDEEP
paypal
mousebend
mousebend

Reputation: 3

PayPal Express Checkout Orders and Authorizations

For PayPal Express Checkout I have opted to use Authorization and Capture APIs, and specifically Order Authorizations since items we sell may not ship right away. My plan is to follow the best practice and create an order and a basic auth upon completion of checkout.

Let's say someone orders a $100 item from me, so I create the order at $100 and take a basic auth for $100 when they place the order. However, as it turns out, the item is not in stock. The basic auth expires after 3 days. If the item is ready to ship, say, around 10 days later, am I able to take another basic auth for $100 at that time using the original order? This would tell me if the funds are still available and if they're not I won't ship the item once I get it (I don't capture until immediately after shipment).

Would I have to void the first basic auth before taking a second?

Is there a better way to handle backorders?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 264

Answers (2)

andrykonchin
andrykonchin

Reputation: 2582

am I able to take another basic auth for $100 at that time using the original order?

Yes, you will be able, but by default you aren't. You have to ask PayPal support to increase the limit of authorizations for an order from 1 up to 10. By default you can make only one authorization for an order.

Would I have to void the first basic auth before taking a second?

No, you haven't. Transaction for the authorization will have status Expired (and PayPal will send an IPN to you, after 3 days after making the authorization)

Is there a better way to handle backorders?

Difficult issue. I don't know. The easiest way is to capture immediately and to make refunt later. But there can be issues with refunding (at least we have encountered such kind of issues) when buyer uses currency differing from default for our PayPal account so just voiding of authrization can be less painfull.

When you authorize only once and try to capture after honor period... yes, it can fail but we have encountered such issue very seldom

You can just implement the easiest way and see how mush painfull it will be in your case.

PS

PayPal suggests to ship product only after successful capturing, please take this into account.

Upvotes: 1

Athrun Zara
Athrun Zara

Reputation: 873

You can have a try to capture the payment because in PayPal, the first 3 days is a honor period where PayPal honor the amount. Right after the honor period end, you can still capture the amount but PayPal won't guarantee the amount is still available. So in your case, it is advisable to try to run the capture ( either with API or from the account ) first because if you have run DoVoid, you need to run the Authorizations again and then capture which is not the best practice.

So try to Capture first and if the money is still available in the customer account, you'll get the money and you can ship the item.

Merchant happy, customer satisfied.

Upvotes: 1

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