Happy About Website Payments with PayPal: Answers to Over 40 of the Most Commonly Asked Questions

by Stephen Ivaskevicius, Patrick O'Neil

The following is the foreword from "Happy About PayPal Website Payments" written by Patrick Breitenbach, Manager, PayPal Merchant Services.It's no secret that PayPal is one of the most successful services to hatch during the dot com era. From its humble beginnings in a small office building in downtown Palo Alto, California, (previous Google) through the growing pains of adolescence to young adulthood under the wing of online auction giant eBay, PayPal has achieved what few other Silicon Valley startups global recognition, hyper growth, financial success and most of all, a vibrant community of active users. I've had the distinct privilege to witness most of PayPal's lifespan from its public introduction in late 1999, through a public offering during the IPO doldrums, to a buyout by eBay to its current phase of maturation. The ride has been amazing.But it is that community of loyal users that has proven so fascinating and so crucial to both PayPal and eBay's success. Both companies managed to understand at an early stage that success was rooted in the community. Lots of companies are extremely customer centric but PayPal and eBay are practically directed by their users. Who could have predicted auto sales on eBay? Certainly not eBay. But when cars started getting auctioned off, frequently "sight unseen", eBay Motors was born. When PayPal became "the way to pay on eBay", eBay scrapped its advantaged competitor Billpoint and purchased PayPal.When it came to Web developers, PayPal's community was even more pronounced. Over 300,000 developers registered for the PayPal Developers Network in the first 2 years. Instant Payment Notification (aka "IPN") scripts sprouted up like weeds all over the Internet. Over 200 developers attended the first PayPal developers conference in 2002 in San Francisco, California. And significantly, PayLoadz developer Shannon Sofield, created PayPalDev.org as a place for the PayPal developer community to share tips, answer questions and offer integration services. While a handful of PayPal employees participated on "the boards", the most value clearly came from the community.The genesis of this book came when long time PayPal employees and PayPalDev.org participants Stephen Ivaskevicius ("PayPalStephen") and Patrick O'Neal ("PayPal_PatrickO") wanted to pull together a compendium of the most-asked questions. Scouring the forums and sifting through hundreds of threads and thousands of posts, Stephen and Patrick culled the topics down to 43 and that is the book you are holding in your hand. Patrick and Stephen are eminently qualified in the task having been in PayPal Developer Technical Support for several years each. Both have represented PayPal several times at the annual eBay Live confabs. And they, more than anyone at PayPal are on the developer front line, handling phone calls, turning around emails and monitoring the online forums. And so without further adieu, I am happy to present to you "Happy About PayPal Website Payments". Please enjoy it and I have no doubt that you will express your feelings about the material at the Web forums!

148 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 30, 2005