Paypal Plug-In & Paypal Storefront Widget
Two new features from Paypal recently:
1. Paypal Plug-In - a free download for your Internet browser that allows you to pay with PayPal anywhere MasterCard is accepted online. The plug-in is currently available for U.S. customers and can be downloaded at https://www.paypal.com/paypalplug-in.
2. Paypal Storefront Widget - a widget which allows you to embed a virtual storefront into your blog, website, social networking profile page, or just about anywhere that accepts HTML code. Visit PayPal Labs at http://storefront.paypallabs.com/ to begin creating your virtual storefront.
1. How can you apply the Paypal Plug-In:
The plug-in eliminates the need to re-enter your billing and shipping information when shopping online as the plug-in is built to pull data you have in your PayPal account.
The plug-in generates a Secure Card number, if PayPal isn’t accepted at the merchant’s site. The Secure Card number is a unique 16-digit number that you can use to debit funds directly from your PayPal account.
The PayPal Plug-In also helps you to keep track of receipts. When you’re finish with checkout and just select “Save Reciept†on the receipt page of the merchant’s site from the plug-in’s drop-down menu and your receipt will be saved.
All purchases made with the plug-in are protected 100% against unauthorized purchases made from your account. In addition, it has technology built in that will warns you if you visit a known fraudulent website.
And the cool thing isthe plug-in allows you to check your PayPal balance without having to navigate away from whatever website you’re on.
2. How can you apply the Paypal Storefront Widget
With the Paypal Storefront Widget in your site, buyers select items to put into a shopping cart and check out securely with PayPal. Some of the storefront widget features includes:
Storefront display – You can display thumbnail images of all of the items for sale through the storefront widget. An enlarged view of the item is shown, when your buyer hovers over an item with the mouse,
Item navigation - If a buyer pauses while viewing an item, the other items in the storefront will rotate into view.
“Sold Out†items –When an item is sold out, you can define whether the item is suppressed in the storefront or appears with the “sold out†label.
“Store Closed†display – When you are not able to process orders, the “store closed†sign tells your buyers that they may continue shopping at the storefront but may experience delays in receiving items.
Give these cool Paypal tools a try and let me know what you think. 
Tags: paypal, plug in, widget, payment system, merchant
Jenny:
That looks very promising. I am wondering about the security of the credit card payment through the plugin.
I do like the Paypal storefront plugin concept. It seem to eliminates your own shopping cart. However, I am still not certain how it calculate all the shipping cost, discount coupon and tax, etc.
I will probably give my jewelry store a try.
Jenny, I read that this was only available for Typepad blogs. I guess I read wrong! I’m going to check into it again. Thanks again for your wealth of knowledge
Terence: The shipping costs and total amount to be paid will be calculated from your site. Paypal takes care of the total need to be paid only.
Connie: It’s not limited to typepad only although there is a format code specifically for Typepad blogs.
[...] few months ago I wrote about the PayPal Storefront Widget which allows you to easily create a virtual storefront and to embed it into your blog or [...]