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WordPress Announcements News and Information

Easy PayPal for WordPress

Easy PayPal is a WordPress plugin by manojtd that helps you quickly set up an online store to sell any downloadable item, where your buyers can pay for it and get an automatic, expiring download link. The whole flow is fully automated and designed to run unattended using PayPal IPN. There is no shopping cart or complicated e-commerce setup.

Features
Minimal setup and administration load: Easy PayPal gets you started with your online shop within minutes, rather than hours and days.
Generous help and hints during setup: Whenever you need help, the information and hint is only a click away. (In fact, only a mouseover away.)
Automatic validation of admin and setup entries to minimize errors: Easy PayPal catches all the usual data entry errors so that you can afford to be a bit sloppy.
Very little programming knowledge required: This program is written for creative people who have some digital products to sell. So it doesn’t call for any deep computing knowledge. The most you will have to do is perhaps to set permission to a couple of folders.
Handles all the complex PayPal instant notification and data transfer to prevent unauthorized access.
Buyers are automatically redirected to a download page.
Self-service download link retrieval: If the PayPal information is not yet received by your server, your buyer will see a page where he can retrieve his purchase link. (This feature reduced my support load by 90%).
In addition to the download page, an automated email with the download link is sent to your buyer as well. Just in case…
Easy to add new products to your inventory.
Automatic generation of an online shop. Once the first product is added, you can already see it on your online shop.
Easy PayPal is available as a WordPress plugin as well as a standalone package. The standalone package is appropriate if you have multiple websites selling your products, but want to keep your sales consolidated. It also sports a context-sensitive help system, so that you get timely help as you need it.

Security Features
Since Easy PayPal deals with money, it takes the security and integrity of your data very seriously. It also puts serious roadblocks to prevent unauthorized access to your server.

All login type actions are implemented in such a way as to virtually eliminate the possibility of SQL injection attacks.
The setup.php (which you are advised to remove after successful installation) script doesn’t let you set up your installation twice. In fact, it won’t even display the setup information the second time you run it. Reinstallation will require database manipulation.
Only one admin user is permitted. You cannot add another admin user.
There is no interface to recover your password once you install your system. No amount of database hacking will recover it. So please be careful to note it down in some secure location.
Strong validation of all user entries exposed to the world.
Pro Features
In addition to the fully functional Lite plugin version, there is a Pro Version with many more features. The standalone version is also available for purchase in the Pro form. If the following features are important to you, consider buying the Pro version.

Data Security: The Pro version takes special measures to set up data verification links to ensure your sales data is safe and not susceptible to corruption. In technical terms, it checks for the existence of InnoDB in your MySQL installation, and uses it if found, setting up foreign keys to ensure referential integrity, and indices to guarantee performance. The Lite version uses the default MyISAM engine, fast and simple, but not exactly secure.
Sandbox Mode: In the Pro version, you have the option to choose PayPal sandbox mode so that you can check your setup before going live.
HTML Emails: In the Pro version, you can send impressive HTML email to your customers rather than the boring plain text messages.
Template Editor: The email body, thank you page and download display are all editable in the Pro version.
Automatic handling of refunds and disputes. When you issue a refund on the PayPal website, the corresponding sale in your database will be set to inactive. And if a buyer registers a dispute, he (and you) will get a friendly email message stating that the dispute is being reviewed and handled.
E-Check handling. The Pro version recognizes e-check payments and sends a mail to the buyer regarding the delay for the check clearance.
Sales Editor: You can load a single sale or a bunch of sales on to a friendly interface and change their data. For instance, it will let you change the download expiry date and resend a download notification message — one of the frequent support requests from the buyers.
Unprocessed Sales Handler: The Sales Editor also lets you load sales that were not handled, for instance, if PayPal didn’t validate the IPN post-back. ezPayPal records all PayPal messages so that you can verify and ship even those sales at a later stage.
Email Tools: You can select a number of your buyers to notify, for example, of a critical update of your products, or of a free upgrade opportunity.
Product Version Support: The Pro version supports versioning of your products. It will keep track of the version sold to your buyers and your current versions. So, if you want to send a product and version specific upgrade notice, you can do it with Pro version.
Batch Upload: The Pro version gives an easy way to upload your product files (when you release new versions, for instance), and keeps track of their versions.
Additional Tools: The Pro version also gives you a bunch of tools (php example files) that can help you migrate your existing sales data or product definitions.
Data Migration: Using this Pro tool, your database tables can be automatically upgraded to the later version without losing your sales info and other settings.
DB Backup: The Pro version has an option to generate a backup of your sales info to download to a safe location.
DB Restore: It also provides a means to restore (of course) a previously backed up data file, overwriting (or appending to, as you wish) the existing sales info. (WIP)
Security Audit: The Pro version provides you with a tool to check your settings and installation for possible security issues.
Product Updates: Your customers can initiate product update checks. If the version they purchased is older than the current version on your shop, they can download the latest version. Bu default, the first update is provided free of cost, and the subsequent ones are chargeable at $0.95. In later versions, this update policy will be configurable on a product-by-product basis.
Upgradeable Products: You can define products that are upgradeable. For instance, you can sell a short eBook at an introductory price. If your buyer likes it, he has the option of buying the full book by paying the difference. (WIP)
Do you have multiple web sites selling digital products? Would you like to consolidate and manage your sales in one central location? Then the Stand-Alone version of this package may be more appropriate. The Pro Version of the standalone package (which can consolidate sales from multiple websites on a server) gives you all the features listed above and more.

Optional Packages
Easy PayPal is designed to be extensible. Already in the pipeline are the following optional extensions:

ezAffiliates: Create your own affiliate network and go viral by turing your satisfied customers into your advertising affiliatees. This package, built on the pubicly available Affiliates-for-All, integrates perfectly with to automate affiliate sales tracking and commission computation and more.
ezReports: Maximize your sales by analyzing your sales. This reporting package makes slicing and dicing your sales and affiliate data a snap, so that you can spot opportunities.
ezTextLinks: Do you have a high page-rank site? Do you get a lot of requests for text links? They can be significantly more lucrative (by a factor of 100, in my case) than contextual ads such as AdSense. The returns can be even greater if you can deal with your advertisers directly, rather than via providers like Text Link Ads that take 50% of your revenue. ezTextLinks will handle payment, activate and expire links, send reminder emails and handle renewals etc.
ezSupport: Every complex software project, once deployed, generates significant support load. Most of the support questions are frivilous, where the end-user presents silly issues that are easily resolved by a cursory look at the documentation. How do we ask the end-user to RTFM without antagonizing them? I found that it could be done by switching to a paid support model. I started charging 95 cents per support questions, and my support load went down by two orders o magnitude. This ezSupport package is built on the excellent osTicket program. It works hand in hand with ezPayPal and provides you with a configurable support system.
Note that these extensions are designed to work with Standalone Pro version. They will be ported to the Plugin Pro version as well if possible.

Download: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/easy-paypal-lte/

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