Paypal Guest is a Paypal service that enables your customers to pay through PayPal in your store without signing in to an account. Paypal gives you the access to set up guest checkout for Standard or Express Checkout.
With the guest payments feature introduction in Adaptive Payments Web flow, users can now complete a payment with a credit card. With this capability, developers can highlight and market credit card acceptance and increase their conversion rate by simply redirecting users to PayPal.com.
How PayPal Guest Works
Since new payment web-flow introduced this feature, customers can make guest payments when you redirect them to PayPal.com to complete payments.
Developers are not expected to perform any re-integration in order to leverage this new feature. In order to pay with a credit card, customers tap the slider on the bottom-right side of the screen.
With the Paypal guest feature, developers can enjoy the following benefits:
PayPal Guest Benefits
- PCI compliance is not required because credit card information is collected on PayPal.com.
- Guest payment offers customers security for their credit card paying.
- Offers adaptive payments features and gives you access to features like parallel and chained payments.
- Guest payments has a global acceptance and are launched internationally.
How to Enable Paypal Guest During Checkout
Buyers do not always have the option of completing their purchases without using or creating a Paypal account. Now this option is presented depending on several risk factors, including but not limited to the buyer’s paypal purchase history, Paypal cookies stored on the buyer’s computer, the buyer’s location, or a credit assessment.
When you enable Guest Checkout within your paypal account settings, it gives buyers the option to check out using a debit or credit card without having a Paypal account login.
Browser cookies determine checkout view
The buyer’s checkout view on paypal is based on their web browser’s cookies:
- If a Paypal cookie has been created, when the buyer lands on a Paypal page, they’ll see the Paypal login but still have the option to choose “Guest Checkout” or “Don’t have a Paypal Account?”
- If a Paypal cookie has not been defined, the buyer sees a default view of Guest Checkout enabling for debit or credit payment.
Guest Checkout Requirements
To enable Guest Checkout in checkout, you must meet the following requirements:
- Have a confirmed email address
- Get your paypal account verified
- Set Paypal Account Optional to On within your paypal settings.
Here is how to setup guest checkout in paypal:
- Log into your paypal account
- Tap on the “Seller Preferences” option on the right
- Tap on “Update” next to Website Preferences.
- Choose “On” beneath Paypal Account Optional
- Tap on “Save”
If you can’t see this setting in your Paypal account, please contact your local Paypal organization and ask them to enable it for you.
Why Customers May be Unable to Use the Guest Checkout Option
If your customers are not able to use the Guest Checkout option, it may be due to one of the following reasons:
Incorrect email address: If your customer enters an incorrect email address or an email address that paypal was unable to verify.
Location is not supported: The ability to enable customers to pay through guest checkout depends on your local Paypal organization’s security and risk management policies.
Fraud prevention measures: Paypal is designed with fraud prevention measures in effect for all transactions and thus, in some cases, Paypal might prevent a customer from using the guest checkout if they feel that the transaction poses a certain risk.
PayPal Guest Limitations
These limitations are associated with the guest payment:
- Guest payment can only be made to premier or business verified paypal account.
- Payment cannot be made to a personal or un-registered paypal account.
- Cannot make payment using an email that is already registered with Paypal.
- Is not available for implicit or pre-approved payments.
- It is not available if the API caller passes an email address in the request envelope.