PayPal Express Checkout Credit Card Button Requirement

Question

The documentation is very unclear as to whether I have to offer an alternative way to pay with a credit card in addition to offering PayPal, or if I can make PayPal the sole means of payment. I have bought from plenty of websites that offer only PayPal, yet I keep seeing language in the docs that suggest Express Checkout has to be offered along with a credit card option. How do I offer only PayPal as a payment option?

Answer 1

PayPal originally required that if you used their Pro (credit card) products you also had to offer Express Checkout (although the reverse as you seem to be reading was never required). Because this was the intended usage, the first versions of Express Checkout did not support any form of guest checkout (way for a buyer to pay without setting up a PayPal account).

This is all ancient history by now, and you can integrate in an Express Checkout style (SetExpressCheckout/DoExpressCheckout calls) and still have "guest checkout" on PayPal pages without having to implement direct credit card billing on your site. PayPal is delighted to have you send all your customers to them :), thus freeing you from ever having to deal with credit card information.