Let's talk about your business for a minute and do a little dreaming. How would it be to have an easy, instant, fool-proof way to process your payments? What if you could respond to customer purchases in real-time? What would it be like to have total security against having your digital products stolen? Wouldn't all those things be great? Well, good news! You don't have to dream anymore. PayPal's IPN does all those things for you. So, What is PayPal IPN? Read on.



IPN is PayPal's Instant Payment Notification system, designed to help alleviate many of the concerns of dealing with customers during the check out process. When a payment is sent to your account, IPN sends you notification and confirmation immediately. Not only that, but you'll receive a status report that lets you know of any pertinent information such as when a transaction fails, is cancelled or pending.

One really cool aspect of PayPal IPN is the customizing options. You can set up your site's response to purchases in real-time, track customers and automate your fulfillment operations. The system can deliver the access keys to your product directly to the customer for pick up, and all the resulting purchase information is stored right in your own database.

Imagine how easy doing business is with these kinds of payment processing systems in place.

So to summarize, the PayPal IPN basically uses a 3 step process:

1.The customer makes a payment or requests a refund, triggering the IPN

2.A notification is sent from the IPN to your server for validation

3.Your server returns the validation (or invalidation) notice to the IPN

Your business transaction is done, and all without you having to do anything beyond the initial set up of the IPN on your site.

Something that should be mentioned here, is the fact that installing the IPN can be a bit tricky if you're not familiar with how computer codes work. If that describes you, you are probably not going to want to frustrate yourself with trying. Besides, getting it wrong is a bad idea. The payments may not go into your account if you have improperly installed the IPN code.

It's best to look for help with this. There is software that makes the installation a breeze, and you'll have the peace of mind knowing that it is done correctly.

Regardless of how you install PayPal's IPN, please consider doing so. It will save you a ton of work and worry. The added security against having your digital products stolen is reason alone to use this program.

What is PayPal's IPN? Very possibly your payment system dreams come true.