tl;dr: We want your feedback on Magento + PayPal integration. Comment here, email me, or chat over at /r/Magento.

It’s no secret that PayPal has been, is, and continues to be an important part of Magento’s value to eBay Enterprise. The benefit extends to the merchants which provide PayPal payment methods to their customers, as there are plenty of data which demonstrate improved conversion rates with the Express Checkout shortcut in addition to a mosaic of other benefits when various PayPal methods and options are added to the mix

So, the benefits are real. From my past experience as a full time developer though I recall a couple of pain points. For example, PayPal’s various payment methods had unclear naming conventions as well as uncertain regional and functional limitations. It was therefore hard to know which PayPal payment method(s) to recommend for clients. I also recall some pain points with the integration itself (especially when IPN was involved). There are several discussions online which indicate that integration difficulties exist for others as well.

I’m happy to report that the landscape for both PayPal as well as the Magento + PayPal integration has been improving. Within the last year and a half PayPal has stepped up their game in terms of internal tech, account provisioning, and ease of sandbox testing. (Sidebar: PayPal even has a Head of Open Source and an entire suite of open source libraries. Add Braintree to the mix, and it’s clear that developers are a focus for the new PayPal.) And as a member of Magento’s Small Business team, I can also share that there is dedicated, ongoing effort to understand and resolve integration issues. This effort along with effort from Magento’s Product team have resulted in improvements to Magento’s integration as well as improvements among various third-party checkout integrations in order to fix and optimize Magento’s PayPal checkout flow.

However, we want to ensure that we understand any lingering issues as well as issues which were resolved by an upgrade. We’re also eager to hear about any Magento + PayPal success stories. So, please share your Magento + PayPal experiences with me via email, leave a comment on this post, or chat over at Reddit on /r/Magento. The experiences which you all share with me will directly affect Magento’s success now and in the future. I will likely keep emails and comments internal to eBay, so feel free to get deep but please don’t post credentials or anything sensitive. I may not be able to send a personal response to everyone, but please know that all of your messages will be used for the benefit of Magento and PayPal. Also, we may follow up with you to get more information about your experience.