UPGRADE: Payments for subscriptions on SCN
Tuesday, May 25, 2021
Posted by jaygross
Comments: 1
The Problem
I first wrote the integration allowing members to pay for their subscriptions and renewals back in 2002, when we launched subscriptions. I chose Paypal as our payment processor because of their market position at the time, considering how prevalent it was for collectors to have Paypal accounts. I made a few enhancements in 2005 when I moved the site to its current platform, but it was fragile and confusing:
- We experienced delays in notifications for payments - resulting in customers not getting immediate access after they paid.
- There was a SUPER confusing process where Paypal would create a subscription, bill the customer, and then cancel the subscription.
The Solution
In March of 2021, I rebuilt the entire process from the ground up and we have been testing it out since then. Below you will see the new (better integrated) options
Now you have the following options:
- Pay for 1 year of SCN with Paypal (without the confusing messaging around subscription profile creation and cancellation)
- Use Paypal's "Pay Later" feature.
- Pay using a Credit Card
- Send us a Check or Money Order
After nearly 3 months of testing this out, it has been a big success for our members. We have seen significantly fewer issues and just about all members have been able to get access to the features after paying.
We just want to reiterate that we will continue to NOT automatically rebill you when your subscription ends. I do not personally like it when sites do that. The site will continue to provide a banner prompting you to re-subscribe with 30 days or less left in your subscription.
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