Paypal IPN PHP: Get Instant Payment Notification

Paypal IPN (Instant Payment Notification) is a fascinating tool for integrating the Paypal payments with the website. IPN helps the website owners to get the instant notification of payments that are routed through Paypal. The owners can then follow the subsequent steps for which the payment has been received.

Integrating an IPN system needs three main parts:

• Webpage that should be able to call Paypal to accrue the payment.
• PHP page on the webserver on which the Paypal can notify the payment.
• The subsequent page which is called when the aforementioned steps have been achieved.

Thus, the entire mechanism of IPN involves four steps:

• Customer makes the payment through the website.
• Paypal acknowledges through the IPN at the IPN webpage about the receipt of payment.
• The IPN webpage matches the IPN and when matched, it sends an acknowledgment back to the Paypal.
• Customer continues to surf the website and is led to the further step.

There is a prime concern regarding the security in online purchase. So, you should take proper care in ensuring the robust security. It can be done in the following way.

• Encryption of the button on Paypal Site.
• Self Encyption of the button.
• Checking the values in IPN processing.