The explosion of online purchasing and auctions has been a boon for business people. The added business, though welcome, comes with its own trials and tribulations. One of the biggest issues with doing business online revolves around money. One specific issue involves how money can be exchanged. A number of payment services have stepped forward to help business people with their payment dilemma. One service, however, has stepped forward to offer one stop shopping which allows businesses and their customers to exchange money. That service is Paypal, and O'Reilly Media, Inc. has published a great book which highlights the features of Paypal. A new retailer who uses some of the features outlined in "Paypal Hacks" will soon be on their way to buying and selling on the Internet.

One thing the reader will notice is that the majority of the hacks featured in "Paypal Hacks" is intended for use on the popular online auction service, Ebay. However, a savvy programmer may tweak some of the hacks for their own use elsewhere. Also, the authors note that in spite of the title of the book, the intent of "Paypal Hacks" is to provide a potential user with possible solutions to any problems the user may encounter. Quoting the authors, "the term hack refers to a 'quick and dirty' solution to a problem, or a clever way of getting something done". "Paypal Hacks" does exactly that: the book provides possible solutions to get the vendor online and selling.

The first nine hacks covers the basics of Paypal. Some of these basics will include setting up an account, creating multiple logins, as well a account management. Though these hacks may sound a bit basic, they're rather handy to have all in one book.

Hacks ten through sixteen involve the different ways a user can make a payment. Making payments sounds straight forward enough, right? Well, "Paypal Hacks" gets into ways of making payments that you normally wouldn't think of. Hack thirteen, for instance, highlights a way a person can make a payment using a cell phone. In addition, hack fifteen shows how a person would be able to make a payment without having to create a user account. Finally, the section on making payments gets into how a user can fund their account as well as how to dispute a payment.

Hacks seventeen through twenty seven get into selling products online with Paypal. The section on selling with Paypal details how a vendor can protect themselves from fraud, as outlined in hack twenty four. Hack twenty five shows the vendor how to protect themselves from chargebacks. In addition, the section on selling with Paypal details ways for the vendor to get their money, process refunds, and handle merchandise disputes.

The remainder of the book shows the vendor how to set up and manage their web site and storefront through the use of sample code n Javascript and VBscript. Chapter four of "Paypal Hacks" starts the user off with creating simple payment buttons. In addition to setting up the Pay Now buttons, chapter four also details ways a person can use Paypal to accept donations, how a vendor could hack-proof their payments as in hack thirty six, and how the vendor can hack-proof their buttons as in hack thirty seven.

Any serious vendor will want to create a virtual storefront complete with a shopping cart and a checkout page. Chapter five of "Paypal Hacks" shows the user how to setup a storefront and a shopping cart. Starting with hack forty six, creating shopping cart links, chapter five continues on with showing the reader how to integrate third party shopping carts into their storefront as well as methods of tracking the customer. In addition, hack fifty nine shows the reader how they can increase their search engine exposure.

Chapter six which details methods for collecting subscription payments proves that people selling a product are not the only users of Paypal. Anyone selling some sort of a periodical subscription may also use Paypal to collect their money. Hacks sixty one through sixty four detail ways a person can sell and manage a subscription account.

Hacks sixty five through eighty six detail ways a vendor can track whether they've been paid or not. Two ways in which a vendor receives payment notification is either by Instant Payment Notification (IPN) or by Payment Data Transfer (PDT). The introduction to chapter seven explains the difference between IPN and PDT. Vendors will be interested in hack seventy, which details how the vendor can track their Ebay products with IPN. In addition, many vendors will be interested to know that they can use IPN to track their inventory, as shown in hack seventy eight. Finally, hack eighty four, tracking Google referrals, could prove invaluable to most vendors.

The final chapter of "Paypal Hacks" is intended for advanced users who are comfortable with writing their own code and have a need to know more about the Paypal API. Hack eighty seven gets into setting up a phony account to test API code. Hack eighty eight shows the developer how to make their first API call. Finally, hack one hundred helps the developer go live with their code.

On the surface, "Paypal Hacks" would appear to be intended for new vendors who are interested in selling products online on Ebay. However, web site administrators and developers would also find a lot of the sample code provided in the book to be rather useful if they are dealing with a site that may be selling a product, service, or a subscription. As a result, vendors and code-geeks alike will find "Paypal Hacks" to be a rather useful tool to have in their toolboxes.