If you run a charitable website, you may have the need to insert donation style payment buttons. Donation buttons allow the customer to enter the price they would like to pay in exchange for a product or service or in some cases nothing other than goodwill. If you use the free WP Express Checkout plugin, you can create donation style products that when displayed on a WordPress post or page will allow the customer to specify the price they would like to pay.
This feature allows customers to make a donation payment using either their PayPal account or a credit/debit card.
Considerations When Creating a Donation Product
When you create a donation style product on your website, be mindful of the minimum amount you enter within the product ‘Price‘ field. PayPal takes a percentage fee from each successful transaction so ensure you have specified an amount high enough so that the donation does not entirely go to fees.
While you need to create a ‘product‘ to be able to add the donation button to your website, this does not necessarily mean you need to give a product in return for the donation. Use the description area of the ‘Add New Product‘ interface to clearly outline what the donation will be used for and if the visitor can expect a physical or digital item in return for the donation or if it is purely a matter of goodwill.
On the ‘Thank You‘ page, which can be found in the ‘Pages‘ menu of your WordPress website, you may like to thank your customers for their generous donations and even add some images of how their donation is helping the charity/cause.
Creating a Donation Style Product
Video Tutorial: WP Express Checkout Donation Product
Written Tutorial: WP Express Checkout Donation Product
- Ensure you have the WP Express Checkout plugin installed and activated on your WordPress website.
- Click on the ‘Add New Product‘ menu found under ‘WP Express Checkout‘ in your WordPress dashboard.
- Configure the basic product as per usual by giving it a ‘Title‘, ‘Description‘, ‘Thumbnail Image‘ and ‘Download URL‘ (if applicable).
- In the ‘Price‘ field add the minimum amount you would like the customer to donate/pay. Mark the ‘Allow Customers to Enter Amount‘ checkbox to create a donation style product. Enabling this checkbox will allow the customer to enter an amount in a neat field once this product has been added to a post or page. Your minimum ‘Price‘ will be the default amount, although the customer can easily override this to any amount of their choosing (higher than the set price).
- In the ‘Appearance Related‘ section of the ‘Add New Product‘ interface, choose the most appropriate ‘Button Type‘ for this donation style product. The default button type chosen in the settings menu will be used unless you choose another option from the drop-down menu. For a donation product, it makes the most sense to use either the ‘Checkout‘ or ‘Pay‘ option especially if you will not be giving anything in return for the donation.
- Click the ‘Publish‘ button to publish out the donation style product you have created.
- Now that you have created your donation style product, you can copy the product shortcode and add it to any of your WordPress posts or pages. You can find more about adding the product to your website here.
What Will My Donation Product Look Like?
Once you create your donation product and you add it to a post or a page, your customers who view it from the front end of your website will see a field where they can enter the amount they would like to donate. Once the customer has entered the amount, they can then click to make the payment with their PayPal account or credit or debit card. The checkout flow is the same for a donation as it is for a regular payment.
If you choose to use the basic product shortcode, only the donation amount field and payment buttons will be added to the post/page which is displayed in the screenshot below. If you use the basic product shortcode, you may like to add a paragraph block to the page to describe what the donation will be used for.
If you use a template shortcode, your visitor will see more details about the donation. You may like to use the description field of the product to outline what the donation will be used for. Explaining the cause in detail will increase the chances of receiving a donation.
How Can I Keep Track of the Donations?
Every time a visitor makes a donation on your website, it will come through as a transaction in the ‘Orders‘ menu found under ‘WP Express Checkout‘. You can search your orders by the name of the product to display all of the donations.
