Stripe and Salesforce - a Challenge

Owned by Jodie Miners
Last updated: Feb 21, 2016
3 min read

OK, here is a challenge for you. 

Business Requirements

  • Take payments from Mainland China customers for digital downloads. 
    • No payment gateway is available. 
    • Paypal may be possible. 
  • Ask a series of questions to purchaser before taking payment. 
    • (optional) profile questions
    • Questions on who will be the person that support will be provided to (vs who is the person making the payment and requiring the receipt) 
      • This happens a lot. The person purchasing the product is not the person who will be using the product. 
  • Potentially giving multiple payment options - such as:
    • Alipay. 
    • Invoice them so they can make a wire transfer. 
      • Details will be saved back into Salesforce, invoice auto created and sent to purchaser. 
    • Paypal. 
  • Send a receipt to the purchaser. 
  • Save all the data back into Salesforce once the payment has been made and profile form filled in.
  • Click the Buy Now button from WordPress (now. Or Salesforce Communities public site eventually). 
  • The Buy Now button will be on a Chinese Language page. 
  • The forms must be in full Chinese Language. 
  • The data saved back to Salesforce will be in English for some fields
    • Eg a Dropdown list of Chinese Language options for a particular field, needs to be saved back to Salesforce as their English equivalent. 
  • The forms to be re-useable for multiple different products - based on a unique product code that has a different price for each product. 
    • Eg pass into the form the Product Code and Price via a shortcode or secure URL token for example. 

Options

  • Stripe has an option to use Alipay. Sounds great. However Alipay is new and it ONLY works via the Stripe Checkout form, not via the Stripe API. 
    • Therefore we can't use existing forms tools like Gravity Forms or Form Assembly to embed their Stripe payments options into them. 
  • Gravity Forms and Form Assembly both have great options for saving data back to Salesforce 
    • Form Assembly is much more powerful. 
    • Gravity forms integrates with WordPress nicer. 
    • Both won't work here due to Stripe Alipay only being available through the checkout form. 
  • WP Simple Payments Pro works with Alipay really well 
    • Plus it does translation
    • And it allows for Alipay or Credit card, and the purchaser can choose. 
    • But it doesn't do Custom Fields well 
      • They are all just presented in a line of same sized fields - see their demo page.
    • And you can't prefill their checkout form. 
    • You can only then use Stripe to Salesforce via Zapier, which is not great. 

Crappy Solution

I have a crappy solution functioning at the moment

  • WordPress page with Payment form.
  • They enter minimum details - such as Name and Email Address.
  • Click Pay Now.
    • Stripe Checkout form pops up. 
    • They choose Alipay or Credit Card 
  • They submit payment. 
    • Payment made via WP Simple Payments Pro and Stripe + Alipay
    • Payment hits Stripe
      • Zapier to make an entry in Salesforce that a payment has been recieved. 
      • Auto email the purchaser to ask them to fill in profile form
  • They click on a link to open profile form - created in Form Assembly. 
    • They submit the profile form. 
      • Data updated back into Salesforce. 
  • Digital download email sent to purchaser. 

This is such a crappy experience. 

Nicer Solution

It should be as simple as:

  • WordPress page with Buy Now button.
  • Click Buy Now.
    • They fill in all profile details and payment details. 
    • They choose Alipay or Credit Card 
  • They submit form. 
    • Payment goes through to stripe. 
    • Form updated in background to say payment has been made. 
    • Form data submitted to Salesforce. 
  • Digital download email sent to purchaser.

But I can NOT find a way to do this. 

Any suggestions? 

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