Setting up paypal so my client gets a percentage from every transaction on her site

Question

I have a client that wants a site that hosts sellers selling items and allows buyers to purchase the items. She wants all the money transactions to be between the buyer and seller and she collects a percentage of the sale. She wants her percentage to be automatically put in her paypal account. Kinda like eBay for example.

I have used paypal standard with buttons but have never done anything like this. Does anyone have any suggestions about how I would get started and/or how this is done?

Thank you for your suggestions, Greg

Answer 1

Many people would (and probably will) recommend using some sort of split/chained payment solution, but I will just point out that the site you mention, eBay, does not use split payments. eBay sellers register with eBay; eBay faciliates the sales and bills the sellers for their fees. You can do the billing through invoicing, or via preapproved payment/billing agreements (which allow you to collect from sellers without them having to send you each payment).

While this solution requires you to do a little more work (tracking sales & billing) it is a lot more flexible.