Test PayPal payment WooCommerce: check the order

The buyer clicks PayPal, a window opens on PayPal's site, the buyer pays there, and the browser returns to your store. The order is usually marked paid only after WooCommerce hears back from PayPal, and that message can arrive late or not at all. A buyer who sees a thank-you page assumes the order went through. The owner sees a pending order, a buyer who believes they paid, and nothing in the browser that explains the gap. Which cause it is decides the fix: the return page, the notification or the payment settings.

• Read the PayPal window address: a sandbox test uses sandbox.paypal.com, a live order uses paypal.com.
• Place one order and check its status in WooCommerce before you trust the thank-you page.
• Check what the cart shows after the return; an empty cart with no order is a different fault.
• Try the button from a signed out browser and from a phone, since pop-up rules differ between them.
• Write down whether the store's PayPal setting says sandbox or live before the first click.

Each PayPal mode sends the buyer to a different address. A sandbox test goes to PayPal's test site, which uses test accounts and no real money. A live order goes to the live site, where a completed payment is a real order. The address is the quickest tell, because the window shows it before the buyer types anything. Owners who test with live credentials on a store they think is in test mode, or the reverse, end up with real charges or with no useful test at all.

Mismatches come from the store settings. The plugin can hold sandbox credentials while the setting says live, or the reverse, and the button looks the same either way. Compare three things before the first test: the mode in WooCommerce, the credentials the plugin uses and the address the window opens. If one of them disagrees with the others, stop and fix that before you place an order.

Pending payment is the status WooCommerce gives an order that has been placed but not yet confirmed as paid. A buyer who returns from PayPal and sees a thank-you page may have paid, while the store has not heard from PayPal yet. Either the notification has not arrived, or it arrived and did not match the order. The order notes and the plugin log, if it keeps one, tell those two cases apart. Read them before you change the button or the return page.

The return page is a separate question. A return that lands on a cart with the items still in it can invite a second payment. Check that the page after the return shows the order number, and that the cart clears once the order is paid. Place one test order, return from PayPal, then look at the order list, the cart and the confirmation screen together, in that order.

Finishing a payment on PayPal needs a buyer account on the sandbox site, or a real payment method on the live one. On the sandbox site, the owner uses a sandbox buyer account from PayPal's developer tools, and that is the right way to finish the order. A simulated visitor has neither, so the test stops on PayPal's page before any payment details are entered and records what the visitor could read up to that point. The two results go together: the sandbox shows the store and PayPal can complete an order, and the simulated run shows whether a stranger reaches PayPal at all.

PayPal plugins change their settings screens and return handling between versions, and an update can leave the mode and the credentials out of step. After each plugin or theme update, check the mode, the window address and the order status from one test order again. Rerun the same simulated visitors to the button, so you can compare what they saw before and after the update.