PayPal Adaptive Payment Plugin for VirtueMart simplifies the revenue split between multiple vendors and marketplace shops.
Prerequisite
The owner of the shop (main vendor) mus have a PayPal Business or Premier account to be able to use this payment method.
From the main vendor PayPal account, you will need:
- PayPal email
- PayPal Username
- PayPal Password
- PayPal Signature
- Application ID
Setting a testing environment in PayPal
- Create an account on https://developer.paypal.com/
- Log in
- Go to the dashboard
- For the main vendor, create a sandbox Business Account, and fill the form
- Create the same way, an account for the vendors. The PayPal account can be either a Personal account, or a Business account.
Installing the package PayPal Adaptive
Install the plugin via the Joomla Installer
The PayPal Adaptive Payment Plugin for VirtueMart contains 2 plugins:
- PayPal adaptive shopper field plugin. : to allow vendors to enter their PayPal email account
- PayPal adaptive payment plugin.
If you are using the VMvendor component, you do not need to publish the PayPal adaptive shopper field plugin.
How to configure VM as multivendor
PayPal adaptive Shopper Field Plugin
The PayPal Adaptive shopper field plugin allows the vendors to enter the PayPal email of their account.
Enable the PayPal Adaptive shopper field
If you are using the component VMVendor component, please read this tutorial: the vendor sets his PayPal email via his vendor profile.
The following steps are required VirtueMart if you do note use the VMvendor component.
Create a PayPal Email Shopper field
- Go to Component > VirtueMart > Configuration > Shopper Fields
- Click on New
- For the parameter Field Type, select PayPal Adaptive Shopper Field
- Enter a Field Name and a Field Type
- Set Yes for Show in account maintenance, and No for all the others.
- Save it
each vendor CONFIGUREs his PAYPAL EMAIL
On the front end, the vendor logs in, and in the Shopper Information tab, the vendor sets his PayPal Email.
If the person logged in is not a vendor, the field is not displayed.
If the person logged in is a vendor, but the field is not displayed, check that the plugin PayPal Adaptive of type vmuserfield is published.
Adaptive PayPal Payment Plugin
- Go to VirtueMart > Payment Methods and click on New
- Give a payment name
- Set Published to Yes
- In the Payment method select list, select paypal adaptive
- Click on shared
- Click on Save
- Click on the Configuration tab
Account Settings parameters
Shop mode
Two modes are available:
- Sandbox: The PayPal Sandbox is a self-contained, virtual testing environment that mimics the live PayPal production environment.
- Production
Main vendor PayPal email
Is the PayPal email of the PayPal Business or Premier account
PayPal Username, PayPal Password, PayPal Signature, Application ID
Copy / paste the those informations from your PayPal account.
PayPal Options
Payment mode
Select one of those options:
- Simple: one sender (the shopper) , one receiver (the main vendor).
- Parallel : one sender and multiple receivers: Shoppers pay the order and money goes directly to the "primary vendor" (commissions) and to the sellers (commissions are automatically deducted).
- Chained: Shoppers pays the "primary vendor" and the "primary vendor" pays the other vendors. Payments between the primary vendor and the other vendors is hidden for the shopper.
Example of Parallel Payments
Parallel payment: The sender knows the receivers and the amount paid to each one
Example of Chained Payments

Chained type
In case your payment mode is chained, you can select the chained type:
- instant: payments to the other vendors is immediate
- delayed: payments to the other vendors can be delayed for up to 90 days.
Reverse all on error
This parameter is only for parallel payments. Indicates whether to reverse parallel payments.
- Yes: Each parallel payment is reversed if an error occurs
- No: Each parallel payment is not reversed if an error occurs
Display mode
- Redirect: redirects to the paypal page
- PopUp : not implemented yet
Fee mode
Indicates who pays the PayPal fees:
- Sender : Sender pays all fees (for personal, implicit simple/parallel payments; do not use for chained or unilateral payments)
- Primary receiver Primary receiver pays all fees (chained payments only)
- Each receiver Each receiver pays their own fee (default, personal and unilateral payments)
- Secondary only Secondary receivers pay all fees (use only for chained payments with one secondary receiver)

Vendor Settings Mode
Vendor mode
Indicates if your shop is using the VM vendor component or only VirtueMart is present.
- VirtueMart:
- The PayPal email of the vendors is from the PayPal Adpative Shopper field plugin.
- The payment due to the vendors is the cost price of the product.
- VM vendor comonent:
- The PayPal email is set in the vendor profile of the VM vendor component
- The payment due to the vendor is the Sales Price without the commission set in the component for that vendor
How can you configure the prices in VirtueMart?
In VirtueMart, you can create a calculation rule of type Marge. The base price of the product is then = cost Price + Marge.
Shipment fees
Indicates if the shipment fees shoudl be shared equally between the vendors, or the main vendor pay the full amount of the shipment fees.
Order status
Pending
Select the order status if the payment receives a pending notification from paypal for an order. The Pending reason will be available on the order management.
Confirmed
Select the order status to set if the plugin receives a successful completion notification from PayPal.