MWpro - 5:03 am on Dec 5, 2009 (gmt 0)

I still think IPN would be more efficient. As a customer, I would be confused to as why the site wanted me to fill out my personal information before going to Paypal. And many Paypal users already have accounts where they simply have to log in and their information is already there. If I had a paypal account but you still made me enter my information before I went to Paypal for no apparent reason, I would be pissed off that you wasted my time.

Getting the information after the sale and storing it in the database in the IPN script is way more streamlined in my opinion.

You can probably see why you don't need IPN - it doesn't appear your site needs updating after the sale/registration.

IPN is simply a script on your server that is called after the transaction is successful. It can do whatever you want, from merely send an email thanking the customer for their purchase, to from putting the customer's information into a database, or to updating the amount of your inventory.