I tried testing out purchasing using Paypal's sandbox.  Maybe this is easier for me because I am in the U.S., but setting up Paypal was not that bad -- after ten minutes of banging my head against the wall -- and once I had my Business and Personal sandbox accounts it was easy to setup things in Symbiostock (thanks Leo and anyone else who worked on the Paypal IPN stuff!).

For those who are just setting up their sites and want to test out purchasing, here is what I had to do, although  because of all the damage to my head the beginning part is kind of fuzzy ...

Note:  This does not include signing up for a Paypal merchant account as I am working with an existing account.

• Sign up with Paypal Developer
  Select the "Log In with Paypal" button and then login using your Paypal Business account.  This seems to do nothing except change the Login button to text with the name on the account, but it creates a Business sandbox account for you automatically.  The next thing to do is create a Personal sandbox account.
  
• Setting up/Managing Sandbox accounts
  From the Paypal Developer page click on the "Applications" button.  On the left edge of the window select the text, "Sandbox accounts."  Click on the "Create Account" button at the top and setup both a Business sandbox account and a Personal sandbox account.  The Business sandbox account will be a stand-in for your business/merchant account and will receive (fake) payment.  The Personal sandbox account will be the test client who will (fake) purchase stuff from your site.
  
  Here are the settings I have for each account:
  
  • Country = (the default setting was my country so I left it that way)
  • Account type = Personal
  • Email address = Use an email different from the email associated with the admin account on your Symbiostock site.  If you already have a test user account on your Symbiostock site you can use the email associated with it.
  • Feel free to set the fake user's first and last name if you want.
  • Bank verified account: Yes (this was the default setting for me and I left it that way)
  • Credit card type:  Visa (I did not play with the other options)
  The other fields I left alone.
  
  Once you create an account you cannot change the email address, so if you need to create an account with a different email address you can (delete the account, if you want and) make a new one!
  
• Integrating Symbiostock
  As admin on your Symbiostock site make your way to the Symbiostock settings (the bee!) and click on the "Settings" tab.  Select the "Sandbox (testing)" button.  Your "Paypal email" is your Sandbox Business account.  Do not forget to click "Save Changes" at the bottom of the page!  I did not take the time to play with the "Site Paypal Logo" option.  That's it for integration!
• Tester/Client Account
  If you do not already have a test client account log out of your site or open a different browser and browse to your web site's client login page (e.g., http://<yoursite>/please-log-in/) and setup an account using the same email you used above for the Personal Sandbox account.  Check the email inbox for the welcome email (hopefully it takes only a few minutes, so take a bathroom break or something), log in as the client and buy something.

You can view your Sandbox Paypal accounts by logging into https://www.sandbox.paypal.com with your Sandbox accounts.

Now you can see what the experience is like on your web site as a client.  You may want to put on your site the fact that your site is a test site.  I am not sure what happens when someone with a real Paypal account tries to purchase something, though ... you could disable registration while using the Sandbox (from admin dashboard go to Settings->General and deselect the checkbox "Anyone can register."

Of course, once you are ready to sell your pictures for real make sure people can register, your Symbiostock->Settings Paypal section is set to, "Live," and your real Paypal business email is in the, "Paypal Email," field.

Edit:  Updated based on helpful correction by Redneck, thanks!

Alternatively if you do find the sandbox confusing (as I did as it seemed to send you to a different site altogether with a name I had never heard of) reduce the price of an item to 10p or so, use a different email address to create an account and make the purchase, then remember to increase the price again 

I never could get sandbox to work correctly so i just went live and use Tinnys method.

We obviously use the more logical feminine method Cathy 

  I had actually tried to set up sandbox once before, about a year or so ago, when I had my KTools site up, and couldn't get it to work then either. I thought I would give it another shot this time, but no. I must be missing some step in the process and I don't have the patience to try and track it down.

I just did the Paypal Sandbox testing but I think jshooz got one thing wrong with his directions.

If you've never done the Paypal sandbox testing before, you will not see a sandbox BUSINESS account because there is none.
You need to create both, a sandbox business account (as merchant, with your Symbiostock admin email) AND a sandbox personal account (as customer, with a user login email).

Testing went ok.

Quote from: Redneck on June 24, 2013, 08:26

I just did the Paypal Sandbox testing but I think jshooz got one thing wrong with his directions.

If you've never done the Paypal sandbox testing before, you will not see a sandbox BUSINESS account because there is none.
You need to create both, a sandbox business account (as merchant, with your Symbiostock admin email) AND a sandbox personal account (as customer, with a user login email).

Testing went ok.

Thanks for trying this out!  Just curious, do you have two business accounts or just the one that you created?  I have a business account with a weird user name that I did not choose, so I assumed that it was setup by Paypal automatically (also I read in the FAQ that a business account is created when you first sign up).

I had one working Paypal business account. After Signup with Paypal Sandbox I created one sandbox business account and one sandbox customer account. No sandbox account was created automatically after signing up.