Answer 09 of 12
How does buying nature photos here work? – Affordable Nature Photos
PayPal only, no account, no basket. The sequence, the download window, and how to recover a failed purchase.
Press buy on an image page, pay with PayPal, download the file. There is no account, no password, no basket and no mailing list.
The sequence
The button opens PayPal. When PayPal confirms, this site verifies the capture against the exact image and the exact amount before it releases anything, then issues a download link bound to that purchase. The download starts on its own; if the browser blocks it, the link is on the page.
The file is the original: full dimensions, no watermark, metadata intact.
Why PayPal and nothing else
Because it means no card details ever reach this site. The entire payment side happens inside PayPal, which removes an entire category of risk from a small catalogue and is the reason there is no card form here.
It also means the receipt lives somewhere you control rather than in an account on a site you may never visit again.
The download window
Five downloads over seven days. Enough to fetch the file on a second machine or pass it to a colleague on the same project, short enough that a link pasted into a shared document does not stay open forever.
No basket
Each image is bought on its own page. At five dollars a basket adds a step and saves nothing.
If you are licensing more than about twenty files for one project and want a single invoice, send the asset ids and we will arrange it. If your finance department needs company details on an invoice, say so and we will issue one; it is a manual step, which is a deliberate consequence of not running accounts.
Recovering a purchase
Nothing downloaded. Use the link on the confirmation page.
Tab closed too early. The purchase is recorded against the PayPal order id, not your browser. Send the order id from your receipt and the link is reissued.
Link expired. Same answer. A licence you paid for does not lapse because a link did.
Charged but the page errored. Exactly what the verification step exists for. The capture is recorded here; send the order id and the file follows. If the capture genuinely failed, PayPal will not have charged you.
What is stored
The order id, the asset id, the amount, and the payer email PayPal reports. Nothing else: no account, no profile, no marketing list, and no payment details.