I've been working on a minimalist e-commerce website where I am trying to leverage Paypal's Add To Cart and View Cart buttons for the financial aspect of this website. However, I found out if you are not a U.S merchant you are restricted on Paypal's shipping calculator by not being able to calculate shipping by weight and region.
I am looking for alternatives to making a full e-commerce site, where the users do not have to register or type in their personal information or charge a fixed shipping rate for products.
I am curious on what everyone thinks regarding the user experience of a user entering their zip/postal code into an input box and being presented with a total price by estimated shipping prices (from UPS' API, Canada Post's API), and calculating taxes by region for each product. Otherwise, offer an option for the base product price plus a warning that the shipping and taxes are pending without specifying their zip/postal codes. If you have any other ideas, I would be glad to read them!
Thanks for your time!
That's what I typically recommend doing...gathering shipping directly from shipping carrier API's and then passing those values into the shopping cart / payment integration accordingly.
Any PayPal integration you choose would allow you to pass those details in be it Payments Standard, Express Checkout, Payments Pro, etc.
Related
I am selling just one type of item on a website and I am using the Buy Now button from Paypal .. is there a way to change the postage cost for overseas customers? I have seen in Paypal you can change the postage depending on the value of the sale (for more than one item) but I can't see how to change the postage for overseas? Any help would be very much appreciated. Thank you
Dawnyanne
Within your PayPal account you can update the shipping methods to include international shipping methods. Just choose the option for International Shipping Methods.
From PayPal Documentation:
You can use PayPal to calculate shipping costs automatically on your website.
Here's how to set up shipping profile calculations:
Log in to your PayPal account.
Click the Business profile con beside the "Log out" button and select
Profile and settings.
Click Selling tools.
Click Update beside "Shipping calculations."
Click Start to set up your shipping region.
Set up one or more shipping methods and click Continue.
Enter your shipping information and click Create Another or Continue.
Review your information and click Save Shipping Methods.
Note:
Shipping rates depend on order amount, order weight, or item quantity. You can choose rates based on a fixed amount or a percentage.
You will not be able to use the PayPal Profile Shipping Calculator with Express Checkout and PayPal Payments Pro accounts. This functionality can only be used with PayPal Payments Standard accounts.
If your shipping methods require more customization, you may want to integrate PayPal with a third-party application. Go to our Developer Network at https://developer.paypal.com/ for information on integrating a third-party shopping cart or shipping application.
Note: Customers with a Personal account will need to upgrade to a Business account for this feature.
Setting Up Shipping Methods
I have a working paypal IPN, but ive been wondering: can I somehow set the "I have no paypal account" as the default choice when a customer is directed to paypal?
Short anwer: No, don't do that.
Long answer:
PayPal sets this dynamically based on customer information, primarily the cookie. In other words, people who have logged into PayPal on that device/browser before generally see that option presented first; people who have not are presented content that features the non-PayPal-login more prominently. This is done (primarily) to increase conversion for you (ie get the highest percentage of people to complete the payment & buy from you). Trying to defeat PayPal's code here would usually be counterproductive.
That said, there are also differences in how PayPal's screens are presented between various PayPal products (e.g. Payflow looks different from Express Checkout which looks different from Website Payments Standard) due in part to the mix of payment methods supported by each of these products, and also in part to expected customer mix with each of these. Some of these products also vary their behavior somewhat based on account settings or button/api parameters, again with the goal of being as effective for you as possible. But those parameters are product-specific and the question did not specify which PayPal product you are using.
As an example of variation between (and within) products:
Website Payments Standard (WPS) was designed to allow a merchant to accept payments from everyone, as the merchant's "sole solution." Express Checkout was originally designed to be used alongside a merchant's existing or separate credit card collection page, by merchant who would directly bill credit cards through a separate product (PayPal's DoDirectPayment or another processor). So PayPal's first WPS page was designed to present well to buyers with just credit cards or buyers with PayPal accounts. But a buyer would only be sent to the Express Checkout screen if they proactively chose to use PayPal rather than entering a credit card directly on the merchant's page, so PayPal's first Express Checkout screen could be aimed directly at PayPal account holders to generate the most intuitive buyer experience and highest conversion. Since that original version (ten years ago, in 2005!), however, Express Checkout has become more integrated into "PayPal Pro" and can also used as a sole solution, like WPS. For that usage it now supports an option that includes collecting card payments without a PayPal account.
PayPal also offers Payflow, Hosted Sole Solution, Adaptive Payments, and more payment flows.... each of which offers some slightly-different balances of buyer experience (and merchant experience/requirements -- e.g. some of these give the merchant access to credit card numbers and require PCI and merchant banking agreements, etc etc).
I'm trying to figure out how to set different shipping charges dependent on different post code areas at paypal checkout?
At the moment the courier company I use for delivery from my website charge a flat rate for most of the UK, but some islands and outlying areas are charged more for postage.
These areas are identified via their postal code, however I cant seem to find how to change the postal charges in relation to the postcode entered by the customer.
At the moment someone from an Island could easily buy and pay for something without paying extra for postage as specified on my website.
Thanks for your help......
Look into Standard implementation of PayPal Express checkout (no callback). This way after the user completes the transaction on PayPal, he is taken back to your site and you can charge him whatever you need to based on the address from PayPal.
I use paypal express checkout on my website which adds specific postage amounts dependent on how much is spent by the client wherever they are in the world. However with the recent increase in overseas postage I am looking to add another postage amount dependent on where in the world the client is?
Many thanks in advance
Steve
If you are using Express Checkout, you could utilize the Callback API to calculate the shipping and taxes and have it correctly displayed on the checkout page. Your server would be performing the calculations and then sending it over to PayPal to update the checkout page based on what shipping address they select from their PayPal account. Some merchants will even tie this in with other API's through 3rd party shipping to get accurate shipping charges. You can find more on the Callback API in the Developers Guide, on page 55. And there is some information here as well.
I am trying to use the Recurring payment API offered by PayPal.
I have a scenario which I am not able to address directly. It goes like this.
We have a website where we sell some services. Now the services are charged per user license. A user can buy/cancel user license in between. We want to offer the customer a recurring billing option. We have to notice here that the amount may vary each billing cycle based on the number of user licenses the customer uses during that cycle.
Is there any way I can achieve this using PayPal recurring Payment API's.
I realize this is a very old post, but it still shows up for Google searches, so I thought I'd add:
Paypal does allow you to do this now, using their new adaptive payments api.
Authorize.net also has a service that might work called Customer Information Manager.
The recurring payment option is a fixed amount that the customer pre-agrees to pay each month (or period). To do what you're trying to do, a customer would have to pre-agree to pay whatever amount you decide to charge at a later time. This means pre-authorizing an unknown payment amount, which will not be allowed by any payment service.
Your only options are:
Bill the variable amount each month (i.e. no subscription).
Set up a subscription where the monthly amount is the maximum that could potentially be billed, and then refund the difference each month.
Good luck with #2 - I would never agree to such a thing as a customer, personally.
What you're looking for is covered in the UK by the Direct Debit system, however given the potential for abuse it's very tightly controlled and there are a lot of restrictions and regulations governing it.
I'd strongly suggest you just set up a monthly invoicing system that just bills the client each month.
I don't know its meaning full or not as it is a very old post.
Instead of creating recurring profile on PayPal Server, You can store the customer's credit card on the PayPal using REST API: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/#vault then every month you can fetch it and charge it like recurring Payment Or When client is no longer with the services then just remove its card from PayPal.
I suppose Authorize.net SIM method also does the same.
Hope this make sense.