PayPal Website Payment Standard

I'm trying to setup a shopping cart with PP Website Payment Standard but I must be missing something.

When I ran the Checkout Wizard (eCart5), and selected the Payment Standard option, I still ended up with a PayPal Express Checkout button at the top of my checkout.php page AND a WebAssist styled "Checkout" button at the bottom.

The express button is named "PayPal_ExpressCheckout_button" in the input code.

First, I believe I do need the Payment Standard for this client. They don't want customers to have to sign up for a PayPal account to checkout.

Secondly, why the two different buttons? Did I select the wrong thing in the Wizard? I don't think I added that button because the page was generated along with the other 5 or 6 pages.

Thanks,
TroyD

Any thoughts on this?
I deleted everything and started over. I followed the gsg line by line and I still ended up with two buttons. My thoughts were that maybe the Express Checkout button was an option that I could just delete.

Is that button at the bottom of the checkout.php page suppose to be the Standard button? The top PayPal button takes you directly to PayPal. The bottom button takes you to the confirm.php page.

But when I click that checkout button, I get an error on the PayPal site that starts with...

  We cannot process this transaction because there is a problem with the PayPal email address supplied by the seller.  

So I'm wondering if the username for the API credentials is not what it wants here. So I'm back to the original question. How do I create a PayPal Website Payment Standard version of the checkout and not create the code for an Express Checkout?

By the way, I found the WebAssist pdf for using the PayPal Sandbox and it was nicely written. However, it makes no mention of testing Standard setups.

Thanks,
TroyD

The main difference between a Payments Standard checkout and the Express Checkout is that with the Express Checkout you will be able to know the status of the transaction when it is placed. With the regular Payments Standard you do not get to know the status of the transaction when it occurs. Only after the transaction occurs will you be able to know the status by setting up an IPN page. This is more difficult and takes much more time to integrate. If you wanted to add the regular Payments Standard you could do so with the following steps:

Clear out the checkout page or creating a new blank one. On the new page from the eCart insert bar choose checkout form. Then select 'remote' and chose Website Payments Standard. This will give you an interface where you can setup the standard PayPal checkout. You will need to supply the PayPal email address for the profile instead of API credentials.

I think it would be better to use the Express Checkout option. I'm not able to reproduce the issue as you are seeing it. Please post back with your checkout pages that were crafted minus the sensitive details like the PayPal api username and sig. I will check on things to see what result you are getting and let you know what I come up with. If this issue requires further investigation I will open a ticket for you on this issue.

Eric,

Thanks for the reply. And I will follow up on your recommendations. A couple of details, and questions first.

Will creating the new checkout page affect what I have already? I ask because I have some stuff working. What I did was first, hide/ignore the PayPal Express button that appears at the top of the checkout.php page. And then, I changed the value of the form button "Checkout" at the bottom of the page to my test email address. This seemed to fix the error.

So now I go from;
Main product page with (add to cart button)
then to the cart.php page which has my details, price & shipping
then if I click on "Checkout" it goes to the checkout.php page to fill in addresses.
then if I click on the bottom button it goes to the confirm page.
and finally, if I click on "Checkout" it takes me to PayPal with all details filled in.
Here's where I get confused. It wants me (as the buyer) to login or create an account.

Since it's my understanding that PayPal Standard does not require an account for the buyer, then I might have something wrong here. Maybe creating the new page you mentioned will fix this, but I wonder if I would end up with the same result by deleting the Express portion.

I will remove my personal information and post the pages. But for now I wanted to update what I had done. And also post a screen shot of the page in question. The two buttons I referred to in my previous post are visible here. These were both created at the same time, within the Checkout Wizard, but they behaved differently.

Thanks,
TroyD

(By the way, I couldn't figure out how to embed the image in my text as an uploaded image. So it's attached instead.)

  They don't want customers to have to sign up for a PayPal account to checkout.  

Don't forget that Paypal Express requires a PayPal account for checkout whereas PayPal Standard doesn't.

Yep. And I'm sure there are good reasons for using both methods. The thing is, no two clients are going to want the same thing. Where I'm getting so confused, is all the options in both the Checkout Wizard and the Insert Checkout form only mention PP Website Payment Standard or Pro. But most all of the documentation talks only about PP Express Checkout.
So as I am following the gsg I am getting confused.

It seems that most at WA are pushing the use of PP Express Checkout. And I'm sure it's for a good reason. My prediction is I will soon see that, but as it is now, this is my first use of eCart for a client and they want Standard. I'm going to try to eventually setup a demo cart using both methods. That way, they can see both in action.

Honestly, I've setup lots of simple static "Buy Now" and "Add To Cart" pages for clients. But nothing this interactive. PayPal is difficult to integrate due to their limited options. And eCart appears to have this extra control. So I really want to learn both methods so I can use it for extreme shopping carts and the simple 5 product page or subscription.

TroyD

Eric,

Do I create a checkout display first on this page? I inserted the checkout form on a new page and it seems to work. But nothing connects to it so I assume I need to set my redirects to point to this new checkout at some point. But I don't find the recommended flow for the Standard setup.

Does it go from Product page, to this new checkout, then to PayPal? If so, where do they enter their shipping information? Can I put the confirm page in there somewhere, or maybe combine it?

I clicked help and got to a page with limited information. But it doesn't tell me enough.

Thanks,
TroyD

If you have the new checkout page implemented you will need to manually connect it to the checkout button on your cart page by updating the checkout server behavior on your cart page, it just points to the file you choose.

It sounds like you have it working both ways. If the Express Checkout method is working for you and you have the option to check out with a PayPal account you might also be able to checkout with that method without having a PayPal account. I have been looking into this a bit and have found some more info on the availability of using Express Checkout without a PayPal account. Here is some info that I have found on the subject:


PayPal has an "Account Optional" setting in your PayPal account Profile, under Payment Receiving Preferences. Ensure that it is on.
However, note that the PayPal account optional is not available for all locations, some locations (or countries, including China) are required by PayPal to have a PayPal account before making a transaction. In this same regard, if the IP address of the buyer is determined by the system to be at a location where the PayPal account optional is not available, they will be required to create a PayPal account.


So you may be able to have the Express Checkout option setup and allow customers to make a purchase without having a PayPal account. You should start by checking for the account optional preference in your profile, then you can run a test to see if you can get this option available to you when using Express Checkout in your site. Let us know what you experience with this.

Thanks Eric,

That was actually very helpful. I never noticed that setting in PP before. I still have to test it with the PP Express Checkout now, and then I might be able to go that route if my client feels it covers their needs.

I'll post back when I complete the test on this.

Thanks,
TroyD

Ok, let us know if you have any further questions. I definitely think the Express Checkout option is the way to go, much cleaner and easier.