PayPal Express AND Gift Certificates -- can this be accelerated?

[tfortan]

I have a question about the Checkout flow while using PayPal Express with a Gift Certificate in your shopping cart...

Scenario:
Regardless of if you click the PayPal Express Button in the CART, CHECKOUT/LOGIN page, you then are redirected to the PayPal site to login. This is fine and understandable. If you select PayPal Express from the Step 3 Payment Page, then you go to STEP 4 Order Confirmation page, then when you click SUBMIT, you are redirected to PayPal to login. This makes sense too.

So at this point, all 3 routes above have ended at the PayPal login. This all seems logical.

So you login to PayPal and arrive at the next step where you see your PAYMENT METHOD and CONTACT INFO. For some reason, when you come here via either the "Zen Cart Shopping Cart page PayPal button" or the "Zen Cart Checkout/LOGIN page PayPal button", you will also see a SHIP TO section with your PayPal shipping info. I assume since Zen Cart skips the Ship Method and Ship Address when buying only a GIFT CERTIFICATE, that when you go to PayPal by choosing it on Zen Cart STEP 3 Payment, that Zen Cart fails to send shipping Info to PayPal. I'm not sure why with the other 2 routes PayPal decides to add it's own Shipping Info to the mix, but it does.

REGARDLESS...
With all 3 possible routes to PayPal Express above, you always get returned to Zen Cart Step 3 Payment Page. Probably in fact PayPal is sending you back to Step 2 Shipping Page, but since you are ordering a Gift Cert, Zen Cart knows you don't need a ship method or Address so ZC forwards you ahead. And since Gift Cert mod and coupons are enabled, it stops you at the Payment Page, even though no payment options are available. So you proceed to Zen Cart Step 4 Confirm, and click SUBMIT to finish your order.

My Question:
Is there a way to let PayPal know when buying just a Gift Certificate, that no Shipping Info (address or method) is required? This would just let you finish the order on PayPal and not have to come back to Zen Cart for Step 3 and 4 unnecessarily? Or should it be acting this way already and something is simply wrong with my Zen Cart installation?

Thanks in advance for any help with this!

Tanner

[DrByte]

Well ... if you skipped the return to your store, your customers would miss out on the option of redeeming coupons or applying existing GV funds to their purchase (that's why they are taken to the payment page which you're referring to as Step 3). Thus, if a customer were to desire to do that and you didn't give them the option, you'd be dealing with phone calls after the fact wanting to edit/revise their orders, having to issue refunds, and probably having to deal with chargebacks initiated by those customers who elected not to contact you, but to instead take it directly to PayPal, thus resulting in completely losing the sale.

[tfortan]

Thank you for your reply!

I understand your reasoning for 2 out of the 3 scenarios. However I'm not so sure about the following scenario:

What if you select PayPal Express from the Step 3 Payment Page, then you go to STEP 4 Order Confirmation page, then you click SUBMIT and are redirected to PayPal to login. In this scenario, there is no reason to come back to Zen Cart Step 3 because you have already been there and had the option to enter COUPON or GIFT CERT info. Is this normal behaviour or is this a bug with my installation?

Tanner

[DrByte]

Is this normal behaviour or is this a bug with my installation?

No, that's not normal.

After adding things to their cart and beginning checkout (logging in or creating an account and then choosing any relevant shipping options if applicable), the customer will then find themselves on Step 2 (checkout-payment page).
When the customer selects an option (in your case you're talking about PayPal) then they will be taken to Step 3 to confirm their order.

Since they've selected PayPal and are already logged in and have gone through the normal checkout process instead of clicking the Express button on the shopping cart page ... they're now on the checkout-confirmation page. That page will take them to the PayPal site to login, choose funding source, and click the Pay Now button which will complete payment and return them to the Checkout-Success page on your site which thanks them for shopping and displays their order number.

That's how it works out-of-the-box in all the testing done prior to releasing the software.