PayPal Express - Create new account

[saplanet]

Searched forum, but didn’t find this question.

I have just upgraded from 1.53 to ZC1.54, just tested the checkout process, I use PayPal Express checkout. After the last stage of checkout, brought to paypal payment gateway.

In the past, there were two options:
1 Login to paypal account to pay
2 Enter debit/credit card to pay

Now:
1 Login to paypal account to pay
2 Enter debit/credit card to pay & create paypal account.

Is there a setting in admin that I can change so that customers DO NOT have to create an account? Is this a PayPal side that is changing it to mandatory, or is it a setting that I am missing after the upgrade?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[DrByte]

PayPal determines those options on their end. And it may appear differently each time you visit, depending on whether there's a PayPal cookie in your browser already, or other various factors they use.
Nothing changed between ZC v1.5.3 and v1.5.4 with regard to anything that would determine that display.

[mc12345678]

Further, there is an option in ZC to autocreate an account upon return from PayPal Express; however, that statement is in regards to a PayPal account. As far as the account creation, PayPal has changed some of their policies supposedly requiring a customer using PayPal to create an account after certain criteria is met. The store owner has no control over forcing that or not per se. Haven't looked into it, but perhaps PayPal offers a plan that does not require customers to create a PayPal account when using PayPal.

[DrByte]

Further, there is an option in ZC to autocreate an account upon return from PayPal Express; however, that statement is in regards to a PayPal account. As far as the account creation, PayPal has changed some of their policies supposedly requiring a customer using PayPal to create an account after certain criteria is met. The store owner has no control over forcing that or not per se. Haven't looked into it, but perhaps PayPal offers a plan that does not require customers to create a PayPal account when using PayPal.

Several things to clarify about that statement:
1. The Zen Cart option to "create a customer account in Zen Cart" is NOT a PayPal account. It's just a customer record in your store, so you can communicate with that customer again in the future, and allow them to log in to review any orders they've placed and the status of those orders. IT IS NOT A PAYPAL ACCOUNT.

2. PayPal has always offered mixed options regarding forcing buyers to create a PayPal account before completing a purchase. It depends on MANY factors, including what country the buyer is in, what country the seller is in, how many times that customer has purchased via PayPal before (identified based on their credit card number and address/email information).
While this discussion is in the context of Express Checkout, I'll also mention as an aside that they've also always offered the option to create an account at the end of all "PayPal Standard" checkouts.

3. There are 2 additional factors which control whether PayPal Express Checkout invites or requires customers to create an account:
a) There's a setting in your PayPal Seller Settings for it. BUT SINCE YOU CLAIM THIS WASN'T BEING ASKED BEFORE, THEN THIS SETTING IS LIKELY ALREADY SET. If you want help about that, contact PayPal support for help understanding it. In fact, they can always explain everything about this "create account" bit in much better detail than anybody here can ... and they can look at a specific transaction and tell you EXACTLY why they required an account in that case.

b) Zen Cart has for many years made use of a setting which we strongly asked PayPal to add, which they finally did, to go directly to the "pay without an account" section of the PayPal page, instead of going to the "Log in with your PayPal account" as the first thing customers see. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHETHER PAYPAL REQUIRES THE CUSTOMER TO MAKE AN ACCOUNT. It merely makes the checkout not look like customers have to already have a PayPal account to make a purchase.

Whew ... that's a whole lotta text to simply say: the real answer you see is found by contacting PayPal directly. It's not a Zen Cart issue, as long as you're using the original built-in Zen Cart code for using PayPal.
If you're using addons/mods/plugins from someone else, and that's how PayPal is being offered to your customers, then your mileage may vary; in which case, contact *them* instead.

[saplanet]

Thank you for the long reply, and I really appreciate it.

PayPal merchant technical support has replied with the following

Thank you for contacting Merchant Technical Services.

To start, here are a few requirements to enable guest checkout:
-Confirmed email address
-Verified PayPal Account
-PayPal Account Optional set to "On" in your PayPal settings

With Express Checkout there is an additional step:
In order to enable guest checkout in Express Checkout you simply set SOLUTIONTYPE=Sole in your initial SetExpressCheckout API call. If you are using a third party shopping cart you will need to work with them or your developer to implement this variable. As long as "SOLUTIONTYPE=Sole" is passed in the "SetExpressCheckout" API then guest checkout will be enabled.

Note: In order for SOLUTIONTYPE=Sole to work, you must have 'PayPal Account Optional' set to 'On' with the 'Website Preferences' section of your PayPal account.
Profile > My selling tools (or: My selling preferences) > Website Preferences > Update > PayPal Account Optional: On.

The option to complete a purchase without the use or creation of a PayPal account is not always available to all buyers. The option is presented based on several risk factors including but not limited to the buyer's PayPal purchase history, PayPal cookies stored on the buyer's computer, location and credit assessment.

If you would like to have a more consecutive checkout process when allowing the users to checkout with or without the use or creation of a PayPal account I can suggest the consideration of using a PayPal Payments Pro account where if approved and implemented, you would be able to accept credit card transactions directly. PayPal Payments Pro is not available in all countries, please use the link below to verify if it is available for your account.

Product Availability: https://developer.paypal.com/webapps...roduct_matrix/
PayPal Payments Pro: https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/paypal-payments-pro

DrByte, would you know which file should I edit for " As long as "SOLUTIONTYPE=Sole" is passed in the "SetExpressCheckout" API then guest checkout will be enabled.”?

I was using PayPal payments pro before, but I believe I switched to express because for pro the items weren’t listed in the payment page (for some reasons).

[lat9]

Thank you for the long reply, and I really appreciate it.

PayPal merchant technical support has replied with the following



DrByte, would you know which file should I edit for " As long as "SOLUTIONTYPE=Sole" is passed in the "SetExpressCheckout" API then guest checkout will be enabled.”?

I was using PayPal payments pro before, but I believe I switched to express because for pro the items weren’t listed in the payment page (for some reasons).

I'm not DrByte, but the PayPal Express Checkout module (/includes/modules/payment/paypalwpp.php) already sets the SOLUTIONTYPE=Sole value on the SetExpressCheckout API call, all the way back to Zen Cart v1.3.9h.

[DrByte]

DrByte, would you know which file should I edit for " As long as "SOLUTIONTYPE=Sole" is passed in the "SetExpressCheckout" API then guest checkout will be enabled.”?

That's the thing I was talking about in 3. b) in my earlier post. Zen Cart already does that.

[DivaVocals]

That's the thing I was talking about in 3. b) in my earlier post. Zen Cart already does that.

and I was JUST gonna point that out too..

The other thing I was gonna suggest to the OP is that the Developers toolkit in the shop admin would have been a GREAT way to search to see where/if the code already existed.. (search for "SOLUTIONTYPE=Sole")

[margecc]

I have tried to figure this out on my own, but I have no idea what I am missing. My customers no longer seem to be able to pay without creating or logging into a paypal account (which was not the case in the past). I spent a long while on the phone with Paypal this morning and they said that everything is set correctly on their end and that I need to make sure the SOLUTIONTYPE=Sole is set properly. Following this post, plus a quick search in developers tool kit seems to show everything is correct, except that it still goes to the login / create account paypal page, not the checkout without account page. I know that paypal made some changes to the CURL in January and I had to make some changes to get it to work, and was wondering if perhaps that is affecting how the "solutiontype" is being sent?

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. The paypal person suggested that I could switch to Paypal Standard from Paypal Express, but from what I am reading on the forum that doesn't seem like the best idea.

WEBSITE: www.valuelogs.com

[merclord]

I am currently having this issue with zencart 1.5.5d. My customers are forced to create a PayPal account no matter what. My Account-Optional setting is turned on, the customers have deleted all their cookies, but they are still forced to create an account. So I contacted PayPal support and told them about a note I found in the MOST CURRENT paypalwpp.php file which says the following:

*** Begin Code ***
// PayPal has acknowledged that they have a bug which prevents Account-Optional from working in InContext mode, so we have to use 'Mark' for InContext to work as of Dec 2015:
if ($this->use_incontext_checkout && $options['SOLUTIONTYPE'] == 'Sole') $options['SOLUTIONTYPE'] = 'Mark';
*** End Code ***

I sent this info to Paypal and they responded as follows:

*** Begin Response ***

Hi Mark,
Yes, there used to be an issue with using solutiontype=sole with In-Context, however that is not longer the case.## You can now pass solutiontype=sole to enable guest checkout with In-Context.##
##
*** End Response

So my question is, if this issue has been resolved, how do I modify the code to ensure that the API call for solutiontype is always = sole? I can see an obvious way to do it, but I would like an official answer from @DrByte if possible.