How to send PayPayl Express Checkout the custome's addresses?

[ibuttons]

I am using PayPayl Express Checkout and I would like Zen Cart to pass PayPal my customers' billing and shipping addresses so that my customers don't have to re-enter this info on the PayPal screen when they go to pay.

Not only is this a hassle for them, but the PayPal screens are pretty cryptic and my customers are missing that fact that they have to do this. They enter their billing address, but don't see where to change the shipping (since it is sooooo poorly labeled) and they leave it untouched. So PayPal sends back the billing address to ZC as BOTH the billing and shipping, overriding the correct shipping address that the customer had entered in ZC.

I think it SHOULD be possible to pass these addresses to PayPal because I found a reference on stackoverflow.com from a person called "PayPal Joey" on Feb 3, 2010 who said:

it's absolutely possible to pass in address so it's prefilled for new PayPal customers, or to have PayaPal not ask for it at all.

I am pretty sure that ZC is NOT passing this info to PayPal because I turned on logging and entered a test order with 2 different addresses (billing and shipping) and the log file shows just one address. Even this address doesn't get displayed on PayPal.

Also, PayPal tech support looked at my account and told me:

it does not appear that you are submitting shipping information in your SetExpressCheckout call and so PayPal is sending back the default shipping information when you request transaction details.

Course, that is as far as they would go.

So, my questions are:

1. Is it possible to get ZC to pass PayPal both billing and shipping addresses for all my customers, whether or not they are a new PayPal customer or using PayPal as a guest?
2. and to get PayPal to pre-populate their screens with both the shipping and billing addresses with that info?
3. and to get PayPal to pass back that info to ZC?
4. If so, can you tell me how, hopefully in lots of detail, please?

Many TIA.

Background info:

My site URL: giveonlythebest.com
Host: GoDaddy
Other ZC sites: i have several other ZC sites and they seem to work the same way.
Addons: Order Delivery, Numinix Google Merchant Center Feeder, Premium 8b template from ZenFlavor.com, and SalesReport310.
Server OS: Linux 2.6.32-358.18.1.el6.nfsfixes.x86_64
Database: MySQL 5.0.96-log
Server Date: 12/15/2013-Sun at 20:22:07
Database Date: 12/15/2013-Sun at 20:22:07
HTTP Server: Apache
PHP Version: 5.3.24 (Zend: 2.3.0)
PHP Memory Limit: 64M PHP
Safe Mode: Off
PHP File Uploads: On
Max Size: 32M
POST Max Size: 33M
Database Data Size: 6,215 kB
Database Index Size: 1,210 kB

[mc12345678]

I am using PayPayl Express Checkout and I would like Zen Cart to pass PayPal my customers' billing and shipping addresses so that my customers don't have to re-enter this info on the PayPal screen when they go to pay.

Not only is this a hassle for them, but the PayPal screens are pretty cryptic and my customers are missing that fact that they have to do this. They enter their billing address, but don't see where to change the shipping (since it is sooooo poorly labeled) and they leave it untouched. So PayPal sends back the billing address to ZC as BOTH the billing and shipping, overriding the correct shipping address that the customer had entered in ZC.

I think it SHOULD be possible to pass these addresses to PayPal because I found a reference on stackoverflow.com from a person called "PayPal Joey" on Feb 3, 2010 who said:



I am pretty sure that ZC is NOT passing this info to PayPal because I turned on logging and entered a test order with 2 different addresses (billing and shipping) and the log file shows just one address. Even this address doesn't get displayed on PayPal.

Also, PayPal tech support looked at my account and told me:

Course, that is as far as they would go.

So, my questions are:

1. Is it possible to get ZC to pass PayPal both billing and shipping addresses for all my customers, whether or not they are a new PayPal customer or using PayPal as a guest?
2. and to get PayPal to pre-populate their screens with both the shipping and billing addresses with that info?
3. and to get PayPal to pass back that info to ZC?
4. If so, can you tell me how, hopefully in lots of detail, please?

Many TIA.

Background info:

My site URL: giveonlythebest.com
Host: GoDaddy
Other ZC sites: i have several other ZC sites and they seem to work the same way.
Addons: Order Delivery, Numinix Google Merchant Center Feeder, Premium 8b template from ZenFlavor.com, and SalesReport310.
Server OS: Linux 2.6.32-358.18.1.el6.nfsfixes.x86_64
Database: MySQL 5.0.96-log
Server Date: 12/15/2013-Sun at 20:22:07
Database Date: 12/15/2013-Sun at 20:22:07
HTTP Server: Apache
PHP Version: 5.3.24 (Zend: 2.3.0)
PHP Memory Limit: 64M PHP
Safe Mode: Off
PHP File Uploads: On
Max Size: 32M
POST Max Size: 33M
Database Data Size: 6,215 kB
Database Index Size: 1,210 kB

There are a great number of threads already written on this topic looking for such an answer. There are also a great number of unanswered questions that need to be, to address all of the various scenarios that could occur as a resuult of implementing the desired goal.

You could customize it as you wish, but realize all the things that could change along the way and then also try to realize the significance of those changes. A hopefully quick example is, if the user identifies on your site, their billing address and shipping address, then they go to Paypal and one of those is wrong/payment won't be accepted because the shipping address is out of the area permitted by PayPal policy, so the customer changes the address in PayPal. When they get back to your site, what then? Are you going to override PayPal's permission? Did the new shipping address get sent back? Where will that be stored now? What if the new shipping address that came back wasn't because PayPal didn't like it, but because the customer opted for a different shipping address or it was chosen for them by PayPal?

You said something about passing information as a new customer/guest, may be able to get that info passed, but what if they then login while at PayPal after all that information is passed?

Not saying that the situation is good as it is, but it is just a few of those questions (and there are more) that make it difficult to implement a plan suitable to all. No doubt this makes things difficult to operate, but at the moment there is no one size fits all for the situation you are trying to address, and therefore no "patch" provided. It is not a new "issue" either but appears to have been discussed for several years now.

Wish I had better news, maybe someone else can offer some different insite.

[lat9]

I think that the code change that I proposed in this (http://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.p...35#post1230035) posting might help.

[ibuttons]

Thank you for the detailed reply. Greatly appreciated!

I think the specs on how this should work are really not so complicated if we break it down into parts. I'll plant the flag here and hopefully get this started with what seems logical to me.

• For customers who use PayPal as a guest (I'll take this first as it seems simple and obvious to me.)
  .
  
  
  1. The first page on PayPal's site that customers will see has a place to enter an address. It is not labeled, but it turns out from experimentation that PayPal considers this their BILLING address.
     
     Pretty clearly, this field should be pre-populated with the billing address the customer entered in Zen Cart. If they want to change that, well, ok, no problem since PP sends it back to ZC once the payment is accepted and ZC updates the order's billing address to reflect this. This works nicely as is. All that is needed here is to pre-populate the BILLING field. And according to PayPal Joey, this is quite doable.
     
     Here is a screen grab of PP's first screen showing what turns out to be the BILLING address field. This is the field that should be pre-populated with info from ZC:
     
     
  2. The second page on PayPal's site that customers will see repeats the address from the previous screen and has a small and not very obvious link that says "Change". 99% of my customers including myself did not see/use this link. I am guessing that most did not see it and the ones that did assumed that since they already entered their shipping address into ZC, that this was not necessary to re-enter it here.
     
     Pretty clearly, this field should be pre-populated with the shipping address the customer entered in Zen Cart. If they want to change that, well, ok, no problem since PP sends it back to ZC once the payment is accepted and ZC updates the order's shipping address to reflect this. This works nicely as is. All that is needed here is to pre-populate the SHIPPING field. And again, according to PayPal Joey, this is quite doable.
     
     Here is a screen grab of PP's second screen showing what turns out to be the SHIPPING address field that needs to be pre-populated with info from ZC:
     
     

• For customers who use their PayPal account to pay
  
  Basically, the same should apply: ZC should send PP the 2 addresses and PP should use them to pre-populate the fields for the customer. The customer should be able to override either address during payment and PP should send back the final addresses used (which I think it already does). Again, all that is needed is to pre-populate BOTH the BILLING and the SHIPPING fields.
  
  
  
  
  

This seems pretty straightforward to me, am I missing something? Has anyone already implemented it?

[ibuttons]

Thanks for the reply.

I looked at that posting before I posted mine, but I could not tell what this change would do.

Can you describe the effect it has? Specifically, will it cause the billing and shipping addresses to be prepopulated from ZC into PP?

It did not look like that to me, but I don't fully understand what the parameters do.

TIA

[ibuttons]

This just in...

I just received this reply from PayPal Tech Support and it sheds some new light on the issue.
Erin is talking about the test order I submitted and sent the log file to him to review:

I was able to use the transaction details to pull up the request details from my end and we are not receiving any shipping information in your SetExpressCheckout call. If PayPal does not receive shipping information in the SetExpressCheckout call, we send back the shipping address from the PayPal account for GetExpressCheckoutDetails. To resolve the issue, you will need to add the shipping parameters into your SetExpressCheckout call.

Sincerely,
Erin
Merchant Technical Support
PayPal, an eBay Company

So, it looks to me like we are down to this:

does anyone know how to add the shipping parameters into the SetExpressCheckout call?

in detail, of course.

[ibuttons]

Here are some links I just received from PP that might be helpful:

https://developer.paypal.com/webapps...ress-checkout/

https://developer.paypal.com/webapps...Operation_NVP/

[jetx]

rant mode.. I would have loved a resolution to this issue several weeks ago. Since then I re-built my busiest site using alternative software which has fixed the problem entirely. I just had had enough of trying to get anyone in the dev team to acknowledge this was a serious problem.

[lat9]

If a customer is signed in and has entered their billing and shipping information during the checkout process, then the shipping information is passed on the setExpressCheckout call (unless your version of the PayPal Express Checkout payment method has been modified). It's only when a customer (whether signed in or not) chooses to use the "Express Checkout" button that the shipping information is not passed (since your Zen Cart has absolutely no knowledge, at that time, of where the customer wants the order shipped). I suppose that a suggestion might be made to the Zen Cart developers to add (yet) another control setting to the PayPal Express Checkout payment method so that a signed-in customer's default address information would be sent as the detault shipping/billing address if that customer clicks the PEC "button".

The code that I posted in the other link, essentially, allows your store to require a confirmed PayPal address for customers who use the PayPal Express Checkout button but to allow your signed-in customers who go through your Zen Cart's checkout process to be able to have a different shipping and billing address (as they've entered in the checkout_shipping and checkout_payment pages) and, for that matter, to be able to specify addresses that are different from the address(es) that they might have previously registered with PayPal.

[jetx]

zen-paypal.zipAttachment 13569

This is what is happening, please advise if you believe it should not be doing this:

See screenshots. We were not using the express checkout button.

New customer (Frank Dingleberry) would add product to cart, go to checkout, create a new account with billing and delivery address.

pic 1. Order review with the billing and delivery address the customer wants and payment method selected being paypal, customer confirms order.
pic 2. Paypal order summary.
pic 3. Customer chooses to pay using their paypal account and logs in. Customer selects pay now and does not expect that whatever paypal shipping address is shown would overide the shipping address they entered on their order.
pic 5. Zencart generated invoice.

The product will be shipped to NZ.
1. this is not where the customer wanted the product shipped to.
2. The shipping charge is for Australia only.

As mentioned in my previous post I have recently rebuilt my busiest site with another cart software which behaves as one would expect, it polulates the paypal address fields with the cart shipping data. The screenshots here are from another zencart store. I have a further 4 stores using zencart so would ideally like to fix this.

Either my own installation (1.51) is misbehaving for some reason (COWOA being the only mod which I would think could be interferring with this), or there is, what I would consider, a problem.