How do I setup 2 types of payment method in the Zen Cart?

[leotseod]

Hi all,

I have set up a payment mwthod with Zen cart already, by now the customer can check out and pay the money instantly. However, some of our product need to have an subscribe payment, which means that they are not charging immediately, we will charge them every month. I have asked paypal, they reply that I have to setup another check out button which is for the subscribe payment. But how can I add this new subscribe payment button into Zen Cart and it can co-exist with the original instant payment check out button?

Thanks so much=]

[misty]

ZenCart does not currently support payments via subscription..there is an installment mod in downloads
section that may suit your requirements...
top of this page...Free Software Add Ons

[ScriptJunkie]

The answer can be found on the forum here.

It appears that at this time, Zen Cart is not set up to handle either subscription products or payment plans.

To achieve this, you'd need to sign up for a credit card merchant account that allows you to manually process credit card payments not just online, but offline (manual entry of customer's credit card information) as well.

You would then need to keep excellent records so you can manually enter the charges offline, using your merchant account software interface to process those charges/payments each month (or however often you plan to charge them for the product) for each subscriber.

You can get info on merchant accounts by googling 'merchant accounts', however PayPal's Website Payments Pro offers a built in merchant account that also allows offline credit card processing through a "virtual terminal" for the best price that I've seen (no equipment purchase or rental price, only a monthly fee of thirty dollars plus small transaction fees).

While you can certainly use that (paypal pro and/or it's merchant account) in Zen Cart for automated purchases, you'd still have to process the subscription charges/payments manually.

It's not as bothersome as it may sound, unless you have a huge subscriber list and/or want to run a store that requires very little of your time and attention (i.e. fully automated with little to no customer service and/or interaction).

Another benefit is that this option allows you to manually process payments for orders that come in via phone or fax, or for customers that are afraid of online shopping and sending their data over the internet.

Depending how many subscriptions or other manual orders get, and how much you plan to make from them should help you determine if the monthly fee is worth being able to offer this product to your customers.

Hope this helps

[ScriptJunkie]

ZenCart does not currently support payments via subscription..there is an installment mod in downloads
section that may suit your requirements...
top of this page...Free Software Add Ons

Woops! You beat me to the reply Misty!

I'm happy to hear about the Mod, I didn't know there was one for that. I'll have to look into it myself, especially if it means not having to pay a monthly fee to PayPal or someone else!

Great advice!

[ScriptJunkie]

By the way Misty, do you happen to know offhand if there's a mod or other method that would allow me to set up more than one paypal account in a single cart?

I'm wanting to have the payments for purchases to go to different teachers, coaches, etc based on which one's product or service was purchased - without having to do my own accounting, if that's possible.

[ScriptJunkie]

Checked out the Installment Mod. It looks like a good one. It still requires the shop owner to manually process credit cards, but it makes the process a lot easier by taking care of the "Zen Cart end" of things so the option can be offered to customers without having to manually edit code.

I'll be using this for sure, once I get to the point where I'm offering subscription services and have my paypal website payments pro all set up.

Nice mod!

[misty]

By the way Misty, do you happen to know offhand if there's a mod or other method that would allow me to set up more than one paypal account in a single cart?

No, not that know of..cannot see how that would work..
you could have more than one zencart or pay different
teachers etc etc manually yourself, via their paypal/other payment option...

[ScriptJunkie]

I was afraid you'd say that <grin>. I didn't hold out much hope that there'd be a way of getting out from under my own accounting responsibilities, but I thought I'd check :)

Thanks for the fast response :)

[misty]

I was afraid you'd say that <grin>. I didn't hold out much hope that there'd be a way of getting out from under my own accounting responsibilities, but I thought I'd check :)
Thanks for the fast response :)

Your very welcome...
me thinks multiple paypal accounts in one cart would
create more problems than manually allocating funds.

[ScriptJunkie]

Now that I think about it, you're probably right about it creating more of a headache than manual accounting does