PayPal WPPro: does it require a PayPal account when using Zencart?

[SunAndStormdotcom]

A rep from PayPal told me he thought it did, but the info on this site seems to indicate otherwise. Is it correct that the customer does not have to set up an account with either Zencart (never heard of that) or PayPal when linking Zencart with Website Payments Pro at PayPal? Thanks

David

[DrByte]

Website Payments Pro is just a regular credit card gateway. Thus, the customer must use the store's registration to complete checkout. As of v1.3.9 Zen Cart requires customers to create a store account to complete checkout.

Website Payments Pro does NOT require the customer to have a PayPal account. They don't even know that PayPal is processing their credit card.

[SunAndStormdotcom]

So my customers will have to create a Zencart account to pay me if I choose Zencart as my shopping cart? And is there a link to the info required of the customer on Zencart? Is credit card info required or just name and email address/ Thanks again! David

[DrByte]

A customer must provide certain basic information in order to complete checkout. It's the same information you require as a merchant: name, address, email, and optionally telephone/company/birthday/gender.

[SunAndStormdotcom]

Thanks for that answer. In conclusion, it is possible to set up PayPal's Website Payments Pro with recurring payments for a subscription service using Zencart. The customer will have to establish a store account, but not a PayPal account. Will it appear to the customer that they are setting up a Zencart account or an account on my site. All correct? I've never checked out with Zencart. I'll go looking for a demo on the site! Thanks.

David

SunAndStormInvesting.com

[DrByte]

Zen Cart 1.3.9 and earlier do not have built-in support for Recurring Payments. You'd have to write your own custom code to handle that.

[SunAndStormdotcom]

Thanks. I am going to have to go with a simpler solution than that at this point. Volusion offers a free cart with their basic webhosting plan and connects to WPPro at PayPal, so I will consider them. If anyone knows of an easier and cheaper way to do it, please let me know! The host I am using has some good features, but lacks the ability to do API coding or otherwise connect with WPPro. So I have to set up a subdomain elsewhere to handle payments which involves a second website or simply move my website, which I don't want to do at this time. I may move it eventually.

What I've found is that those that say they charge less on a percent of transaction basis have stiff fees for rewards cards and the per transaction fee is high which works against me because I bill under $10 per transaction. There are other things like SSL fees with some, not with others, cancellation fees, sign-up fees etc. PayPal is one of the few that had sliding rates so when your business actually is succeeding your costs go down whereas some of the others have fixed rates.

I happen to need a virtual terminal to enter transactions myself on the web or by swipe on site and recurring billing (which PayPal charges $30 a month for in addition to the $30 WPPro fee). Still, PayPal seems to be the winner if you are planning for success with such a business. Moving a subscription based service would be a huge negative, since all of one's subscribers would have to resubscribe. They would not likely do so at a certain rate and business would be lost. So having the scaling rate feature at PayPal is a big plus.

Google checkout seems to be flimsy at the moment. They are at the level of Website Payments Standard which forces customers to go to the PayPal site to pay and then return to your site. Not the most professional solution perhaps. By the way, for recurring payments, the customer MUST sign up for a PayPal account with Website Payments Standard.

My view? The whole area of payments is massive and often deliberately confusing, so you have to line up all the fees in a spreadsheet to truly compare different solutions. And you have to do it considering the price range of your products, because the per transaction fees will kill you if they are high and you have a lot of < $10 charges for example.

Just some observations from several days of research!

Again, if anyone knows of a host with great payment system rate access, great shopping cart and great support and low fees, please let me know!

All the best,

David

SunAndStormInvesting.com

[DrByte]

If your ability to handle credit cards is costing you more than your margin, then you're in the wrong business. If your margins are that small then you need to rethink your business plan.


As to PayPal, the thing most people don't understand is that PayPal is totally up-front about all their fees, and they charge one rate for everything. But, as you mentioned above, a more traditional payment gateway charges all kinds of different rates for different cards, and in the end often culiminates in costing more than PayPal's flat rate structure.

If the majority of your transactions are very low-priced purchases, you might explore PayPal's micropayments option, which is supported in Zen Cart v1.3.9 by making a few tiny configuration adjustments. Not sure how it handles subsription items.

[stevesh]

Again, if anyone knows of a host with great payment system rate access, great shopping cart and great support and low fees, please let me know!

I would consider divorcing (at least in your mind) the host from the shopping cart and the payment processors. The low fees and great support is what you want in a host.

Buying all those things a la carte is almost always cheaper (though it requires more research) and you don't get locked in to some 'package' when the host decides to raise prices.

[SunAndStormdotcom]

The business model is not the problem fortunately. The numbers work.

I agree with using a modular approach. After investigating a bit further it's clear that PayPal is more expensive as you start out, but gets cheaper as your business grows, but that is only for my business. You really have to test it with your own model (considering what the average price of your transactions etc.) to know which payment system to use. I have decided to use PayPal due to its scalability and the fact that the name is well known and respected.

All the best!

David

SunAndStormInvesting.com