Evaluation questions (minimal cart needed)

[birchy]

I have a site running with Paypal std button for a one-time lifetime subscription for the use of the site.

But, about 20% of the payments fail to finish the registration process. I don't know if the user is clicking away from the final Paypal page before they are redirected back to our payment landing page or what the problem is.

So, I thought I'd try a shopping cart with Paypal integration. I've installed Zen Cart and configed it up to the point where I'd have to commit to a swithover, but have not modified the registration form to tie it into Zen. The IPN listener is sending emails to me, however.

Since I'm still evaluating, here are some questions:
1) I'm guessing that Zen uses the same matching on payments as I already do (session id). So will I still have the same problem?
2) If the payment integration will improve things, am I stuck with using Zen Cart's user registration? Is there any way to pass my existing registration info to the cart and have it pass the successful payment info back?
3) If the above, how difficult is it to reduce the cart part to just the payment parts I need. Can I at least send them to a page that lists the only product (the subscription) and payment options, as if they had clicked "Go to cart"?

4) if Zen Cart isn't what I need, does anyone know of a solution that won't require me hiring a programmer with more skills than I have to build a custom API-based solution. I can't understand why PayPal doesn't allow for passing and returning an invoice # in the basic buttons. (I have a Business acct type at PP and am set up under their micropayments plan.) Does someone know a trick to do that? If so, I can leave Zen Cart as is and just monitor the IPN listener for unprocessed invoices.

[stevesh]

2. There are two COWOA (Check Out WithOut Account) mods in the plugins area (COWOA and fast and easy Checkout).

3. Zencart is intended to be a complete shopping cart system. Just using the payment parts with an existing site would probably be a more difficult programming job than 4. Technically, you could redirect the Zencart main page to the product page for your product.

Try Zencart and use Paypal Express rather than Standard, and see if your problems go away.

[DivaVocals]

2. There are two COWOA (Check Out WithOut Account) mods in the plugins area (COWOA and fast and easy Checkout).

3. Zencart is intended to be a complete shopping cart system. Just using the payment parts with an existing site would probably be a more difficult programming job than 4. Technically, you could redirect the Zencart main page to the product page for your product.

Try Zencart and use Paypal Express rather than Standard, and see if your problems go away.

**nods in agreement with all above ESPECIALLY that last part highlighted**