Paypal Express Checkout - Shipping Address Issue

[vwebworld]

I'm curious. What changed last April that has caused this problem?



Apologies for the rant, but I can't seem to grasp how people can be so 'demanding' for something they get free, and I really do get a kick out of how 'threats' to move to a different eCommerce system is somehow supposed to make the developers quiver in fear of losing a non paying customer. Threats only work if the other party has something to lose. If you change carts you will be doing the team a favour rather than anything else, because it means you'll no longer be using the forum to post negative comments and other disparaging remarks.

Just my 2cents worth.

Cheers
Rod

I realize ZenCart is free - but its' promotion says "There are hundreds of shopping cart programs available, but none come close to offering the level of options, features and support available with Zen Cart®. Even the commercial programs have a hard time competing"...and users (like myself) count on ZenCart to provide a competitive ecommerce solution that works.

Just because a product is free or open souce doesn't mean it doesn't have to work.

[DrByte]

I didn't say there's no solution.

I asked you to explain how you believe it should work in all those myriad ways that need to be considered.

Care to participate in helping come to a workable solution?

[vwebworld]

I didn't say there's no solution.

I asked you to explain how you believe it should work in all those myriad ways that need to be considered.

Care to participate in helping come to a workable solution?

As I mentioned: "The way it should work for the customers' sake is they should have the ability to pay AND to enter a shipping address different than their billing address."

So, if the customer does or does not have an account with the ZenCart store they should have the ability to enter a shipping address which may be different than their billing address. Since PayPal can not manage two addresses I would think ZenCart would enable the customer to enter their shipping address outside of PayPal. One thought is the customer would enter their shipping address before they pay, then they are directed to paypal to pay.

[DrByte]

One thought is the customer would enter their shipping address before they pay, then they are directed to paypal to pay.

Okay, now, if your customer is already logged in and has selected their shipping address within your store, and then goes to PayPal to pay, their shipping address is indeed sent to PayPal. The key to ensuring that the customer is already logged in is to turn off the EC Shortcut Button in your ZC PayPal EC module settings.

But ... do you want to prevent them from choosing a different address on PayPal's end? Especially if you only accept "confirmed" addresses .. in which case you MUST let them select a confirmed address from the various addresses they have on-file in their PayPal account..

All of this leaves out the "billing address" part, because the billing address is basically irrelevant since PayPal is managing all of that, and basically intends to insulate the merchant from having the customer's actual billing "info"(address).

[jetx]

Paypal Express overides customer's address.

I guess there is no answer for this problem? We are handling over 2 a week. Whether a customer is registered or not, whatever they use for shipping address in zencart is overwritten by whatever address they have in Paypal.

Note: to someone who questioned whether this behaviour occurs in other carts. No it does not, as I have tested it myself by using a checkout as guest as well as a full account.

In both cases the shipping address entered in the cart overrode the address I have in my paypal account. Therefore this issue can be rectified through coding, whether it is essentially a zencart or paypal problem.

I would hope zencart can fix this as I have no option but to remove paypal as a payment option due to customer dissatisfaction and our extra costs.

[RodG]

Paypal Express overides customer's address.

I guess there is no answer for this problem? We are handling over 2 a week. Whether a customer is registered or not, whatever they use for shipping address in zencart is overwritten by whatever address they have in Paypal.

I don't see this as a problem. It is more of a benefit. The customer using PayPal as a method of payment can/should have the ability to select the address they want the items sent to from their Paypal account and not be forced to ship to the address on the store account. They could well be buying the item as a gift for someone else.

Note: to someone who questioned whether this behaviour occurs in other carts. No it does not, as I have tested it myself by using a checkout as guest as well as a full account.

And how many 'other carts' did you test with? You'll find that the best carts function in the same manner as ZenCart.

In both cases the shipping address entered in the cart overrode the address I have in my paypal account.

Which to me is incorrect behaviour. When I pay something with paypal I like to choose from one of my many different shipping addresses for where the order is to be mailed. Having it mailed to the address I've entered into any given store really isn't suitable. Oftentimes I don't even have an account with the store I'm buying from, PayPal Express eliminates this need.

Therefore this issue can be rectified through coding, whether it is essentially a zencart or paypal problem.

It's really not a 'problem'. However, I do concede that it is a behaviour that you apparently don't like.

I would hope zencart can fix this as I have no option but to remove paypal as a payment option due to customer dissatisfaction and our extra costs.

The solution is actually quite simple. Use PayPal IPN (standard) rather than PayPal Express. This will force your customers to create a store account and enter the address you want them to use. PayPal IPN doesn't override this address (AFAIK). All it does is confirm if/when the payment has been made.

Cheers
Rod

[jetx]

If you had a site which suffered a minimum 2 of these a week you'd likely think otherwise. This is a very real problem, contrary to your arguments in this thread. It costs me plenty in terms of lost freight for returns. It is not practical to continue with this. Oh yes I suppose could just advise customers that the error was clearly their own. Maybe I could just point them to this thread so you could enlighten them.

With regards to paypal IPN, Dr Byte comments: http://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.p...48#post1180848 so we will not be going there.

It is very simple, a customer creates an account or uses COWOA, they take the time to input their preferred shipping address, click on paypal to pay for the goods, get whisked away to paypal and click the pay button without even thinking about the address in paypal because they already put the shipping address in the shopping cart. I mean do you get this?

With regards to your comment: " You'll find that the best carts function in the same manner as ZenCart" That is utter nonsense. Why don't take the time and have a look for yourself instead of drafting novels. Go to some decent, high volume sites. Try it on one of your local sites such as theiconic. You'll see they use paypal express and you'll also see that if you play customer and you take the time to put your items into the cart, input your shipping address and you hit paypal that when you confirm the order the address you put as the shipping address in the shopping cart is picked up by paypal. Checkout some others and you might see what everyone else besides you and Dr Byte are talking about.

Anyway, I am quite certain this all falls on deaf ears with you. Dr Byte, if you read this I would appreciate your comments. In the meantime I have removed paypal as a payment option.

[webchills]

Many European Zen Cart stores are setting up their PayPal Express module like this:

Payment Zone
--none--

Express Checkout Shortcut Button
Off

Express Checkout: Require Confirmed Address
No

Express Checkout: Select Cheapest Shipping Automatically
No

Express Checkout: Skip Payment Page
No

Express Checkout: Automatic Account Creation
No

Payment Action
Final Sale

Transaction Currency
Only EUR

Allow eCheck?
Instant Only

So there is no PayPal Express Checkout button or automatic account creation.
The customer has to register normally in the store and indicate a payment and shipping address during the checkout.
Lots of customers have old adresses in their PayPal accounts and do not check their shipping address in PayPal.
In the current module the PayPal address is taken as shipping address for the Zen Cart order, the PayPal address overwrites the shipping address that the customer has selected before in the store.
So the shopowner gets lots of orders with wrong shipping addresses and can never be sure if the customer wants the shipping really to the address in the order confirmation email or shop administration.

To solve this issue here are some modifications for the PayPal Express module in Zen Cart 1.5.3 (based on the current 1.6 code):

https://github.com/webchills/zencart...PayPal-Express

This is of course only suitable for stores which are configured as described above!

With these modifications PayPal does not care about shipping addresses and the customer is not able to change the shipping address at PayPal or able to select from his PayPal address book.
No shipping options are presented and the shipping address for the order will always be the one the customer selected before during the Zen Cart checkout.
Additionaly with this modification the customer gets the PayPal website in the language he has choosen before in the store and not in the language of the shop country.
This is kind of a quick and dirty solution as I just commented out or deleted some code. Would be great to address this issue in upcoming versions as the way it is now is a real pain for many shopowners.

[SpaceMonkey]

To solve this issue here are some modifications for the PayPal Express module in Zen Cart 1.5.3 (based on the current 1.6 code):

https://github.com/webchills/zencart...PayPal-Express

Anyone know another link, one here is 404 and search brings nothing up.

This fix sounds perfect for me. This issue is causing me a serious problem affecting approximately 60% of my orders. My store is serving a takeaway site with major impact when addresses for delivery are changed by PayPal.

[webchills]

The link to the repository did change, here is a working one:
https://github.com/webchills/zencart-de-paypal-express
I have added an English readme and updated the modification to Zen Cart 1.5.4