PayPal Express Checkout and Credit Cards

[lloyd_borrett]

G'day,

So we've upgraded to Zen Cart v1.5.4 from 1.3.6, turned on PayPal Express Checkout and ditched PayPal IPN. The vast majority of customers now choose the PayPal Checkout option from the shopping cart, or from the login page. Orders are up significantly. Yippee!

A few customers still take the traditional route and end up on the checkout payment page.

Here it gets confusing for them. Their options are 'Direct Bank Deposit' or 'Checkout with PayPal'. But they want to pay via Credit Card. That's why they didn't select PayPal earlier.

Now we know that they can use their credit cards without a PayPal account by selecting the PayPal option, but the customers don't because their is nothing here to say so. So a high percentage abandon the shop at this point. Not good.

There are ways we can add additional text explanations, just as we did used to do with the old PayPal IPN payment setup, so that customers can be told they can use either their Credit Cards or their PayPal account via this option. But shouldn't standard Zen Cart do this automatically when the PayPal Express Checkout option is being used?

Our PayPal technical support rep is telling us that PayPal now has a Credit Card only payment option and that we should be able to get this running within Zen Cart alongside the PayPal Express Checkout option. That is, customers will then see separate Credit Card and PayPal payment options, but PayPal will process both of them.

Have any of you had any experience with this PayPal option?
Any traps for newcomers involved?
Is it effective?

Best regards, Lloyd Borrett.

[stevesh]

I'd guess that the Paypal rep was talking about Paypal Payments Pro, which does display a 'credit card' option on your payment page, but it carries a monthly charge in addition to transaction fees.

I'm not sure I understand why you don't just add the explanatory text to the Express payment option, as you say you did with IPN. I suppose it should be built in to Zencart, but it isn't, so ...

[lloyd_borrett]

G'day,

Yes, it turned out to be PayPal Website Payments Pro.

Is it worth the extra expense?

Does it play well with Zen Cart?

How well does it make it clear to the customer that they can pay with PayPal or Credit Cards?

Best regards, Lloyd Borrett.

[stevesh]

Sorry, I haven't used Pro, so I can't advise. It would seem to be a solution mainly for those who have sufficient sales to justify the monthly expense and have a sufficient number of customers who balk at using Paypal, if they know they are (rare, in my experience). Pro is one of the included payment modules, so I'm sure it works well with Zencart.

[RixStix]

While we are currently processing CC via Authorize.net, PP is doing their best to make switching to Website Payments Pro (WPP) very attactive. For us, it will not be long before the cost difference will be a wash.

PayPal does have different parameters in various parts of the world, but your account manager might have the latitude to waive the fixed monthly charges associated with WPP (depending upon your processing volume). The only way you will know is to ask. The worst thing you could be told is "NO" but until you ask, you will not know.

PayPal demo screens for WPP

The demo indicate an obvious option for using Credit Card.

If PP suggests PP-Advanced, there currently is no capability within Zencart to implement that option. According to PP integration engineers, the limiting factor is that ZenCart is incapable of accepting PP i-frames.

[lloyd_borrett]

G'day,

Thanks for the info. For now I might just take some more time to consider PayPal Website Payments Pro. In the meantime we've made some changes to the explanations on the Payment page, and will monitor how customers are finding it.

Best regards, Lloyd Borrett.

[notageek]

Hi. I seem to recall reading a comment that, now that Paypal offers the capability of using credit cards instead of a "Paypal only" option, and this is so well integrated with Zen Cart, the Authorize.net option is redundant.

Since I pay at least $50/month to Authorize.net and bankcard MTOT, and sometimes extra payments, without any transactions, I would like to change over to the Paypal that allows credit cards. I believe this is Paypal Payments Pro. This would be at least $25 less a month.

I just have cold feet stopping the Authorize Net and gateway accounts, because they were so involved to set up.

Could someone give me an idea as to whether there is any advantage to keeping Authorize Net when we have the Paypal Payments Pro option?

It is my understanding that Paypal Express doesn't have this "pro" option to pay by credit card. So Express would not be a good substitute if I stopped Authorize Net.

Thank you for any advice on whether Paypal Payments Pro would eliminate the need for the Authorize Net account.

Notageek

[jtovar]

I've been using Authorize.net and Bluefin for CC processing for the last 4 years, along with the Paypal IPN payment method. Recently I received a call from Paypal telling me about the Website Payment Pro option. It's normally $30/month, but they will waived my monthly fee if I switch over. I asked if it's a temporary waive and they said, no it's permanent. They said this is due to how much I've sold using Paypal in the past...so that's 1 plus. Since there is no monthly fee, I thought, what the heck, why not try it out. It's easy enough to disable the Authorize.net module and turn it back on if needed. The salesman put me in touch with the tech who help me get it all setup...it was pretty easy. I had to disable the Paypal IPN and enable the Express Checkout. Once I did that, I was able to enable the Website Payment Pro module. Once again, it was very easy to setup. I did a test and noticed I had 2 Credit Card options to pay with...This was my fault since I forget to set Authorize.net to false. Once I did that, everything looked the same....Credit Card option and separate Paypal option, just like before. I tested out the Credit Card option and it went through just fine. The only difference was instead of getting an email from Authorize.Net and the Merchant, I just received one from Paypal. Also, after analyzing the fees, it looks like Paypal is about 1/2 the price of what I'm paying now. Another thing is that I will only have 1 place for all my payment processing making taxes and accounting much easier. I just switched over recently so I'll see how it goes! I'm not cutting off my Auth.net and Merchant just yet, but if this works out, then I'll close those accounts.

[mc12345678]

Hi. I seem to recall reading a comment that, now that Paypal offers the capability of using credit cards instead of a "Paypal only" option, and this is so well integrated with Zen Cart, the Authorize.net option is redundant.

Since I pay at least $50/month to Authorize.net and bankcard MTOT, and sometimes extra payments, without any transactions, I would like to change over to the Paypal that allows credit cards. I believe this is Paypal Payments Pro. This would be at least $25 less a month.

I just have cold feet stopping the Authorize Net and gateway accounts, because they were so involved to set up.

Could someone give me an idea as to whether there is any advantage to keeping Authorize Net when we have the Paypal Payments Pro option?

It is my understanding that Paypal Express doesn't have this "pro" option to pay by credit card. So Express would not be a good substitute if I stopped Authorize Net.

Thank you for any advice on whether Paypal Payments Pro would eliminate the need for the Authorize Net account.

Notageek

While I don't have a full "solution" I did want to state that PayPal Express does offer the ability of a customer to pay by credit card through their provided webpage. PayPal Payments Pro allows a customer to stay on the store's page and pay with credit card directly. As to keeping one or the other.. There are some that profess they shall not use PayPal for whatever reason they have and of course there is the reverse that some will only use PayPal or something with which they are familiar. So... I can't exactly make a suggestion because right now there is no available comparison data for your store.. Don't know if more people would be interested in using PayPal over what they have seen on the site already or what and keeping both? Well would want to be sure that financially and logistically it makes sense.

[RixStix]

While I don't have a full "solution" I did want to state that PayPal Express does offer the ability of a customer to pay by credit card through their provided webpage.

That is a partial true statement. Only if an email address has been used10 times or less... after that, a PP account is required. If your site happens to be used for the 11th time, then the customer will be asked to create a PP account to complete their purchase.

PP WPP also requires PCI SAQ-D if a person is inclined to try to comply.