No unit price with Paypal IPN - Website Payments Standard

Hi all,

I'm running ZC version 1.3.8a and have just installed the "PayPal IPN - Website Payments Standard' module. It seems to have installed correctly and I am using a valid PDT token.

Unfortunately, when attempting a test purchase as a customer, the unit price and shipping costs shown in Zen Cart to not transfer to the PayPal form after clicking "Confirm the Order". Instead, I am directed to a PayPal form which states "Please provide an amount and click Update Totals." and displays a blank text box into which I can enter the "Unit Price". Only after manually entering the price is it displayed in the invoice.

Is it typical for the PayPal page to ask the customer to input the price manually, or is there something I can do to make it automatically update from the Zen Cart checkout pages?

I'm pretty new to this so any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Mark.

I've seen that happen on I think 2 occasions, and never figured out why it happened, as it stopped as suddenly as it started.
It's certainly not the normal behavior. It should pass the total of merchandise, and the total of shipping, and you simply login and confirm the payment.

Thanks for the reply, that sounds excellent!

Is there a particular part of the process or the script which gathers the data about total price from ZC, and passes it on to PayPal? I'm wondering if the issue somehow relates to a defective action script within the module or the shop, caused by human intervention or an unknown other issue.

Alternatively, do you have any idea where I might be able to find out further information about the problem. THe typical internet and forum board search has been of limited success so far.

I'll try sending an email directly to ZC next though.
EDIT: scrap that. I see you are part of the ZC team!

Cheers,
Mark.

I think first I'd recommend exploring whether Express Checkout meets your needs, since the way it completes orders is way more reliable compared to depending on IPN communications. Many people are happier with its operation.

Thanks for the suggestion, I've looked into that solution further and it seems like a better option.

That said, having uninstalled the IPN PayPal option and installed the PayPal Express Checkout instead, there are still errors.

ZC currently displays this:
"An error occurred when we tried to contact the payment processor. Please try again, select an alternate payment method, or contact the store owner for assistance. (10401) 10401 Transaction refused because of an invalid argument. See additional error messages for details. - Order total is invalid."

After reading through another thread on this forum, I changed the payment currency to USD and the error disappeared. The only problem is this is a UK based shop which can ONLY trade in GBP!

I'm guessing whatever is causing this problem is also likely to have caused the other problem too. Once this is corrected, I'll revert back to the IPN method to see if it works too, just in case anyone with the same issue reads this and could find it helpful.

After a lot of troubleshooting and testing, I finally discovered the cause of the 10401 Transaction Error, and likely the cause of the previous error with the order total too: whereas the PayPal plugin codes Pounds Sterling as 'GBP' Zen Cart uses "UKP" in the 'Localization > Currencies' menu.

Changing UKP to GBP in 'Localization > Currencies' however, makes all of the product prices in the shop appear as "0". Any ideas on how to correct that?

Secondly, I'm trying to set up two different prices for the same product, for example:

**Product X should cost £15 if ordered for delivery to the UK or US, but £20 if ordered for delivery to anywhere else in the world.

Product Y should cost £25 if ordered for delivery to the UK or US, but £30 if ordered for delivery to anywhere else in the world.

Product Z, etc....
**

Any suggestions on how to set that up? I'm slowly going crazy.

Cheers,
Mark.

mwilliams:

the PayPal plugin codes Pounds Sterling as 'GBP' Zen Cart uses "UKP" in the 'Localization > Currencies' menu.That would be a result of you incorrectly setting up a currency with "UKP" as the currency code. The official global code for British Pounds or Pounds Sterling is GBP. That's what comes default with Zen Cart and with PayPal.

mwilliams:

Changing UKP to GBP in 'Localization > Currencies' however, makes all of the product prices in the shop appear as "0". Any ideas on how to correct that?
Related FAQ: https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=96

mwilliams:

Secondly, I'm trying to set up two different prices for the same product, for example:

**Product X should cost £15 if ordered for delivery to the UK or US, but £20 if ordered for delivery to anywhere else in the world.

Product Y should cost £25 if ordered for delivery to the UK or US, but £30 if ordered for delivery to anywhere else in the world.

Product Z, etc....
**
Out-of-the-box, Zen Cart supports one price per product. If you need to inflate the price to ship it elsewhere in the world, why not use a shipping/handling charge for that?

... but be sure to tell me you're overcharging me because I'm not in your home country, and I'll make sure I buy from someplace that doesn't add surcharges based on my geographic region. I'll shop someplace else thank you. :blush:

Thanks for the response.

I didn't actually set the shop up but I'm now the person trying to update it with new products and prices.

I went through the suggestions here https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=96 and unfortunately the unit price still displays as £0. The admin backend displays the correct prices in the catalogue but the main shop frontend only displays £0.

Is there something else I should be specifically looking for or trying? I think the installation is pretty standard and I know it's up to date. Even creating a new product with a new price fails to display correctly.

In our defence, re. different shipping rates: the charges we make only cover our own costs. The revisions I'm currently trying to implement actually make the shipping cheaper than it was previously, while the pricing structure conforms to a model adopted by similar organisations selling very similar products. That said, we are the only organisation to sell our particular product (we're a non-profit organisation publishing a quarterly magazine) and while the generic description in my last post may not sound particularly fair, we do try pretty hard to ensure the pricing structure is reasonable. :P

Thanks,
Mark.

mwilliams:

I went through the suggestions here https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=96 and unfortunately the unit price still displays as £0. The admin backend displays the correct prices in the catalogue but the main shop frontend only displays £0.

Even creating a new product with a new price fails to display correctly.

I wonder if perhaps your browser has cached the old currency setting?
Try:
a) logout from the storefront if logged in
b) clear your browser's cache and cookies
c) close your browser (all windows)
d) go back to your store again

e) or just test from a different computer

Ok, that's just bizarre!

That procedure worked but I have no idea why - I'd already cleared my cache completely, logged out, changed browsers, etc, etc. Clearly you have a magic touch. Thank you.

Now just to work out how to set different shipping rates for different items....

On a related note, just to be difficult, I don't suppose there's an easy way to enable PayPal as a payment method for some items but not for others?

Thanks for your help to date. It's good to have a strong support community behind the product.

Regards,
Mark.

While one can do some custom coding inside the payment module to make it available only when certain products are in the cart, it does get complicated if you have multiple kinds of rules and a customer puts several products in there cart where the rules start conflicting with one another.

Same problem with shipping. Although, you could set a shipping fee for each individual product by setting the weight to be the shipping price and using the per-item shipping module in weight=price mode. But then it gets complicated again if you have multiple items in the cart and the combination of those items might not actually add up to the combined cost, thus overcharging or undercharging. Everyone's shipping needs are unique. You're best to play around with various options.

I just had a similar problem. Reason was that I was using a currency unsupported by PayPal (RMB) and didn't set up any other currency on my site. When I added USD it converted automatically!

Just in case someone is looking...