Customer Yelled about Paypal Add Shipping After THey Log Into Paypal?

-Zen Cart: v1.3.9fp1
-Upgraded from Paypal Standard Pro to Paypal Express Checkout
(since paypal made recent change figured I would just do as suggested here and use paypal express checkout)

PROBLEM:

I got my first order with Paypal Express Checkout in place and the customer wrote a note that said;

wow , never seen shipping charge added after you go through paypal. this is
not cool

I did a test order to see what they meant. If I'm in the shopping Cart Contents pages I see 2 buttons

1.) A grey one that says "CHECKOUT"
2.) A Paypal button underneath it that says "CHECKOUT WITH PAYPAL"

(see attachment for 2 buttons i refer to)

I click the "CHECKOUT WITH PAYPAL" button and it immediately takes me to paypal and shows my price total $30.99 (no shipping is listed). I'm asked to click continue through another page (it still shows $30.99) then it gives me an button to click to VERIFY things. I click that and it takes me back to my store and displays several shipping options. I choose one and it on the next screen it shows me the full details of my order with shipping.

So I wrote the customer back letting them know I understood their concern but that the process they used to pay for the order was "EXPRESS CHECKOUT". It makes it faster for them to checkout but they have to login to (paypal) for to get their address info then it returns them to our store so it can apply shipping.

I even sent them a visual of our store page to let them know the difference in the 2 checkouts offered at our store (CHECKOUT BUTTON) that fills in the regular form or the (PAYPAL CHECKOUT BUTTON) and said it may help in the future when shopping at stores on the net to know the difference. (not just shopping at our store). Anyway... This is their reply;

> Dear (my name removed for privacy).

I simply tried to buy an item
You ought to serve customer not educating them HOW TO BUY SOMETHING THE NEXT TIME

YOUR SYSTEM FAILED AND THAT IS WHY I WAS ASKED TO PAY $30 on paypal than had you add shipping after the paypal system completed its process

in short
Why don't you send this to your president as I sure will

xxxx (customer name here)

MY QUESTION:

• Can that paypal button be disabled so that it doesn't show and they have to go through my store first (like paypal standard works). As I can see this being a problem in the future with other customers.

I know that the person is being difficult on purpose in hopes I will give them a discount (NOT!!!)

I'm seriously considering after their smart reply to "REFUND" their money and not fill the order. The items is sold by me exclusively so they can't get it anywhere else. I can see them after getting the order complaining and trying to get a refund, saying something is wrong with the product, etc.

Signed,
Printchic

printchic:

I'm seriously considering after their smart reply to "REFUND" their money and not fill the order.

Personally, I'd have no hesitation in doing this whatsoever.

Seriously, I know that "the customer is always right", but there are SOME customers that you are better off without.

Call me a cynic, but the chances are if you do fill the order, unless you ship via registered mail (or similar) this same customer is going to complain that it didn't arrive, or was damaged in transit, or wasn't what they ordered, or, or, or.....

As for the PayPal issue, well, that is another matter.

Cheers
Rod

Not sure about all your preamble about paypal updates and so on.

Also, there's no such thing as v1.3.9fp1. It went from v1.3.9f to v1.3.9g and then v1.3.9h

printchic:

• Can that paypal button be disabled so that it doesn't show and they have to go through my store first (like paypal standard works).
  Yes. Upgrade to v1.3.9h or newer. Then use the new option to turn off the Express Checkout Shortcut button since you have one customer who is confused by it.

DrByte:

... use the new option to turn off the Express Checkout Shortcut button since you have one customer who is confused by it.

I found that it wasn't quite so simple as turning off Express Checkout.

Some text gets left behind (version 1.3.9h)

I also had to do the following WHICH IS NOT NECESSARY FROM v1.5.0 onward:

To hide the "pay directly through paypal" buttons and text, add this to the css

#loginDefault legend + div { /* remove the paypal express info */
  display : none;
}

#loginDefault span.larger + br { /* remove the unneeded br character */
  display : none;
}

#loginDefault hr {
  display : none;
}

#loginDefault .larger { /* remove the "OR" text */
  display : none;
}

Hi,

Quick thanks to all that replied. I refunded the person's money that night. Also thank you batman42ca for that css code works perfectly.

Signed,
Printchic

We too are having issues with customers using the express button at shopping cart stage.

They click the button, pay the price of the BASKET CONTENTS, and think that this is the TOTAL DUE.

They then get sent back to the store, and only then do they find that they have SHIPPING to contend with!!!

Despite hard-coding some pretty explicit explanations into shopping cart page, nearly half of the customers selecting PP-Express on the shopping cart call in with vitriolic comments about adding shipping AFTER they have been to PayPal.

While there may be good "technical" and "security" reasons for PP-Express, it is abysmal from a customer service and loyalty point of view.

We are now going to disable PP-Express at shopping cart level, install FEC, and allow customers to get to a TRUE and FINAL TOTAL, before they are sent to PayPal.

schoolboy:

They click the button, pay the price of the BASKET CONTENTSNo, actually, they do NOT "pay" anything at that stage.
schoolboy:

Despite hard-coding some pretty explicit explanations into shopping cart page, nearly half of the customers selecting PP-Express on the shopping cart call in with vitriolic comments about adding shipping AFTER they have been to PayPal.
If your customers are of the demographic that can't comprehend how the shortcut process works from the shopping-cart page, then simply disable that shortcut button in your EC module settings. That's why it's there.

I've noticed the issue myself, as have a few customers. I posted instructions on how to order that explained the reason for the delay in getting a shipping quote, but if the customer lands directly on the product page then chances are they won't read it. Rather than graying out the EC button, is there a way to change the text and insert a little notice on the first page they go to when they click on it. So instead of seeing "these are your items and total" they see "these are your items, we'll get to the shipping part in a bit once we know who you are and where you live so don't throw a childish fit when you have to choose a shipping option two pages from now and that little order total number goes up a bit. Thank you." (Or something along those lines but a little more sales-personish.)

It's a whole lot simpler to simply turn off the button. Besides, it doesn't matter how much text you put on the screen: they won't read it anyway. Case in point: it doesn't seem to matter how many times I tell people how to avoid the problem, they still post asking for more complicated ways to "fix" it. :blush:

I've been having the same problem, and thanks for the quick answer about disabling the EC Button.

However, this seemingly simple Programming solution should never need to be addressed from a Merchant position. Especially when the text concerning the Button actually encourages us to defraud the customer...

"Express Checkout Shortcut Button
The Express Checkout Shortcut button shows up on your shopping cart page to invite your customers to pay using PayPal without having to give all their address details on your site first before selecting shipping options.
It has been shown to increase sales and conversions when enabled.
Default: On"

In my experience, it has been shown to DECREASE Sales when enabled.

It should read, "Warning!!! Enabling this button will cause all your customers that use it to call you a dishonest merchant for using Bait & Switch or failing to disclose the total price or their purchase... Enable only if you will NEVER charge any shipping on your orders!! Default: OFF"

Using this Shortcut button is not intuitively easy for customers to understand that they actually skipped an essential step in their checkout. You think it's easier because they don't have to enter their information twice. They think their shopping cart total price is as shown, not something that will get an additional charge prior to actually creating the order.

I don't understand why any merchant would want their customers to not know the total price prior to making their payment, nor can I understand why any programmer for an eCommerce program would think this would be OK. That is like going to a regular store, making a credit card payment, then discovering on your statement that they added an additional charge without telling you.

My dropped sales are almost exclusively because the customer thinks there is no shipping only to get surprised when returning from PayPal that there is.

This is not a bug, but a terrible programming decision. It should be fixed.

John L

That's a limitation imposed by PayPal's technology and the API spec used in that version of Zen Cart.

There's nothing defrauding about it. There's nothing misleading about it. Your complaining customers simply misunderstand how it works. There's no way to magically guess shipping costs without first getting the customer's address. That's why the customer is returned to your store for shipping quotes after giving their address to PayPal to share with you.
So, since you've found that your demographic of customers is close-minded to their expectations of how things work, it is best in your case to disable that button. But you knew that already.

Clearly you're venting. But be careful when venting that you don't go making broad sweeping statements that others might take as strong official advice.

A future version of Zen Cart will use a newer API spec from PayPal which coddles the customer more by attempting to calculate shipping mid-stream magically while the customer is still at PayPal.

Dr Byte.
I like that it will do it within Paypal.
Before even reading this post we disabled it from the Module in Admin.

Would it be possibe to present shipping options (as selector radio buttons) just above every instance where the paypal express button appears (when a shipping charge is mandatory for the customer).

So for example... on the LOGIN/REGISTER page, where the express option is commonly visible, would it be possible to have something like:

If shipping is required, then the paypal button is INOPERATIVE until/unless a valid shipping selection is made?

GOSH... WHAT AM I THINKING ???

The above is pointless... if shipping is DEPENDANT on address, then there is no way we know this at this stage...

batman42ca:

I found that it wasn't quite so simple as turning off Express Checkout.

Some text gets left behind (version 1.3.9h)

I also had to do the following WHICH IS NOT NECESSARY FROM v1.5.0 onward:

To hide the "pay directly through paypal" buttons and text, add this to the css

#loginDefault legend + div { /* remove the paypal express info */
display : none;
}

#loginDefault span.larger + br { /* remove the unneeded br character */
display : none;
}

#loginDefault hr {
display : none;
}

#loginDefault .larger { /* remove the "OR" text */
display : none;
}

Just curious where this code goes? this is something that has bothered my customers too.

They're talking about your stylesheet.

If you upgrade to v1.5.0 you won't have the problem.

batman42ca:

I found that it wasn't quite so simple as turning off Express Checkout.

Some text gets left behind (version 1.3.9h)

I also had to do the following WHICH IS NOT NECESSARY FROM v1.5.0 onward:

To hide the "pay directly through paypal" buttons and text, add this to the css

#loginDefault legend + div { /* remove the paypal express info */
display : none;
}

#loginDefault span.larger + br { /* remove the unneeded br character */
display : none;
}

#loginDefault hr {
display : none;
}

#loginDefault .larger { /* remove the "OR" text */
display : none;
}

![](http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k94/CybaGirl/icons/w00t-1.gif)

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of intelligent people on here who are always willing to help others in need and this is one of the finest examples I have seen.

So I for one would like to say thank you so very much for sharing this code as I was about to edit the file to remove this text from showing.

![](http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k94/CybaGirl/icons/Sun.png)

> **Bigdaddyeo:**
>
> Just curious where this code goes? this is something that has bothered my customers too.

As DrByte said just add it to your stylesheet file. If using the standard template it's called stylesheet.css and where you add it doesn't really matter. In my case I just added it to the bottom of the stylesheet that I am using.

![](http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k94/CybaGirl/icons/hi.gif)

Even better yet, upgrade to the latest version.