Accounts created but no orders

Hi all,

We're quite sure we've been having ongoing problems with paypal payments on our site. Our site is basically a stock zen cart 1.3.9h with paypal express (1.3.9h again). There have been only trivial (text) mods to the site, nothing big.

We have users create accounts, some successfully pay and some spend 10 or 15 minutes at the checkout process, at the page "checkout_payment" and also at "final" (ie they've gone to paypal, presumably). For example today we had 16 new account but only 10 orders, and users sitting there at the checkout.

It doesn't seem to fit that that many users would make accounts and spend that time at the checkout if they didn't intend to order. We've tried the full checkout process from our home computers and from my android phone on mobile net and it always works. We've asked a few customers if there was a problem but haven't got any feedback.

Does anyone have advice on what we can do here?

I just experienced this same problem today. An account was created through PayPal Express Checkout but no order. My understanding from Dr. Byte is that even when a customer uses PayPal Express an account is created WHEN they place an order. So I believe this customer must have placed the order for the account to be created, but PayPal IPN did not send the order to me and I don't see any history of it in PayPal or in Zen Cart. I think it got lost somewhere. I sent the customer an email to let her know the transaction was not completed. However, if an account was created by PayPal, then the transaction had to have been completed on her end.

I know that it is possible for customers to create customer profiles and not place orders, but I didn't think there was any way to create a PayPal Express account. And why would they? There would be no point.

Today is the first I've seen of this problem (knowingly). Do you think it's a PayPal issue?

My real question is: Is it possible for an account to be created using PayPal Express Checkout before an actual transaction is completed? I thought this type of account was created as the result of a PayPal transaction. I've tried to duplicate this problem and the account is never created unless the transaction is complete.

Have you checked the log file for any clues?

AvaAdorn:

I just experienced this same problem today. An account was created through PayPal Express Checkout but no order. My understanding from Dr. Byte is that even when a customer uses PayPal Express an account is created WHEN they place an order. So I believe this customer must have placed the order for the account to be created, but PayPal IPN did not send the order to me and I don't see any history of it in PayPal or in Zen Cart. I think it got lost somewhere. I sent the customer an email to let her know the transaction was not completed. However, if an account was created by PayPal, then the transaction had to have been completed on her end.

I know that it is possible for customers to create customer profiles and not place orders, but I didn't think there was any way to create a PayPal Express account. And why would they? There would be no point.

Today is the first I've seen of this problem (knowingly). Do you think it's a PayPal issue?

Did you do a test for yourself?
If this was a test. Did you check to make sure that you have the right information for PayPal?

I checked the log file and all it shows is the welcome email sent to the customer, but no transaction information.

In running the test for myself, an account is never created until AFTER the transaction is completed. All my other PayPal Express transactions have behaved just fine. It's just this one fluke.

AvaAdorn:

My real question is: Is it possible for an account to be created using PayPal Express Checkout before an actual transaction is completed? I thought this type of account was created as the result of a PayPal transaction.
There are 3 steps to a PayPal Express Checkout transaction:

1. ask PayPal for a transaction token, and send the customer there to login and specify funding/address info
2. obtain the customer name/address information from PayPal and create an account in the store, and send the customer a welcome email
3. take payment once confirmed by the customer.

There are two modes of configuring your store with Express Checkout:
a) using the EC Shortcut Button "on" so that it shows on your Shopping Cart and Log In pages
b) turning the EC Shortcut button "off" so that PayPal is only seen as a payment option when the customer has already created an account in your store and logged in and commenced checkout far enough to get to the payment screen.

In method "a" above, steps 1 and 2 happen BEFORE going through checkout in your store, BEFORE offering shipping choices. Then step 3 happens only AFTER the customer sees the "confirmation" screen on your store to approve the purchase.

In method "b", steps 1,2,3 all happen AFTER the customer has created an account, logged in, and gone all the way thru checkout to the confirmation screen, approves the purchase and THEN is taken to the PayPal login screen. At that point all of 1,2,3 happen back-to-back, but are done separately, and if your store has added checkout steps going on because of plugins, or if errors are encountered, it could abort at any point in that process, just like ANYTHING can if errors are encountered.

Thank you for that excellent explanation, DrByte! I have method "a" configured, so I suppose the account is actually created before the customer completes payment. That makes sense now. There was no glitch. The shopper just abandoned the cart. At least now I know what happened.