Customers cart not clearing after purchase

I've noticed about 50% of customers carts are not clearing after they make a purchase. I think this may be because they are not redirecting back to the checkout success page after completing payment. PayPal are putting a sign up page for customers that are paying by card.
This is resulting in customers returning to the site, seeing the items are still in their cart and completing checkout and second and sometimes even a third time!

This seems quite recent so I don't know when PayPal added the sign up page. Nor an I totally sure if it is the fact they don't redirect to the checkout success page that the cart doesn't clear, maybe someone could advise?

Using payments standard. Always have done and this problem has only just surfaced. Anyone else experiencing this problem?

Many thanks,

Phil

Switch to PayPal express

So predictable... Lol

That will be my last resort however express has never show line items on my instal 1.5.1 even when no discounts are being applied and I want my customers paypal receipt to show what they bought.

Cab you confirm, is it the fact they are not redirecting back the reason why the cart doesn't clear down? Does it need the success page to load to do this?

Of I use express I take it that it doesn't ??

Can't confirm this - as I have not encountered this at this time

philip937:

So predictable... Lol

Yup, describing the same common problem will usually elicit the same suggested solution.

As I understand it, the issue you're describing results from a failure in communication between Paypal's server and yours. Switching to Express will fix that problem. I'll have to run a test transaction to see if the line item issue is universal.

its not a problem with communication at all. that would be orders not being completed.

My problem is customers not following paypal buttons after making payment by card to manually redirect them back to the site, therefore the order completes but instead they see paypal trying to get them to sign up and probably hit the back button a few times and end up with a full cart in checkout again.

so would express clear the cart without the customer even returning to the checkout sucess page? so if they did hit the back button when they got back the cart would be empty?

Can anyone answer this?

When using Website Payments Standard, Does the customer need to redirect back to checkout_sucess.php in order for their shopping cart to be cleared????????

can I simply add this after send order confirmation email code in the order.php file:

$_SESSION['cart']->reset(true);

? or does it need to know the customers_id?

so I have checked and

$_SESSION['cart']->reset(true);

is in the header of the checkout_process.php file which the user has to be redirected/navigate to.

so I would defiantly need a way to clear this session during the order.php processing bit after the order is created but im pretty sure only the user can clear the session with $_SESSION['cart']->reset(true);

is there a way I can force this session reset using the customers_id at all? I am happy with where I can put the code just wouldnt know what the code needs to be?

other seesion based stuff also wont reset unless the customer goes via the redirect so if these can be forced I would appreciate to know how also:
unset($_SESSION['sendto']);
unset($_SESSION['billto']);
unset($_SESSION['shipping']);
unset($_SESSION['payment']);
unset($_SESSION['comments']);

thanks in advance.

Do your Orders include a lot of Discount Coupons or GVs?

No. Tw problem is defiantly this:

Customer pays with credit card, after instead of redirecting back to checkout_process PayPal instead wants the customer to sign up to PayPal.

Then the costumer has to scroll down and make sure they hit a 'not interested' button then on the next page hit a button saying return to merchants site.

Most customers are not doing this (as anyone could imagine) as soon as they see a PayPal signip page my guess is the navigate with back button or don't come back to the site at all.

Hence why I want the clearing of the cart to be part of the order.php process as the orders creates as soon as the ipn hits not when the customer come back (thankfully)!!

Hope that makes sense. Just need an SQL query that will flush that users cart etc once the order has been created and confirmed. Hence putting it after the code that sends the order confirmation emails.

Cheers
Phil

And my question is ...

Do your Orders include a lot of Discount Coupons or GVs?

as what you are saying about **PayPal Express **makes no sense and I am trying to see what the issue is with PayPal Express that you do not see the Item Details on the Order so you are staying with PayPal IPN which is the root of all evil and the problem with your customers not returning to your shop etc. as even with PayPal Express your customers would see the Order Item Details when they are paying ... thus eliminating one evil on your site ...

All I know is that when I set express up previously one I didn't have the option to set line items and second by default I never had line items showing when at PayPal.
If that was not the case I would give it a shot.

Can you answer my earlier question then?

Does the users cart get cleared without having to return via checkout_process?? If so I might try it again.

That said I am perfectly happy with standard apart from the fact PayPal is not redirecting the customers as the should!

This is my PayPal Express in Zen Cart v151

What do you see or not see on yours? :lookaroun

Hmmm thanks linda, I will look back into this as mine didn't do that.

The only thing I thought was that I have a store wide sale, would that affect it?

With SaleMaker? Or what discount method?

I can go test under whatever circumstance you had ...

Note: I also just try it in Chrome that gives a different interface but there was a easy dropdown for the details and it returned me to my cart so dang fast I could not even move the mouse fast enough to close the browser ... so order was complete and I was on checkout_sucess and cart was emptied as it should ... :blink:

With salemaker.

You say you end up on checkout success, all my paypal customers do. Remember the problem is when customers pay by credit card without PayPal account, paypsl then asks them to sign up instead of redirecting.

I'm keen to know that if the cart is cleared if the customer isn't redirected back to the site but then goes back to the site NOT via checkout_process.

Let me try that one ...

poof

Flipped me to done so fast I couldn't move my mouse before I returned to my site in Chrome, where I was tested that too ...

Now to go set these on sale and see what happens ...

Where are you located, if your not uk, remember uk PayPal might force the sign up after a credit card payment whereas where you are may not..

Put that on Sale with SaleMake and PayPal still shows details on PayPal Express ... perhaps it is time to take another look at PayPal Express and if there is an issue then it is time to look at what problems you are having due to add-ons or something ...