Paypal recurring payment buttons for one product?

Paypal has a really nice interface for subscription sales, but I'm not sure how to integrate it into the checkout screen. I'll look at it myself, but if anyone has already done this and can tell me what to do in a few sentences, that would really be appreciated. It's just a block of html, nothing complicated. I need it to show up only for a couple of products, although it wouldn't be a huge problem if it was there all the time. Just wouldn't be used other than for two products. It needs to be on the checkout screen where the Paypal button is now, but as an additional button with its associated code.

Thanks!

Helene, do you have a link to the PayPal documentation that includes that "code block"?

You have to log in to your account, and go to Tools, then All Tools. One of the menu choices then is Recurring Payments. Once you put in the information it needs, you can copy the html to insert into the appropriate page.

On one site I work on, the html block (interfacing with a PayPal side PayPal button) was added as a separate block of its own and has no integration with the underlying store and is processed independent of the ZC system.

I've gotten to information related to this creation of a reoccurring payment button through multiple different searches all indicating that mostly still going to use a PayPal created button and associated html, though the information at the following link nearly suggests that it could be "generated" using an alternate path.

That said, most of the things occurring are simply posting data to payPal so it almost seems like the post information and associated form address could at least in part be modified "temporarily" to address the reoccurring purchase and then separately process the one-time purchase and maybe collect all of the information in the site.

Perhaps I'm just thinking too big, dunno.
https://www.paypal.com/pdn-recurring

mc12345678:

On one site I work on, the html block (interfacing with a PayPal side PayPal button) was added as a separate block of its own and has no integration with the underlying store and is processed independent of the ZC system.

Yes, I think that is what's going to happen. The customer will have to place the order the first time using the "subscribe" button. After that, Paypal handles it and will send the orders back to me just as they do now. I just need to get the subscribe button in the right place. It wants to see a shopping cart with an item in it.

I'll look at it some more, and can probably figure it out. I'm just under some time constraints right now, because the vendor of this particular product is pushing everyone to sign up with SamCart (yeah, right, only $199/month) so they can do recurring sales. I wouldn't use SamCart if it was free. But I do have to come up with a way to handle this through Zencart, and I think the Paypal recurring sales button is the easiest way.

I know there is a paypal module for Osc, that uses recurring payments, but I have not had the time to try and parse it to Zen Cart. So if any one is willing to try, be my guest :D

Did come across this developer documentation regarding recurring payments:

NVP/SOAP:
https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/express-checkout/ht_ec-recurringPaymentProfile-curl-etc/

REST API:
https://developer.paypal.com/docs/integration/direct/create-billing-plan/

Looked at a version of the osc paypal recurring payments from a general overview perspective. The documentation eluded to difficulty of combining a purchase of something periodic with something one-time (ie non-subscription type product), but thinking outside the box if necessary one could generate a "scheduled" payment of a one-time charge for all of the non-subscription product and a periodic payment lasting the desired duration for the other part.

If anything I would say that one aspect of trying to keep up with such a revision to support this is that it seems that over the years things have changed a lot which means that one (many?) would have to keep up with those changes in addition to the current base/core PayPal operation.

Yes, that is a potential problem. I'm lucky in that I have a captive audience of sorts, a Facebook group where the manufacturer of this product allows me to post when I have it. So I can stipulate in there that anyone who wants to sign up for the subscription plan MUST ORDER IT BY ITSELF! And of course, someone inevitably will disregard that, but it will be a small enough number that I can deal with those orders individually. I have to do it already for this product, as I never know exactly what mix of formulations I'll be getting each time it comes in.

econcepts already has a working recurring billing module which should work for any payment gateway, see:

https://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.php?216529

He just requires enough interested parties.

Personally I think it should be at the core of any eCommerce business that wants to survive long term.