Express Checkout PayPal Style!

DrByte:

Merlin is right --- if you're using the PayPal IPN payment module, you'll not see line-item details on your PayPal receipts.

However, if you are using the PayPal Express Checkout option available in v1.3.7+ then the line-item details are available on the PayPal side as well as the Zen Cart side.

I have installed the New PayPal Express Checkout with thew new Feb 20 Patch.
The module seems to be working fine but this quoted feature is not available. :frusty:

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

it IS available - however the only time the line-item receipt will show up is when your customer checks out the normal way, but chooses "Checkout with PayPal" on the checkout_payment screen. Pressing the orange "Checkout Now with PayPal" button and doing it that way will not give you a line item receipt :)

If your customer redeems a coupon or gift certificate or has any sort of discount applied to the order, PayPal cannot handle the line-item details. As such, they will not show in that case.

Why?

If PayPal doesn't provide an explicit discount line item in the invoice why can't you simply distribute the discount/coupon over the number of items actually sold.

Fixed discounts could be turned into a percentage off per item by calculating the total after the discount and dividing it by the total before discount.

I realize that you have to take into account rounding errors (maybe use the bankers rounding algorithm) but it seems like this could all be done in a deterministic way and then at least the shopping carts items would be preserved in the paypal invoice.

Is there really a technical reason why this cannot be done this way?

There is more than one way to skin a cat.

cheers

lurkerfilms:

Is there really a technical reason why this cannot be done this way?

There is more than one way to skin a cat.

Perhaps the best way would be to get PayPal to support such a feature ...

DrByte:

Perhaps the best way would be to get PayPal to support such a feature ...

Well, I don't want to be too tenacious here but sometimes it is better to walk around the sitting elephant then trying to make him move. :')

Even if PayPal someday comes around to supporting a discount feature (which I agree is preferable) implementing what I've suggested would still work.

But what do I know? Why should I speak? For I know -nothing-.

cheers!

Your suggestion is an idea worthy of consideration. There are a number of complexities involved, which make it a difficult thing to accomplish unless every discount can be applied without causing rounding difficulties or mess up tax amounts etc.
Also, if you apply a discount to individual line items in one place but not in another, you will end up with inconsistencies and mismatched invoice details between your store and PayPal. That will only create customer confusion.
Further, PayPal will reject the order if negative values are supplied.
The "detailed invoice" concept offered in the PayPal emails is a carry-over from their "PayPal Store" features, which are nowhere near as robust or flexible or feature-rich as Zen Cart. As such, the "detailed invoice email" is limited in what it can handle.

While it's nice to have a detailed invoice from PayPal, you are not purchasing from PayPal, and therefore there is no need for detailed invoice from them. When you use your debit card to make a payment, does your bank give you a detailed line-by-line invoice? No. Credit Card company? No.
Even Credit Card companies which offer buyer insurance don't give you a detailed invoice. They rely on the original bill of sale. In the case of Zen Cart, that bill of sale is provided by Zen Cart in an order-confirmation email, and is available online in the customer's My Account area.

For now, the Zen Cart roadmap does not include plans to distribute discounts across individual items. Perhaps the checkout-rewrite phase might consider something like this, but that will again depend on ensuring that discounts can safely be applied to individual line items ... without limiting flexibility in how discounts can be offered to customers by storeowners.

Well said, thank you for your detailed response.

cheers

Has anybody been able to at least pass the order number thru to PayPal, that way I at least have a cross reference from my order to the PayPal transaction from the PayPal side. I appreciate the parallel to CC and Debit and can see the logic behind line items. But, really need the Invoice # for my payment processor to sync on.

Any Ideas.

Chip

I too wish ZenCart's paypal express code would pass the invoice number and customer number like it use to for IPN (at leaset with osCommerce).

I have been reconciling the paypal accounts and have that information when exporting from PayPal history was really useful for finding problem orders that did not import into quickbooks or for identifying quickly the invoice and customer.

Hey Dr. what is the word on this?

lurkerfilms:

I too wish ZenCart's paypal express code would pass the invoice numberAfter the Checkout Process Rewrite scheduled for Zen Cart v1.5, this will be possible.
In the meantime, the actual "order" isn't generated until "after" the positive response from the payment gateway has been received. This is common to all payment modules at the present time.