Personal Paypal account?

My wife and I are looking to use Zen cart to sell stuff around the house in a garage sale type of fashion. Since we dont actually have a business, is there any known way to integrate Zen Cart with our personal paypal account? Some of the items will be quite cheap so 1.9% + $0.30 isnt really viable.

Currently, we're advertising items on Craigslist and the like and just doing Money requests, transfers and it's working quite well. We just want to incorporate the cart into our process.

Thanks!

I believe this is possible by selecting Website Payment Standard in the Payments Module thru the admin of your site.

Yes, this is possible with PayPal.

You are probably better off using PayPal Standard, and setting it up is not obvious with PayPal (because they want shop owenrs to set up a merchant account!).

But if you log into your paypal account, it's quite straight forward.

Link your bank account to your PayPal account (if you haven't already done so) as this gives you "Verified Status".

Then read this:-

http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/PayPal

charmedbytina
I dont have the "Website Payments Standard" payment module

fairestcape
My account is already linked. I went to my profiles status and my options are a bit different. I clicked Notifications and saw no checkbox for what was described. I already have the box for "I receive PayPal Website Payments and Instant Purchase" checked. I dont see anywhere to add the URLs described either.

Whats more, when I go to the Admin console in my Zen Cart, I dont have a regular "Paypal module. The only ones I have are "Paypal IPN" and "Paypal Express Checkout". Configuring either of these requires information from the merchant account.

What version of zencart are you using? If you want (much) improved performance with PayPal, then install 1.3.8.

1.3.8a will give you the following:-

...Oh, and you need your account with PayPal to be a "Premier" account...

...just had a quick search on PayPal for "Premier".

You should be able to UPGRADE your Personal account to a Premier Account without a problem.

fairestcape:

...just had a quick search on PayPal for "Premier".

You should be able to UPGRADE your Personal account to a Premier Account without a problem.

Will Paypal charge me transaction fees with the "Premier Account" like they do with the merchant level accounts? Are they the same thing?

it looks like all of the methods ZC uses requires my to pay 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. This includes WebPayment Std, Web Payments Pro, and Express Checkout

Hi!
I just talked to PayPal and levels charge a 30 cents/transaction fee PLUS

Basic (personal) 4.9% (limited to only 5 credit card payments/month)

Premier acount 2.9%

Business account 1.9%

so, as i first thought. There is NO way to do this without giving up a percentage to paypal as in doing a regular paypal to paypal money transfer? The only way to accomplish this using zencart is to use the IPN or Website Payments Pro or standard and pay the 30 cents plus the percentage correct?

There's a "price" to pay for professionalism... The dilemma for small business owners is being in a position to accept CC payments, but having to pay high fees for the privilege. PayPal is, in my experience, a cost-effective way for the garden-shed business person to take credit cards and look professional at the same time.

Other merchant CC clearing banks charge more - unless you have high sales volumes, at which point economies of scale apply.

The other issue, of course, is customer convenience. If it is easy for people to transact business, then there's a greater chance of good commercial activity on your site...

... it's like SSL...

Many people are to miserly to buy a dedicated SSL cert (for as little as $20), and go through great pains with shared SSL, or no SSL at all. Customers are known to abandon sites in their droves when there is no (or dodgy) SSL.

I find it odd that people are prepared to abandon the potential for sales because they are too tight-fisted to factor these issues into their cost-of-sale analyses and set their margins accordingly...

@fbords:

Currently, we're advertising items on Craigslist and the like and just doing Money requests, transfers and it's working quite well. We just want to incorporate the cart into our process.

Using Paypal? If so, I do believe PP does charge the sender a certain percent anyway. So in the end, the customers still pay the cost + the surcharge anyway.

So, I upgraded my account to premier and am trying to set this up to use Web Payments Standard. I followed all of the directions in the wiki article perfectly. Is there a way I can test this before it gets put into production? I see the web payments pro and express checkout have Sandbox modes, but the Standard version does not. How can i test this without making fake purchase to my live account?

Even if you make test purchase using sandbox, it's always for the best to test it in live mode as well. You can create a test item say for only 1usd, then use a freeshipping coupon on it as well.

fbords:

So, I upgraded my account to premier and am trying to set this up to use Web Payments Standard. I followed all of the directions in the wiki article perfectly. Is there a way I can test this before it gets put into production? I see the web payments pro and express checkout have Sandbox modes, but the Standard version does not. How can i test this without making fake purchase to my live account?

yellow1912:

Even if you make test purchase using sandbox, it's always for the best to test it in live mode as well. You can create a test item say for only 1usd, then use a freeshipping coupon on it as well.

Could i then just cancel the order?

you sure can cancel and refund, that will help to test the refund function as well.

It's essential to test a proper, live transaction.

Create a "test customer" in your shop and make a full purchase through PayPal. Put a low-priced item into the cart. Go right through the checkout and payment process.

(I usually do 2 tests - 1 with a paypal account and 1 with a C-Card that is not linked to PayPal, to see that both features are working.)

Then, login to PayPal and REFUND the purchase(s). This is also an important test to see that the IPN handles refunds as well.

Make sure that both the PURCHASE and the REFUND are reflected in your Zencart PayPal IPN report.

Also, check all e-mails as PayPal sends both purchase and refund notifications.

PayPal will not charge a transaction fee if refunds are made within 60 days, so you have no "real" cost when testing.

(I don't think there is a "sandbox" feature in PayPal Standard. You have to make a real purchase - but as it's refunded, there's no cost.

... besides... it's essential to test both the payment AND refund operations.