Does PayPal express keeps un-completed old cart items?

When I have setup PayPal Express and it seems working OK.

But my client reported me that when customer changes mind and **closes browser ** before confirming the order, those order seems to stay with PayPal.

For example, next day, when the customer visits the site and add an new item in the shopping cart, and then trying to checkout using PayPal Express, checkout process displays yesterday's order, which customer has thought would disappear after closing browser before the confirmation.

Is this a Zen cart configuration or PayPal configuration problem?

I would appreciate very much for any clue regarding this problem. :(

The shopping cart is not cleared until the customer finishes checking out, so their shopping cart is saved.

Thank you very much for your response.

What is happening is a situation where customer somehow decides not to buy an item (item A) and closes browser in the 3rd step of checkout before the final confirmation submit, and turns off the home computer.

Then nextday, he goes to a public library and decides to buy another item (item B) . The shopping cart has only one item, of course, item B.

What worrys me is that when customer uses PayPal Express checkout, i.e. login paypal and then redirected back to zencart checkout process, confirmation page lists item A as well as item B.

Is PayPal keeping old unfinished incomplete order from the previous purchase attempt?

OR, Zencart has a hidden table to keep the incomplete previous attempt which ended just before the final order submission (but after the PayPal express login) ?

I am sorry for my poor explanation.

As Kim indicated, the customer's shopping cart is saved between logins to the store. If they don't remove the items from their cart before logging out, or if they don't finish their checkout, then the same items that were in their cart the last time they logged in ... will be there again the next time they log in ... which saves them from having to look for the same items they were considering purchasing ... making it easier for them to pick up where they left off, perhaps after they go and find their credit card or top-up their PayPal account, etc. They can always remove anything they change their mind about before actually completing their purchase.

Thank you very much for your response again.

I understand completely what you explain is the beneft of loggedin-checkout process keeping old imcomplete items.

What seems to create some confusion is that when customer tries to buy different item nextday, he sees only this new item in the shopping cart, yet when they goes to paypal express checkout, they see suddenly old items show up along side the new item just before the final confirmation.

This might be OK for somepeople but might be confusing for another. Also, it might be natural for a day or two, but if this happens after more than one month, he will have forgotten about his previous discarded shopping attempt and feel strange to see some extra items show up just before final submission.

Amazon seems to keep cookie alive even after visitor closes browser.

Is there anyway in Zencart cookie can be kept alive even after browser closed?

I am sorry for dragging this thread too long.

I have had this happen too...with items "almost" purchased almost 6 months earlier. So I don't think it's a cookie as that would have expired. I suspect this is a table in zen cart as I don't see anywhere that Paypal would store this information. I would like to know where this is coming from if not a table in Zen cart...

I am seeing this problem. I can empty my shopping cart then add one item, go to paypal express, come back and I have 2 items in my cart. A friend developed this site; I think the server has some session problems. I will post my solution here.

http://www.grandeverge.com/store
Also having the problem in IE when I return back from paypal express it says "Woops your session expired", I have contact the server about this, and maybe when this is fixed the cart problem will also be fixed. It is interesting that session is not lost in firefox but only IE.

Previously this has been a problem with the session save path in the php configuration which the server admin fixed.

vandiermen:

I am seeing this problem. I can empty my shopping cart then add one item, go to paypal express, come back and I have 2 items in my cart.
The part that you failed to mention was that there was already something in the shopping cart for your account. But, since you weren't logged in yet, you couldn't see that. But, when you get logged in as part of the PayPal Express Checkout process, your un-logged-in cart got merged with the previously-saved-cart under that same username.
As explained earlier in this thread, it's functioning as designed.

DrByte:

The part that you failed to mention was that there was already something in the shopping cart for your account. But, since you weren't logged in yet, you couldn't see that. But, when you get logged in as part of the PayPal Express Checkout process, your un-logged-in cart got merged with the previously-saved-cart under that same username.
As explained earlier in this thread, it's functioning as designed.

I think your right.

about the other problem; after changing
define('STORE_SESSIONS', 'db');
to
define('STORE_SESSIONS', '');
in the configure.php the session problem has been fixed.

vandiermen:

I think your right.

about the other problem; after changing
define('STORE_SESSIONS', 'db');
to
define('STORE_SESSIONS', '');
in the configure.php the session problem has been fixed.
That should have no bearing whatsoever, since it has nothing at all to do with storing cart items beyond login.