Why is Paypal Shopping Cart so hard to use

Is it just me again?

[Digmen1]

Hi Guys

I am setting up a Paypal Shopping Cart on my website to sell products.

I find the Paypal user interface incredibly hard to use.

I have set up some add to cart buttons and a view cart button and got them up and running on my website.

But when I want to go back in and make some changes I find it virtually impossible to find the buttons to be able to edit them.

The whole site seems geared to setting up a new site but nowhere (on their main pages) is there any mention of making changes or editing your buttons.

Why can't they make it plain and easy to use ?

Regards
Digby

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

The best way to edit is through an HTML editor but if you don't know HTML it will be hard.

[rocknbil]

Why can't they make it plain and easy to use ?

I don't use these often, but from what I recall, if you can generate one button, you can use it as a "prototype" for all your buttons. The below is an "example" as I don't have the button code handy.

Let's say you generate a button for "Product A" price "20.00",

<input type="hidden" name="amount" value="$20.00">
<input type="hidden" name="product-name" value="Product A">

You'd just change the values for those products for a new button,

<input type="hidden" name="amount" value="$25.00">
<input type="hidden" name="product-name" value="Product B">

Any of the other information - the seller ID/email/account name/return URL etc., remains the same. You just look for and change the product-specific information.

Hope that's helpful, don't dabble in off-site payPal as much as I used to.

[Artsyrat]

I'm currently in the process of chainging all my buy now buttons to a shopping cart. It's hard to find but once you know where it is, then you can edit your buttons.
From your Account:
Go to your paypal 'profile'.
On the right is 'Selling Preferences', look for 'My saved buttons'. (I'm assuming paypal automatically saves your buttons because I never did and they were saved.)
From there you can edit your already made buttons. Just click on 'action', next to the button you want to edit.

[Digmen1]

Thanks guys for all of these replies.
They are very helpful
I must admit that I have found the Paypal shopping cart easy to set up compared to what it actually does and in view of my limited knowledge of html and zero for java, etc.
Firstly a little admission (I logged in under an old Paypal account so now saved buttons came up -doh)
Secondly I still say that their user interface is very confusing, they have so many facilities you can do with PayPal I feel they should separate them better.
Why don't they just say to edit your cart somewhere !
Thirdly they have a forum on Paypal for developers, but I can never find it, it is hidden away somewhere on their site.

[rocknbil]

developer.paypal.com [developer.paypal.com] (it's actually https, but it will automatically redirect you, the https links here don't work.)

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Why don't they just say to edit your cart somewhere!

Agreed. This is a common requirement and it should be easier to find.