PayPal Shopping Cart

New feature -- What do you think about it?

[physics]

PayPal has a new shopping cart feature: [paypal.com ] I'm thinking of giving it a whirl as it would be a way to take online cc payments without getting an expensive merchant account, etc. What do you think the potential positives/negatives are?

[mivox]

The positives are that it takes almost NO time to set up, and you don't have to worry about security, programming, integrating a full shopping script onto your site, etc.

The negatives are that PayPal has a "less than professional" reputation. Not really deserved, IMO, but it's seen as something for eBay users and hobbyists... I wouldn't use it on a serious "business site" for that reason. Also, the checkout process can't be visually customized beyond putting a logo graphic at the top of the page, so It's pretty jarring to go from a heavily "designed" site to the PayPal pages. Also, the URL changes from your site address to PayPal's site...

If PayPal offered a service to "business" clients, for a small monthly fee that would include a more visually customizable check-out process, and a check-out URL like https;//yourdomain.paypal.com/, I think they could make some serious inroads into the small-business market.

There are other third-party credit card processing programs out there, some of whom offer free shopping cart scripts for download to their customers. The set up is more expensive and time consuming in most cases, but looks much more "professional".

[Brett_Tabke]

I have a couple of former clients who use them exclusively for about $300-400 a day in web sales. They are quite pleased with the whole setup and have no complaints. The new shopping cart feature is a step forward. With it, I'd take a hard look between the various merchant accounts and PayPal - they are cheaper than many banks want for cc processing.

[physics]

I've implemented this and it seemed to be pretty great, but there is a problem now -- it doesn't work! Well, actually that's not fair, it does work from my home machine, but not from a few of my friends computers (running different versions of windows). From my home machine everything is fine and it's beautiful. On the other machines I get an error:
"Error XXXX: Unexpected Server Error YYYY"
or something to that effect and the thing doesn't work. I've checked, double checked, and triple checked the html snippet of code in my pages to see if the error is due to some mis-placement of a quote or something on my part ... but the code is fine. I also wrote paypal last Thursday but they haven't gotten back to me yet. <note to paypal> Hope I don't give your cart a bad name ... it's really nifty ... just wish it worked right now </note to paypal> Anyways, just wanted to let everyone out there know that they shouldn't put all their eggs in this 'basket' yet.

[physics]

WARNING!
Don't use the paypal cart yet. I've spoken with customer service and it turns out that there is a major problem with this. Basically, my understanding is that there's a problem with the way they are doing the cookies and it doesn't work for most OS/Browser combinations. They said that they hope to have it fixed in a few days ... we'll see.

Once they have that fixed there are still some other, smaller, problems that they hope to have fixed within a few weeks. For one, the shipping is not computed correctly, i.e. you are supposed to be able to order one item and be charged X for shipping and then later order another and be charged an additional amount Y where Y<X However, right now it is just charging them X for every item (which can get really expensive for the user if you're charging $5 for first item but only 50 cents for additional items or something like that).

[physics]

By the way, for those PayPal employees reading this, next time the @#$% hits the fan with a software product you release would you kindly let us, the merchants using it, know? <begin rant>I wrote an email to them on Thursday that carefully detailed what was going wrong with the cart on my site and I included the code I was using as well as the error code I was getting when trying to use the cart. On Monday I got a response that was absolutely ridiculous. It was a canned response telling me if I was having troubles viewing their site then I should clear my cookies (even though the mail I sent was to tech support for merchants). Eventually, after I emailed them again I was advised to call customer support where I was patronized again until I demanded tech support. Then finally everything was explained to me as detailed above. All of this could have been avoided, along with the hours at 2:00am Saturday night trying to figure out where I went wrong with my code.</end rant>

Anyway, I love the low cost and ease of the PayPal service, but next time just let us know the low down, OK?

[physics]

Now the've sent out an email promoting the cart when they know it's all buggy. And to think, the customer service guy on the phone was making fun of Netscape because they released Netscape 6 without fully testing it. Geesh.

BTW When the cart works I'll make a very nice post here about it.

[mivox]

physics - I notice you haven't been getting many replies to the "ongoing saga of the PayPal cart," so I thought I'd drop you a note to say I appreciate the time you've taken to update this thread. PayPal is one of the options I'm considering for an ecommerce site, so I've been keeping an eye on your posts here to see how they're handling the situation.

Thanks for taking the time to keep us posted! :)

[physics]

Thanks Mivox. It's nice to know that this has been informative as intended, I was worried maybe everyone thought I was just going on a long rant :) There certainly are a lot of people concerned with this, as the tech support person at PayPal seemed pretty busy taking calls about this. Anyways, I don't have time to test the cart again right now, but I will say that I did email them and they said that the cookie problem had been worked out, so the cart should function OK on most browsers (not Netscape 6 or beta versions of MSIE ... but I don't blame them for that) The shipping issue has not been fully worked out but it sounds like this works right now but 'there aren't very many options' Once everything is ironed out I think the cart will be pretty cool.

[Gary_Snyder]

I would like to bring up a few points, if I may.

1) I like to use something that is "pre-tested" by others before me, that has been on the market for awhile, with a proven track record. Being "new" can be worst thing that can happen to a product.

I use both ccnow and PayPal (not the new shopcart version of PayPal). I have switched between the two for testing, not because I am disappointed with either, but out of curiosity to see which has better conversion. Unfortunately, my site does not have the steady traffic to make an accurate test at this point. At this time, I reserve PayPal as a back-up, when ccnow is down.

2) I heard someone say that PayPal is harder, or takes more steps for the customer to buy. They don't have a test feature, and I can't remember what was involved with my first PayPal purchase, so it is difficult for me to compare.

I can see what time and prompting is involved in placing an order through ccnow, but not so easily with PayPal. Can anyone offer some insight on this? Does it take more time, or more information to buy with PayPal than from other services?

3) Mivox said, "The negatives are that PayPal has a "less than professional" reputation. Not really deserved, IMO, but it's seen as something for eBay users and hobbyists... I wouldn't use it on a serious "business site" for that reason."

- But do you think the opposite might be true?

Do you think it is a demographics issue... For example, maybe professionals would see PayPal as "cheesy", but consumers would feel secure using a company who's name they are familiar with, and have a warm, fuzzy feeling about?

It appears that PayPal is a huge name, may already be a household word. I am sure everyone would agree that McDonald's is not the ultimate venue in a fine, gourmet dinning experience. However, they serve more customers than any - for one reason... when you go to McDonalds, you know what you are getting! It is familiar, a brand you can trust.

Like McDonalds, it may turn out that PayPal has (or will have?) a bigger role in the food chain than we could imagine.

[ArtSEPI]

I'd like to try CCNOW, but 9% ... ouch.

[mivox]

Do you think it is a demographics issue... For example, maybe professionals would see PayPal as "cheesy", but consumers would feel secure using a company who's name they are familiar with, and have a warm, fuzzy feeling about?

Good point! I would personally be leery of buying from a company who didn't offer in-house CC processing (how big are they? how long will they be in business?) but a less experienced user might feel more comfortable giving their CC info to PayPal, because of the name recognition issue.

Physics - Are PayPal's glitches worked out yet?

[physics]

I'm thinking about giving it another shot, but as of yet I haven't tested it out any more. My thinking in the beginning was that since PayPal was so well known that they would have tested the cart before releasing it [it wasn't really my intention to be a guinea pig ;)]. But now that I know it's prone to serious bugs I'm not sure if I want to put any more time into it for a while (I assume they're working out the bugs now - I hope!)

[minnapple]

Any further updates on the PayPal Cart?
I have a prospect that is requesting it.

Any feedback either good or bad from users?

Thanks in advance.

Minnapple

[Marcia]

There's been an independent company that's had a free cart system out for a while that functions with PayPal. I know some people who use Emartcart [emartcart.com] and haven't reported any problems with it - not that I know of.

I think the major differences between this and Mal's cart could be in the configurations for the shipping, which is causing me a bit of a problem at Mal's the way the site's charges are set up. I haven't tried this other one, myself.

[physics]

I'm thinking of setting the cart back up on my site to see if it works now and because it would be great to have a cart instead of the single pay buttons. Does anyone use the paypal cart right now and if so have all of the bugs been worked out?

Cheers.

[salesmaster]

eCommerce- Accepting Credit Card payments.

Does anyone know of a cart suitable for UK use?

I tried Glocart but they want to charge and pay me in Dollars.

Personnally, I don't fancy paying 9% + currency conversion.

Ideally, I would like it to accept any countries currency, yet pay me in UK £'s.

No monthly bills, just a straight commission.. Any Ideas?

[sun818]

Hi -- newbie lurker, first time poster.
As I conduct 400-500 transactions a month on eBay, I use Paypal a lot. The Paypal cart is ideal for single item transactions where the product price, shipping, and insurance is fixed. When the buyer wants multiple items, s/he is gouged on shipping.

I use a third party cart service called Mal's (mals-e.com) free eCommerce to handle the shipping calculations for me. There are too many shipping schemes to mention, but it will accomodate many seller's needs. The free version has an interface to Paypal. For a fee, the cart can be customized graphically and allow you to connect to dozens of major credit card gateways.

If Paypal is not an option, I also recommend using ProPay.com to accept Visa/MasterCard directly. The buyer doesn't sign up for anything. Fees are reasonable at 3.5% plus $0.35 per transaction. Your e-mail appears as the payee on the buyer's statement unlike 2checkout.com or ccnow.com. Just create an e-mail like [e-mail] and the tail end of your e-mail will be truncated on the buyer's statement. :)

If anyone has any specific questions, feel free to post here and I'll answer as best I can.

Thanks,
sun818

[salesmaster]

PAYPAL - BARCLAYS UK *** PROBLEMS OBTAINING £1 AUTHORISATION***
Since my last posting, I discovered PAYPAL does have other currency accounts.
Logging on to a UK account, I had problems getting them to authorise the standard £1
refundable authorisation debit.

PAYPAL returns "Please contact your bank, they are denying authorisation".

Now two weeks on, after multiple US-UK phone bills to both PAYPAL and BARCLAYS,
PAY PAL still says "Speak with your bank, we are just a server, and if your bank wont allow it
then theres nothing we can do.

Barclays say... We have authorised multiple entries for £1. You will have to speak to PAY PAL!

Any similar experiences? and Suggestions?

[salesmaster]

PAYPAL - BARCLAYS... The saga continues...

Absolute dead end!
Barclays has now "Authorised" approx 26 attempts, each for $1. Now, my account is "OVER DRAWN" so Barclays WONT Authorise now. Closing my Paypal account, Barclays wont cancel the 20 odd £1 applications (incase they are drawn upon). Meanwhile, Paypal cant give anything back because they have not received anything. Apparently I must put more money into this account! As Both PayPal and Barclays are automated services, neither are prepared to speak with each other

If I knew this would work, I would! But neither Barclays or Paypal can guarentee that. During this battle, I took the time to look at Paypals new features, and I must say, it does look good. I only wish I could play!

[salesmaster]

Paypal - Barclays Saga

Not wanting to deviate to far from the original thread, I find myself getting more entwined. Yet, having just recieved an eMail, I feel I should share it.
Having sent a complaint E-mail to Both Barclays and PayPal (telling them about this public discussion), Craig from Paypals finance just dropped this line:

"Thank you for contacting PayPal.
After viewing your account, every time you try to add your card, we will
try to verify your credit card. When you first try to add your card, all
transactions will do an authorization of the card. Once a authorization is
completed, the server-to-server connections will then try debit $1 from
your account. Your issuing bank is denying the second transaction,
thinking it is a duplicate transaction. I apologize for any inconvenience
this may cause you nand we are working on this situation."

Good on Ya Craig! go for it!
If you can get Barclays to the party, I will vouch for Paypal! I just want to start using all those goodies.. multi-payments,single-payments,donations, AND subscriptions!
AND if that's not enough.. ALL this in my own Glorious British UK £'s(or any other currency), AND for less than 3%!
Go on Craig !..
Pay-Pal! Pay-Pal! Pay-pal!

[Salesmaster II]

THE SAGA ENDS!!
Paypal appears to have problems with UK DEBIT CARDS

Had a CAPITALONE leaflet through the door, any one can apply and get a £200 credit card.

I know we shouldn't "PLUG", but as there is a problem getting PAYPAL with UK DEBIT CARDS. CAPITALONE is more of a webmaster SOLUTION rather than PLUG, to the many new eBusiness builders with out credit cards.

CAPITALONE CREDIT CARDS ENABLE PAYPAL UK CONNECTIONS

I finally got my PAYPAL Button

At moderators discretion of course!

[EliteWeb]

I setup a PayPal Store in 2 hours - did some nice little java script stuff with it. works fine. Now they have 'suscription services' maybe if you offer a magazine or Ex Ex Ex Site. (;

[amoore]

I'm concerned about the security problems with a paypal shopping cart system. It appears that the price that paypal charges the merchant is based on a 'hidden' field in the HTML. Knowing this, I was able to change the price on items and purchase them through paypal.

Has this security problem been fixed, or addressed in any way from what anyone can tell? Also, if you run a paypal shopping cart on your site, have you seen this problem exploited, or do you watch out for it?

[ggrot]

amoore, this isn't a serious problem. The merchant still decides whether or not to ship the goods. They can simply send an email message to the 'sneaky' buyer telling them that their order will not be shipped until full payment is recieved.

[amoore]

To reply to my own post, I finally figured out that if you use Instant Payment Notificaton, paypal will let you know how much the customer paid, so if it's not the same as what you expected, you can (or have your script) not deliver the goods or service. This works even in the case when you don't get to check your paypal account every time someone purchases something.

[Falcon]

Currently, I use the mals-e.com shopping cart. One feature that he has supplied is a simple security check for posting items to his cart. It is a hash value of the item, qty, and price. When he gets the post to add it to the cart, he recomputes the value and checks it against what you posted. I understand there are ways of hacking that but for a low tech, quick fix - he has done a pretty decent job.

[NeoN]

Guys, how is the PayPal cart feels now?? Is that works ok???
Any errors??? Problems?????

New comments??
Should I use that for small business sites????

Thank you!

[DarkSkies]

I'm very impressed with PayPal. Although when it first started they had lots of negative press. I use PayPal for just about everything now, Subscriptions to services we offer etc... I am now presently hooking up PayPal to my dialup access to authenticate/accept/deny/ then auto create the dialup account. I know it can be done because I have seen it. I hope the shopping cart developers make a script to plug into PayPal as they have done to gateways like Authorizenet. Linkpoint, etc... I think PayPal is too big now to ignore. like eBay, I think PayPal was a 1 Time success. to see another company try to emulate it I think would fail now. Like eBay,
THERE CAN ONLY BE 1!

p.s. I love this forum Script! I just installed a PHP version on our site. It Rocks! they are working on a new version too. It doesn't look as good as the older ones, IMO.

DarkSkies
(The Truth is out there)

[Salesmaster II]

>>NEON >>Should I use that for small business sites????

I think a question we should all be asking is WHY did we intend to use this?
I think the answer was - "We wanted the customer to IMPULSE BUY right there, right now".

Problem is, PAYPAL like many of these facilities, require your customer to sign up to an account before they can buy- which can take two days to approve their credit. This removes the very incentive to have such a facility. As the customer will surf away.

People are saying their sites look good, but how many people are buying from them? And how many sales are we losing?

NEON, you mentioned the plural word "business-sites". If these are not for you, but for your customers sites, then I feel you would owe it to them to be able to take ALL that impulse money immediatly. Therefore I would recommend you do as I intend, and that is to spend the "£250 money we were trying to save. "Open a merchant account".