Hello,

I have been using ProductCart with PayPal Website Payments Pro for almost an year now and during all this time I had (and continue to receive them) numerous complains from customers who could not figure out how to checkout using their PayPal account. The problem is that in order to checkout via PayPal, you need to press a PayPal image button during first Checkout step. This is not very logical - many clients go through the full checkout process and expect PayPal option in the regular drop menu where you select your payment method. Currently this dropdown menu offers payments via either credit card (through PayPal) or money order (which I set up seperately). So is there are a way to insert PayPal payment option (using your PayPal account - aka PayPal Express Checkout) into the payment selection dropdown menu or not?

Thank You!

That is a valid concern. You want PayPal to appear as a standard payment option.  Note: With PayPal “standard” it does appear as a standard option.

However, the “Website Payments Pro” solution is designed to provide an alternative payment method (PayPal Express) and also provide a standard payment method (Direct Payment) on your site. Therefore, PayPal provides hosted Express Checkout buttons that are mandatory.  So in short, it is against PayPal policy to provide Express Checkout without an Express Checkout Button.
 

It is true some websites can use Express Checkout without using PayPal’s buttons and stay under PayPal’s radar.  However, ProductCart is a certified partner and must comply with all of PayPal policies.
 

ProductCart is currently undergoing extensive PayPal upgrades to utilize PayPal’s latest platform, called the Name Value Pair. There will be several new features and enhancements (e.g. the SDK will no longer be required). As part of this process we will also be providing an “include file” that will have a small PayPal hosted button displaying (“Checkout with PayPal”).  You will be able to include this file in your header so that customers can easily locate the Express Checkout Option at all times.  This include file should solve the reported issue as well as comply with PayPal button policy.

This is great news Matt !!

Can you please give us an idea of how far off this PayPal upgrade is to being completed ?

We just went live two days ago & I have been struggling to figure out why there is not a PayPal Express Checkout button being displayed.

We are also using Google Checkout and are trying to figure out how to remove the overwhelming button they display in our Mini-Cart while at the same time it is being displayed on the Shopping cart page..........no problem in anyone finding a Google Checkout button!

Sorry, there is no ETA on the PayPal update yet.  What I can say is that we are making it high priority.

Open the file “pc/ SmallShoppingCart.asp” and navigate down to line 99.  

e.g. <!--#include file="pcPay_GoogleCheckout_Small.asp"-->

Delete this line to remove the GoogleCheckout button.

Note: You can add a PayPal Express Button with the following code. 

<a href="pcPay_ExpressPay_Start.asp"><img  src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_xpressCheckout.g if" border="0" alt="Acceptance Mark"></a>

Thanks alot Matt, that was quite helpful & solved my "double" Google Checkout button problem!

I will just hold off for awhile on the the Paypal button tweaks until the latest PayPal updates are ready.

Hello Matt,

I do not mind the PayPal Express button at all, it's just I want to have PayPal payment option in the drop down menu in the final step in addition to the Express button during the first step. Anyway to implement this? Maybe I should also activate "standart" PayPal option for this - would it cause any problems?

Thank You!

We had a conversation with PayPal last week regarding this question. Unfortunately, the answer is no, PayPal Standard can not be used with Pro.  

Here is PayPal’s view on the issue: WPP includes two products: Express Checkout (pay by PayPal account) or Direct Payment (pay by credit card).  WPP differs from Standard in that its API based.  Standard is the legacy HTML product that Express Checkout replaces. Standard and WPP would never coexist simultaneously…

After the next update for PayPal your customers should have no problem using the PayPal Express Checkout Button, and identifying it as an alternative to your site’s credit card option.

Hello Matt,

Thanks a lot for your help. Would the next update be for v3 users only or previous versions users will also get it (I'm using 2.76)

Thank You!

Hello mx22,

We have finally made a decision and will not be retrofitting the new components for 2.76.  In a future newsletter Early Impact will make an official statement explaining "why" this is the case.

For everyone looking for an ETA, the new PayPal BETA should be available by the end of next week, but as early as this Friday.

Matt,

So does this mean you will stop supporting users who have older version of ProductCart - i.e. if PayPal changes something and older version stops working, I will be left with no other choice, but to to buy v3?

Thank You!

Hello mx22,

That is a good question.  We still support 2.76 customers and fix bugs.  However, we do not plan to add new features to v2.76, or retrofit new components for 2.76.  That is pretty much standard with any software. Stores currently using 2.76 can continue to use PayPal with SDK 4.2 or earlier.  We have a copy of the SDK 4.2 that is available upon request.  Let me know if that doesn’t answer your questions or if still have some concerns.

Matt,

Right, I just wanted to find out if I will still have bugs support for my old version or not. I bought ProductCart just a couple of days over an year ago and to be honest I do not want to spend almost half of the amount of the original price on a new version every year. I do understand that new features are for new versions though.

Thank You!

"For everyone looking for an ETA, the new PayPal BETA should be available by the end of next week, but as early as this Friday."

Is this available yet......(Our fingertips are covered with blisters from manually entering credit card transactions through PayPal  )

Thanks

We now have the PayPalPro beta which implements the enhanced service without the need for the SDK on your server.

We're in the UK where PayPal have just launched the Pro service and it's a leap forward.   Proper standalone debit and credit card acceptance with full validation with PayPal providing your Merchant Account and an online sales management portal.   The Merchant Account integrates with your PayPal account so managing funds, drawing them down to your bank are as straight forward as before.   You even get a terminal emulation to take debit/credit cards by phone.

Now that our application is complete and the service activated we're absolutely delighted by this.  The implementation in ProductCart is excellent, straight forward and a great step forward.

Accepting debit and credit cards without any separate merchant account and without it being in any way apparent to the customer that it is PayPal based is marvellous.

PayPal Express is as quick and intuitive as its name.

We tried GoogleCheckout in the interim and found it absolutely awful with a flawed UK implementation and terrible integration.  

However the online tools at PayPal for the pro service and the integration in ProductCart are excellent.   The card processing is really quick too and we've found conversion has already gone up on orders in this first day of launch.

So - huge thanks to Early Impact.  

cheers

Mark

I suggest raising a support ticket on this.   PC in its latest version doesn't use the SDK anymore.   If you raise a support ticket and give PC FTP access, they can often see the problem themselves and resolve it directly for you.

cheers

Mark