pbreit
Pioneers-
Posts
154 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Everything posted by pbreit
-
We like osCommerce and get a lot of inquiries about PayPal support in osCommerce. Likewise, there appears to be a lot of discussion regarding PayPal at the osC boards. We would like to offer our assistance in any way we can to ensure that osCommerce and PayPal users have the best support possible. One current issue is that there are currently at least 3 widely used PayPal modules: built in to osC 2.2, PayPal IPN and PayPal_Shopping_IPN. I think that PayPal is popular enough that it makes a lot of sense to include one really good module in the core distribution. Here are some of the things I think should be implemented: High level requirements: + easy to activate PayPal and provide merchant ID (email address) + good integration into OSC checkout + pass name, address, country, email information to PayPal so shopper doesn't have to re-enter + OSC auto-magically specifies the return, cancel and notify URLs + exclusive usage of PayPal Instant Payment Notification to receive payment details and update OSC database + shopper returns to "Thank You" page after paying + proper handling of echeck payments which begin in a Pending state Nice to haves: + multi-currency + pass image to PayPal for co-branding + adapt for digital goods + adapt for eBay Manager contribution + other? We are very anxious to assist so please let us know how we can do so. Thank you. pb (at) p*yp*l (dot) com
-
The IPN comes in < 3 secs 99% of the time. I'd optimize for that. The cart doesn't need to be shown on the page the shopper immediately returns to. It can just say "Thanks for your order". Maybe it provides a link to order status. Maybe it provides upsell.
-
That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation. So for hosted payment methods (like PayPal, PayFlow Link, AuthNet SIM) there should be a temporary lock on the cart (for a few minutes) while a payment attempt is made. Then a time out or some customer action indicating they wish to continue shopping would unlock it. It does sound like it can get tricky.
-
If that's the case, then I'd actually recommend passing an ID that corresponds to the contents through to PayPal. Then processing the IPN to match the payment to the cart contents and create the order. Until, the PayPal payment is completed, it's probably best to treat the cart as "abandonable". Abandoning at PayPal is pretty similar to abandoning during osC checkout.
-
It would seem beneficial to save cart contents to the DB while the shopper is browsing or at least once they get into the checkout process. Am I understanding correctly that osC does not do this in general? And the "PayPal IPN" contrib *does* do this? And that a future osC milestone may do this? I guess there's been a lot of thread-editing recently. That could be why I'm so confused!
-
I think Chris is referring to this contrib: http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1352 This may be confusing things if that contrib has modified the checkout to store cart contents in the DB (create and order?) before directing the buyer to PayPal to pay. For simplicity's sake, I'd suggest focusing first on a solution that works perfectly for non-eBay sellers of physical goods. Then it would be safer to adapt for digital goods and eBay selling.
-
Does osC store cart contents in the database while the shopper is shopping? "I think PayPal should seriously consider [osC should have the ability to instigate a curl connection to PayPal and thus confirm payment]." How would this work exactly? Does it need to be possible to cancel the payment at that point? The best thing I think to do is to totally disregard the "return" and Auto-Return and instead do all of the processing based on the IPN. This makes things very clean and less error-prone. In fact, I would advise setting rm=1 in the PayPal button which makes the "return" be a GET with no IPN data. Also, if cURL isn't already required by osC, I might suggest using fsockopen instead since it's more prevalent. IPN can go over http or https (http is fine since there's no credit card information being transmitted).
-
That is correct that PayPal is a hosted processor like AuthorizeNet SIM and PayFlow Link. Is it possible for osC to create the order based exclusively on the IPN? Does the shopper have to be present for osC to complete the order? How does osC store cart contents before they are paid? Couldn't the cart ID be passed to PayPal and PayPal passes it back in the IPN which can be processed to create/update the order?
-
I unfortunately do not know exactly how osC works but will try to make a reply. What most carts do is send PayPal a unique order number (best to pass through as "invoice" which PayPal enforces uniqueness on). The shopper pays. PayPal posts an IPN to the store that inludes the order number. The store applies the payment to the order. The shopper returning to the store is a totally independent event and should have no further affect on the processing. If URL-based session are in use, the session ID would need to get passed in the "return" URL. If cookie-based sessions are used then it should be OK. The key is not to do any processing based on the "return" URL. Passing the individual item information is a "nice-to-have" but I usually advise against it because it's more code to watch after and not strictly necessary since all the cart details are available in osC.
-
Checking for notify.paypal.com just adds more room for something to go wring and should no tbe necessary. Just an FYI...the moderators deleted that I work for PayPal from my sig.
-
We advise basing all processing exclusively off of the IPN. IPN is more reliable (doesn't depend on the buyer's browser, retries until successful) and handles e-checks. We advise against processing the Continue button. Processing the Continue button requires a decent amount of technical expertise and knowledge about how PayPal works. We advise against processing Auto-Return in all circumstances as it does not provide proof of payment.
-
We advise against relying on the numbered IP address as it can change. Although notify.paypal.com will remain constant, we still advise against relying on it. When implemented properly, which is not too difficult, there are no known IPN exploits.
-
This is NOT the case. Buyers will be able to make multiple payments without signing up for PayPal. The person you spoke with may be referring to the situation if the buyer had a PayPal account in the past which was either forgotten or closed. Credit cards linked to those accounts cannot be used in the new payment flow.
-
That's correct. Auto-Return shouldn't be relied upon in this situation because it doesn't provide any proof of payment. We're hoping to work with Greg and others to make sure that the PayPal functionality included with the core OSC distribution works well. IPN is *very* easy to implement and a very reliable way for PayPal to transmit payment information to OSC.
-
I think it's most useful to optimize the contribution to work entirely off IPN and not Auto-Return or the Continue button. This has many advantages: 1) It's more reliable because it doesn't depend on the buyer pressing "Continue" or the Auto-Return happening and IPN retries until it's successful. 2) It doesn't require the merchant to perform any set up in the PayPal Profile. 3) Auto-Return provides no payment information. The Continue Button or Auto-Return cold be utilized *optionally* for upsell or to provide a link to order status. For downloadable items, it's useful to implement an email as a back-up in case the buyer isn't able to access the download immediately for some reason.
-
I haven't had the time to read through this whole thread but I did make a somewhat-related post on this thread: http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?sho...30entry312526 There are at least two things that we should make sure work really well: 1) The usage of PayPal IPN should be automatic and OSC merchants shouldn't even have to do any set up. The inclusion of "notify_url" in the PayPal button triggers IPN. Merchants need not modify their PayPal Profiles. This would alleviate a lot of the issues I here about of OSC not learning of a payment because buyers don't press the Continue button, etc. 2) Shopper name, address, country, phone and email should be transmitted to PayPal so that it need not be entered again. This is really easy to do. I'm happy to get involved as much as I can. I can read code but not write it so well!
-
Two main things: 1) An OSCommerce distribution that is highly tuned for PayPal (we get a zillion requests). 2) A solid PayPal module, ideally in the core distribution. #1 is probably a lot of work so we can focus on #2. High level requirements: + easy to activate PayPal and provide merchant ID (email address) + good integration into OSC checkout + pass name, address, country, email information to PayPal so shopper doesn't have to re-enter + OSC auto-magically specifies the return, cancel and notify URLs + usage of PayPal IPN to receive payment details and update OSC database + shopper returns to "Thank You" page after paying + proper handling of echeck payments which begin in a Pending state Nice to haves: + multi-currency + pass image to PayPal for co-branding + adapt for digital goods + other?
-
It's possible (and encouraged!) to pass name, address and email information to PayPal so that buyers need not type it twice. https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p...-signup-outside Wizard, it looked to me like I would need to set up an account to buy one of your products. I'm pretty sure that's also how the core OSC system works (which is why the Purchase Without Account contrib exists). We participate here because we believe OSC is one of the best options for setting up an online store and that many OSC businesses are using PayPal. We apologize for the commerciality. There are a number of reasons why our flow is hosted, the two primary being 1) to password protect payments (giving us among the lowest fraud rates in the industry) and 2) selecting among multiple payment methods. Most gateways offer a hosted option (AuthNet SIM, PayFlow Link) and Cybersource is *adding* one. We believe that with the amount of commerce being conducted through Amazon Marketplace, Yahoo Stores, eBay, PayPal and others that hosted interfaces are not only acceptable, but advantageous. We'd very much like to work with the OSC team, Pablo and whoever to assist in providing the best PayPal/OSC integration possible.
-
That's correct: buyers no longer need to set up an account when paying through PayPal. This currently works for Buy Now (which OSCommerce and all of the contributions use) and Shopping Cart, but not Subscriptions. Unfortunately, our International team was busy with PayPal Germany and ELMI and so the feature does not yet work for non-US buyers. This is a top priority, however. This modification applies primarily to buyers who have not used PayPal previously. The 40+ million existing PayPal users will not see much of a difference since they already have accounts. We also rolled out some other features that merchants and developers have been requesting. Most notably, more ability to customize payment pages with color and graphics. See http://paypal.typepad.com for more information. We have lots of merchants who take PayPal exclusively (and have very successful businesses) and many who take PayPal along with other payment methods. We encourage that since our experience is that merchants who utilize multiple providers are very satisified with PayPal. With respect to chargebacks, merchants typically see a lower rate for a variety of reasons (only about half of PayPal volume is through easily chargeback-able credit cards, chronic chargebackers may not use PayPal, considerably more resources to prevent and fight chargebacks). As one poster discovered, a dispute that PayPal denied was later accepted by the credit card company. We would generally advise actually trying out PayPal to get the most accurate information on how it can help your business succeed.
-
That's correct: buyers no longer need to set up an account when paying through PayPal. This currently works for Buy Now (which OSCommerce and all of the contributions use) and Shopping Cart, but not Subscriptions. Unfortunately, our International team was busy with PayPal Germany and ELMI and so the feature does not yet work for non-US buyers. This is a topp priority, however. This modification applies primarily to buyers who have not used PayPal previously. The 40+ million existing PayPal users will not see much of a difference since they already have accounts. We also rolled out some other features that merchants and developers have been requesting. Most notably, more ability to customize payment pages with color and graphics. See http://paypal.typepad.com for more information.
-
Ebay auction manager for OSCOMMERCE
pbreit replied to quicklyshop's topic in General Add-Ons Support
eBay just launched a new, free Individual license for the eBay API. While distribution of a solution still requires a Commercial license, the Individual license offers a good way to try out the API and can be used for personal use. http://developer.ebay.com There was also a question about the Editor and Merchant Kits which enable eBay listing syndication and eBay Affiliate Program compensation. The Merchant Kit is being folded into the Editor Kit. http://pages.ebay.com/api/editorkit.html -
Ebay auction manager for OSCOMMERCE
pbreit replied to quicklyshop's topic in General Add-Ons Support
From http://developer.ebay.com: "API calls that involve adding or relisting items to eBay are free and are not charged any API usage fees." -
Include a field in your PayPal buttons: <input type="hidden" name="image_url" value="https://www.site.com/images/my-logo.gif"> For best results, create a 150x50 pixel image.
-
Should be fixed shortly.
-
If you do not have access to a secure server: http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p...ns-logo-outside