PayPal Website Payments Standard

PayPal Website Payments Standard

I use osCommerce e-commerce shopping cart and once upon a time, I also had PayPal IPN (contribution) installed to process PayPal payments. However something went wrong (I don't remember what anymore) and I had to uninstall it and ask my customers to log into their PayPal account and make payment after they had completed their orders. In other words, they could not automatically and conveniently pay via PayPal directly from a link on my site.

No one complained but I started to wonder lately how many customers I was losing who could not be bothered to have to go through that tedious process. I have been doing some shopping lately and I found myself rejecting sites that had too many steps for me to take to complete and pay for an order.

So taking a deep breath and with much trepidation (as I hate installing stuff as one just never knows what will go wrong and how many hours, days, weeks thereafter one has to spend in resolving the problems), I decided to give integrating PayPal directly to my osCommerce cart another go again. This time I decided to go with PayPal Website Payments Standard (which was not available before when I had PayPal IPN).

My Setup Specifications

• osCommerce version 2.2 RC 2
• PayPal Website Payments Standard v1.0 (11 Jan 2008)
• store location: Australia
• accepting only AUD (AU$)

PayPal Website Payments Standard ~ an osCommerce contribution

The official short blurb on PayPal Website Payments Standard is:
"PayPal Website Payments Standard is a secure quick-start solution that has everything store owners need to start accepting credit cards, bank transfers, and PayPal payments online."

PayPal Website Payments Standard is automatically included in osCommerce Online Merchant v2.2.
It is available as a separate add-on for existing store owners who are running osCommerce Online Merchant v2.2 Milestone 2 and v2.2 Release Candidate 1.

PWPS (PayPal Website Payments Standard) is a global module. This means that this module can be used by sellers in any country. (Some of the PayPal modules for osCommerce are country-specific).

Okay, let's get to it ... what you have to do to install this to your e-commerce cart.

osCommerce Payment Modules

Have a look at what Payment modules you currently have.
Log into your osCommerce Admin area > Modules > Payment

The image I have included here shows what I had to start off with before I did anything else. As you can see, I had PWPS (PayPal Website Payments Standard) module already - which indicated that I only had to install / enable it to make it work. However, there were a few more steps I had to do ~ which will be detailed below.

Download

But what if you don't have the PWPS module? If you have osCommerce Online Merchant v2.2 Milestone 2 or v2.2 Release Candidate 1, then you will need to download this module.

Go to: PayPal Website Payments Standard module to download it.

It will come in a .zip package which you then extract. It comes with installation instructions in a "readme.pdf". I will summarize it here for you.

After extracting the .zip download, copy the files located in the 'catalog' folder to your osCommerce installation directory on the server. The files must be copied in the correct directory structure as extracted from the add-on package.

• ext/modules/payment/paypal/standard_ipn.php
• includes/languages/english/modules/payment/paypal_standard.php
• includes/languages/espanol/modules/payment/paypal_standard.php
• includes/languages/german/modules/payment/paypal_standard.php
• includes/modules/payment/paypal_standard.php

Once you have correctly uploaded the files to the corresponding folders in your osCommerce on your server, you will find that the PayPal Website Payments Standard module will show up in your
Admin area > Modules > Payment area.

Preliminary osCommerce Configuration Checks

Before you go any further, it is advisable to go through this checklist to ensure you don't get any funny errors later.

• Switch to Default Language Currency: set to false
  
  If this is set to "true" and your shop is outside the US, the prices will disappear from your website.
• Tax Decimal Places: 0 (I set at 0 and it seems to work fine though some sellers set them according to 2 if they need to charge sales tax).
• Send Extra Order Emails to: (you can set this to your PayPal email address. I have set my 'Email Address', 'Email From' and this to all the same email address and it seems to work fine. That address is also an address in my PayPal account - though not the default PayPal email address).
• Display Prices with Tax : true (if you have to charge sales tax at your location/country).

Here you set up to the currencies you are able to accept.
It is important that you set your national currency as the default currency as the default currency is the one that will be passed on to your PayPal.

Setting up your PayPal Settings

1. Login to your PayPal at the login page for your Country.
2. Once logged in, go to your Profile. (see image).
3. On the next page, you will be setting up your 'Selling Preferences'
   
4. Click Payment Receiving Preferences.
   * you can block payments in any currency you do not hold in your PayPal account. I find it useful to select "No, accept them and convert them to Australian Dollars" (i.e. accept and have PayPal convert to your default currency) * Prevent accidental duplicate payments by selecting"Yes, block multiple payments per invoice ID"
   * And set up the "Credit Card Statement Name" to something that is appropriate (to your store) so that customers can identify who they have made payments to on their statements.
5. Save your settings.
6. Next, under your "Selling Preferences", click "Instant Payment Notification Preferences".
   This allows PayPal to notify you as soon as you get payment.
   So enable the Instant Payment Notification (IPN) and
   set the "Notification URL" to http://<your web site>/catalog/checkout_process.php
   As my osCommerce is installed directly in my root folder, my "Notification URL" looks like this:
   http://www.myDomainName.com.au/checkout_process.php
7. Save and go back to your Profile Summary > Selling Preferences.
8. Next go to your "Website Payment Preferences"
9. Enable "Auto Return" so that your buyers can be returned to your website once they have completed their PayPal payments.
10. Set the "Return URL" to http://<your web site>/catalog/checkout_success.php
    This brings your customer back to a page that lets them know that their order has been successfully completed and paid for.
    Again, because my osCommerce installation is in my root folder, my "Return URL" looks like:
    http://www.myDomainName.com.au/checkout_success.php
11. Set "Payment Data Transfer (optional)" to Off as this is not supported by PWPS. (You need PayPal Pro module for this option).
12. Under "Encrypted Website Payments", set the "Block Non-encrypted Website Payment" to Off.
    
    As you are having PayPal to handle all your Credit Card payments, you don't need encrypted payments.
13. Set "PayPal Account Optional" to Off. This will ensure that your customers are returned to your website and that you are notified re the order details.
14. Set "Contact Telephone Number" to Off as your customers have already given you a contact telephone number when they set up an account with your store.
15. Under "PayPal Express Checkout Settings", set the "Support giropay and bank transfer payments" to Off because this PWPS module does not support Express Checkout.
16. Save these settings and go back to Profile Summary > Selling Preferences.
17. Next, select the "Custom Payment Page Styles".
    Here you can set up the PayPal payment page that your customers see so that the page has your logo header and website colours. This is an optional step. You might only have a "PayPal" style (which is the default and you cannot modify). If you want to have your own customized payment page, then add one and follow the easy instructions. Give your customised page a name/label (which we will be using later).
18. Save and you are all done. You can log off from your PayPal account if you like.

Setting up PWPS in your osCommerce

Go to Modules > Payment

If you have uploaded the extracted files that we talked about at the start of this page, then you should see "PayPal Website Payments Standard" as one of the available Payment modules. Click on that and in the right column, click the Edit button to modify and set up your PWPS.

I have included a screen shot of my setup for your reference.

1. Module must be Enabled to make the PayPal option available to your customers.
2. E-Mail Address is set to your PayPal email address
3. Payment Zone - I have set this to "none" as this works for me. Try this first and if it does not work for you, please search the osCommerce forum for help.
4. Set Preparing Order Status to "Preparing [PayPal Standard]" which will help intercept bad or incomplete orders.
5. Set PayPal Acknowledged Order Status to "Processing".
6. Gateway Server must be set to "Live" for real transactions.
   You can set this to "Sandbox" for testing purposes. I don't know how to do this or what has to be set up so I set it to "Live" straight away. And as I have 2 PayPal accounts, I made a real purchase and made payment via my second PayPal account as a means of testing this module. Once I knew that it all worked well, I then went to this store's PayPal account and refunded the money - thereby not incurring any PayPal fees.
7. Page Style - set this to the name you gave to the Customised Payment Page that you created above in your PayPal account's Profile pages.
8. Debug E-Mail Address - this is just another email address where you can received email notification if an order goes wrong or is incomplete.
9. Sort order of display: 0
   I have set this to zero (0) so that the PayPal option is the first payment in list of payment methods that a customer sees.
10. As you are not using encrypted payments (because you are letting PayPal handle all that), you can ignore the rest of the fields.
11. Save and your PayPal Website Payments Standard module should be ready and hopefully, working.