Give Users "Optional" PayPal Acccount during signup

As most of us are aware, PayPal has introduced a new "Optimized" checkout system. When this is turned on inside your PayPal account, it gives your customer's the ability to make a payment, then if they want to save their info with PayPal, they can and it will give them a new PayPal account.

The beauty of this, is that it gives users an "Option", especially if they are not a PayPal member, or they just don't like using PayPal at all. They can simply enter their payment info, and be done with PayPal. ( I guess it's more like a real merchant account, in a sense.)

Anyways.......

I have this option "Turned On" in my PayPal account (under Profile: Website Payment Preferences), but it doesn't seems to work, when a user signs up with aMember. Customers get the same old screen that says; "Please Enter Your PayPal Login" or "Sign Up New Account". (NO OPTIONS AT ALL TO JUST MAKE A PAYMENT)

PayPal says that this "Optimized" checkout works as follows: This feature is available for Buy Now, Donations, and Shopping Cart buttons, but not for Subscription buttons.

Therefore, I am wondering if it is something with the aMember payment system, that does not send a correct variable to PayPal letting them know that it is ok to use the "Optimized" version of the checkout. I am assuming that an aMember payment would be identical to a "Buy Now" button.

Any ideas would be appreciated, because I am getting alot of emails from people that ask if PayPal is the only way I accept credit cards. Which it is! And they do not want to use PayPal. So, I am loosing some sales.

Thanks in advance!!!

Brian

I'm very much interested in this as well.

I would love to only use paypal as a credit card processor as the access to the funds is immediate

Cheers,

~Regs.

This is an interesting question -- it seems that we could test a "buy now" button to see if, indeed, using the Amember gateway is providing a different entry into PayPal. I am not where I can try it now, but will do so later today if somebody else doesn't beat me to it.

By the way, a good test would probably require erasing the Paypal cookie from the machine using the button. I suspect that Paypal may provide a different entry page if it detects a cookie identifying that the browser belongs to a Paypal member.

Bill

Just wanted to clarify -- when I test our Amember using the Paypal (not the Paypal_r) plugin with the new Paypal option turned on (don't require a paypal account), if I have a Paypal cookie, I get a screen that invites me to login to Paypal. This screen also has a button to click on if I am not a current paypal member. If I click on that button, I get a payment screen that does not require me to create a Paypal password -- I pay first and am only invited to create a Paypal account by entering a password (which I can say no to) after the payment is entered by credit card.

If I use the Amember plugin without a paypal cookie on my machine, I get a slightly different first screen -- two areas, one that still invites me to login to Paypal, and the other which says "pay by credit card" or something to that effect.

I'm just not convinced without testing it that what we are getting through Amember is not the same as using a buy now button. It could be that the change that Paypal has made is rather subtle -- especially if you have that cookie on your machine.

Bill

Yes, please do Alex, that would be excellent.

Cheers,

~Regs.

Hi Alex,

Any estimated ETA for this new feature?

Cheers,

~Regs.

Here is what I know...

After a test... I have come up with this...

It may not be aMember that is causing the problems getting the "Optional" screen to show.

If I use Internet Explorer, I get the "Please Login" screen.

If I use Mozilla Firefox (cool browser!), I get the "Please Login" or "Pay with Credit Card" screen. Which is great.

So, this leads me to believe that it is due to "Cookies" on the machine that we get the screens without the "optional account" pay button.

I believe Internet explorer is finding a "cookie" on my computer and PayPal knows to show me the login, because I already have a paypal account. Even if I delete all the cookies in my cookie folder, I still get the login screen with IE. So, there must be a file or cookie saved elsewhere in another folder too!

But, when I used Firefox browser, it worked nicely.

So, if a new user, that does'nt have a paypal cookie on their machine, tries to purchase from your aMember, I believe it should display them the new "Optimized" screen, as long as you have it turned on in your account settings.

A question I was wondering is with the new optimized feature not needing a PayPal account, if it was possible to even bypass the PayPal screen and somehow send the credit card information to the site from a custom php/amember page?

I cant find this option anywhere on my paypal account !!

(under Profile: Website Payment Preferences) it says Auto Return for Website Payments and Payment Data Transfer (optional) but no other options !! Any ideas ? Could it be that I am located in Europe ? Please let me know ASAP !!

The option is under "Profile" -> "Website payment preferences"

Here is what button text looks like with this option enabled

<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick">
<input type="hidden" name="business" value="user@email.com">
<input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="Test Buy It Now">
<input type="hidden" name="item_number" value="12345">
<input type="hidden" name="amount" value="10.00">
<input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="1">
<input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
<input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-butcc.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!">
</form>

it does not appear any different to me from with the optional off, but hope this helps!

Here is the code right from the PayPal optional screen where the continue to pay with credit card button is

<td width="1"><img src="/images/pixel.gif" width=1 height=125></td>
<td align=center class="pptext">If you don't have a PayPal account<br> and want to pay with a credit card:<br><br>
<input type="submit" name="continue.x" value="Continue Checkout"><br>

It takes me to this screen after I push continue:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?__track=_xclick:p/xcl/pay/wax_welcome:_wax-welcome-submit

Hope this helps!
Frank

will this work is your subscription is recurring or will the user have to manually pay each week or "renew" their subscription?

can you use both?

I want to be able to use both. That way i can give my users the option of just signing up once or get a discount for sign up with a subscription. The only problem I have is that when I have both paypal pluggins on they say the same thing when viewed on the page. I there a way I could add some descripttion text next to them so that my users know which one to select andwhat it means?

Where's PayPal?

Excellent software. Excellent support. Excellent forum.

I just purchased aMember, and it's quite amazing.

With that said, I wish there any information about paying affiliates with PayPal mass pay. Can you point me in the right direction... I don't see anything on this and I'd be surprised if this wasn't included... aMember seems to cover just about everything.

Also, I'm assuming the latest version of aMember consolidated both paypal and paypal_r into paypal_r -- I can't find a plain paypal plugin in my installation.

My head is spinning over this.

I don't have a "paypal" plugin; only paypal_r and paypal_pro.

My client has paypal. I want all of his potential customers to be able to have the option to pay by credit card whether they have a paypal cookie on their computer or not.

How can I achieve this?

Thanks!