Integration with PayPal Instant Payment Notification

[david_kay]

I would be very grateful if someone could advise me on whether I can set up my checkout in a specific way. I will be selling comics, all of which have different weights and sizes and so setting up accurate postage options is a nightmare - short of weighing and measuring every comic I have in stock (1000s) I cannot see a way of doing it well. So if possible, I would like to do the following -

a)set up my checkout so that the customer does not pay for their order straight away, just reserves their comics (this I have pretty much done, I used the Invoice with Order option)
b)after weighing the comics, send the customer an invoice via PayPal (or is there a better way?)
c)after the customer has paid the invoice, have the payment details feed through automatically in Actinic, marking the order as paid.

Could someone point me in the direction of a tutorial or something, as the PayPal site doesn't seem to have much info on this and their help so far has been less than sparkling. Is it even possible? Or does Actinic itself have a better way of doing it?

Thank you in advance

David Kay
www.backissuesheaven.com

[Toby B]

Hi David,

I'm afraid it's not possible to get PayPal to automatically update the orders which already reside in Actinic. Once the customer had paid the invoice you will need to update the orders manually.

Sorry about that.

[david_kay]

That's fine Toby, it would have been great but if it can't be done then that's that.
Thanks for the reply.

David

[Mike Hughes]

most websites in your position will use an average weight for each item. the benefits of doing it this way are:

1. No need to weigh every item.

2. Customers get the benefit that they know when placing the order how much P+P will be.

3. The order process is much cleaner. Order comes in => pick it => ship it. None of this weighing, to-ing and fro-ing, calculating how much, waiting for customer to come back again, keeping picked items on the side while waiting, going back to paypal for payment, etc, etc. You'll really appreciate this once the volume picks up.

Yes, sometimes people will pay more than they should, sometimes they'll pay less. Overall though it's much simpler and easier for everyone concerned.

Mike

[david_kay]

I'll definitely bear this in mind Mike, thanks. In your experience do customers prefer to know upfront what the postage charges will be, even if it means they'll pay perhaps a bit more than they should?

[pinbrook]

I think that customers prefer to know postage costs before placing an order. Before purchasing you need to add product price to delivery cost to check that this is the best price for the purchase. By not disclosing shipping cost you are not giving people the opportunity to compare your prices and thus they may go elsewhere.

You could make life easier for your self by using weight based shipping. It may take a while to get all your weights in, but in the long run this time will be offset by the less time taken to process an order

[Mike Hughes]

In your experience do customers prefer to know upfront what the postage charges will be, even if it means they'll pay perhaps a bit more than they should?

Definitely.

Your aim should be to make the whole buying / decision process as simple as possible and that includes removing any doubt or unknown quantities from the equation.

The bottom line is that people worry about the unknown things and if they're worried they won't buy. Your version also adds an extra step which is a bad idea as it means people have to decide to buy your product twice. Once when they see it and again when you tell them how much shipping is going to be.

Mike