posted on March 11, 2006 12:27:29 PM new
My buyers are constantly missing the Pay Now button to go to PayPal and complete payment when they go through Vendio checkout. What really frosts me is that Vendio still sends a "Checkout Completed" email. When I go to look in PayPal for the payment - nothing! I have to contact the buyers and tell them to finish their PayPal payment process in the checkout. This is checkout is supposed to help me automate my checkout process and not add a layer of confusion. Really, if this checkout from Vendio is to have value, it should lead the buyer more directly to payment when the buyer selects to pay by PayPal. Furthermore, when I get an email telling me checkout is complete, I want the checkout to be complete. Thanks!
Your buyers don't actually have to click on a 'pay now' button once they finish the checkout process.
When you select PayPal as a payment method and click to confirm the selection, you are redirected straight into the PayPal website with the required fiels already prefilled into the form to submit payment.
The 'Pay Now' button would only be used if you go back into the checkout page where the buyer confirmed the transaction, as the redirect only happens during the actual checkout confirmation process.
As for the checkout completed emails, you can disable these in your post sale management settings. These should not be confused with Payment Completed notices that PayPal would send you, as they can only confirm that the buyer has completed the checkout step in post sale, and not that they have also completed the following step of submitting the payment.
posted on March 13, 2006 06:37:00 AM new
Thanks for the reply, but I'm still not convinced this is working as it should. In my case, I have had checkouts that were marked as completed in PSM where PayPal is the chosen method. However, there is no payment posted in PayPal. In one instance I waited 5 days and finally sent a reminder to the buyer to "complete" the checkout. (I waited because I thought the problem was with PayPal.) The buyer complied and the payment was then posted. So my question comes down to whether Vedio marks checkout as complete even when payment has not been completed in PayPal? I don't know of any way to see how the buyer is lead along in checkout to understand what they see. I also don't know if they can get into PayPal and then back out without paying. However, I do know that they can select payment via PayPal and then have the checkout marked as completed which is confusing at best to the seller. I just would like to feel sure that when checkout is marked as complete for PayPal, that the process has been completed. Thanks.
posted on March 13, 2006 01:13:49 PM new
What was just said about postsale step 2 and step 3 is important. The Vendio checkout and the Paypal checkout operate completely independently of each other. The only real integration is AFTER the person has paid at Paypal: if they have paid, the Paypal site's payment data is imported into the Vendio postsale. Before they have paid at Paypal there are no safeguards or error messages or anything in the Vendio checkout process that requires a person who indicates they want to pay by Paypal to actually pay you.
You can pull up the checkout to edit it and go through the process yourself to see what they see (same as how you complete the checkout for a buyer). If they indicate they will pay by Paypal they get presented with a Paypal log-in screen which they are supposed to intuitively know to log into so they end up paying at the Paypal site, but there is also a "continue" button right below that on the same screen. No ecommerce checkout screen I have ever heard of has a continue button that can bypass the payment process, but that is how the Vendio checkout is set up.
When they hit the "continue" button on the Paypal log-in screen they are checked out by Vendio (and sent a checkout completion confirmation notice with order number if that default is enabled). Because they hit a continue button sitting right on a Paypal official screen they think the Vendio charges they have authorized by participating in the checkout have been automatically authorized at Paypal via Vendio behind the scenes.
But what has really happened is that they are being notified they have completed only the VENDIO checkout process (postsale step 2)--which doesn't include Paypal payment (postsale step 3). That works great if payment by check or money order is chosen because they know they will have to mail it after completing the checkout, and the checkout completion comfirmation notice indicates they will be sending it. It also works fine if folks know to ignore the "continue" button and log in to Paypal and pay on the Paypal site. Many do know that, but lots and lots don't. The ones who don't think they have paid and the Vendio order confirmation email in their mind confirms it.
If a big percent of your customers are being antagonized, you can disable the checkout automatic confirmation notices and send explanatory emails with your paypal address and a Paypal site link to those who only made it through step 2. Whether they clicked out of the checkout to go to the restroom or got confused in a Paypal boondoggle, if they get hung up at only step 2 they are going to need some sort of payment reminder anyway. If they paid at Paypal they will get their Paypal email confirmation of payment so they don't really need one from your Vendio checkout unless you are dealing with them by order number instead of auction number. In that case until the checkout gets fixed you could send a manual email to your Paypal customers with that information (because all your customers will need manual order confirmation emails if you have that automatic feature disabled and need them to get Vendio order numbers).
posted on March 13, 2006 02:05:54 PM new
passedtothepresent, thanks for your illuminating reply. I see what is happening now. I am embarassingly confused and misinformed on how a lot of Vendio works. This is despite the fact that I am an avid reader of instructions. Unfortunately, I have found many key instructions here in Vendio's own tutorials and manuals are misleading, wrong, or just inadequate. I am slowly zeroing in all of my automatic settings and trying to make everything flow nicely. I have a feeling we all are learning the "hard" way and that those of you who have been here longer know far more than I can from the instructions. Even small things are confusing and can't be cleared up by reading the instructions. A small case in point is the seeming very simple "shipment status sent to buyer" command in the Post Sale Fulfillment checklist. There is a "send shipment notification" link you can hit to send the notice. This also fills in the checkbox. However, just try figuring out what happens if you only fill in the checkbox. Does this also send the email? The hover help for the checkbox says "Shipping status notice sent?" Does clicking the box actually send, or does it only report the status? No way to tell, from my end. Very confusing. Just a small thing, but all these little things add up. ANyway, thank you very much for your info. I will definitely walk through a checkout and see what is going on.
Manually checking the boxes next to those steps in post sale just checks the box, it doesn't perform any other action other than simply checking that box to indicate your done with that step.
posted on March 14, 2006 12:40:52 PM new
Thank you, Christopher. That is good to know. So when I alter checkboxes, the customer sees no results from their side at all. This was confusing me. What I have seen is that if I removed the check from auction completed so that I could look at the checkout in detail, that when I checked that box again I would get another "Congratulations" email that checkout was completed. Now this is OK so long as I am the only one receiving an email like this. It would have me worried to think the customer was getting such emails in duplicate. It made me wonder if the other checkboxes were generating emails when clicked. Thanks again.
Are you guys working to clarify the "continue" button issue that passedtothepresent brought up? I think this is a very important thing to address. I CONSTANTLY have buyers who think they've completed payment through PayPal, when really, they've only completed Vendio's checkout. I thought they were just dopes...I had no idea that a confusing "continue" button was likely the culprit. Please, PLEASE address this issue in the revised release of Vendio this year. This is incredibly important to us sellers, as customers get VERY unhappy when they find out they haven't paid for an item when they thought they paid days ago (not to mention that we don't like waiting to collect our money, either).
Also, I didn't think Vendio users had the option to send a customer an automatic "checkout completed" e-mail, as referenced in this thread. I thought the only one you could have automatically sent was a "payment received" notice. How do I know if my buyers are receiving the "checkout completed" notice (and where can I turn this off?).
posted on March 15, 2006 12:26:11 PM new
Hello Amanda,
What passedtothepresent said isn't correct.
Here is the actual process for the checkout when it comes to choosing PayPal as a paytment method:
1.
Then, once you click 'confirm order' - this is the next page that appears:
2.
As for the 'checkout completed' messages, these optional messages are only sent to you for auction items if you enable the preference via the Post Sale Management section of the My Account page. That notice isn't sent to your buyers.
The buyers only receive an 'order confirmation' email for Vendio storefront transactions.
Regards,
Christopher
[ edited by ChristopherCS on Mar 15, 2006 12:28 PM ]
posted on March 15, 2006 01:56:32 PM new
Thanks for the clarification. Perhaps you can explain how they can get in and out of the checkout without paying much better than my attempts. Even if everything said previously about the mechanics of the process is not correct, the problem is still the same: There is no computer linkage in the Vendio checkout process that requires a step 3 to be completed if they choose Paypal for step 2.
So they click "confirm order" and get this Paypal screen you have shown--many don't log into Paypal to Pay but think they have paid. If the "continue" button on this Paypal screen only triggers a Paypal site screen for a new user to sign up or something else instead of continuing to the final Vendio checkout screen, then there has to be an error message attached to something else. Perhaps the upper right windows x-out-of-the-screen button is a possibility, so if they do not fill in the Paypal log in email and password info boxes they are not permitted to exit without a warning they haven't paid.
Or perhaps the text/button that needs to be changed is your well-illustrated previous screen's "confirm order" choice, changed to something like "Confirm order AND LOG INTO PAYPAL TO PAY".
It's not my job to figure out the fix. It doesn't matter how clear Vendio checkout designers think it is. Lots of customers don't get it. There has to be something coded into this checkout that doesn't let them exit the checkout without actually paying the seller if they indicate they want to use an online payment service.
Posting explanations of step 2 and step 3 and screen shots of the screens doesn't fix anything. We understand customer service can't personally fix basic program design components. Please put this on the already long list to "escallate to engineering".
Your right, unfortunately even 'COMPLETE YOUR EBAY CHECKOUT' being the title of the page that is displayed by PAYPAL on the page that comes up after selecting it as a payment method, some buyers still don't submit the funds.
We will be happy to pass along a suggestion on your behalf to try and get PayPal to change this page to give buyers a popup warning letting them know that they haven't yet completed the needed steps on this 'COMPLETE YOUR EBAY CHECKOUT' page.
Regards,
Christopher
[ edited by ChristopherCS on Mar 15, 2006 04:03 PM ]
posted on March 16, 2006 04:27:44 PM new
Hi Christopher. Thanks again (truly meant), but this is really not a Paypal problem. Paypal doesn't care whether the customer logs in or not, and wouldn't know if they didn't unless they have some backend screening log set up to monitor clickout by the customer (generally common for shopping carts but not for for login screens).
It is a Vendio checkout design problem, and the Vendio sellers are the ones experiencing the fallout. When it runs afoul it makes the sellers look bad. It makes Vendio look very bad to the auction buyers, and very very bad to auction buyers who are sellers and considering Vendio for their auction software.
Thank you for your time. This problem is one of the big reasons why I quit using the checkout and left Vendio the first time around hoping in time things like this would get fixed. I don't feel I can send customers to this checkout again until it is fixed, so I have a personal stake in posting anything I can think of that might help til a fix works. I've posted some further thoughts/examples for fixing this on the feedback forum instead of here--perhaps you can further those to engineering as well:
http://www.vendio.com/mesg/read.html?num=50&thread=1814&id=1814
