Has paypal made selling more difficult?
February 2, 2014 10:38 AM Subscribe
After a five-year hiatus, I'm resurrectting my website (I make one-of-a-kind toys). I went to paypal to update my Add to Cart buttons and hit a wall. In the old days, I could change a couple variables (toy name and price) in the code - super easy. Five years later, it seems I can't do that anymore. This seems like a crazy reversal in functionality. Can you help?
I emailed paypal customer service and got a no-response response.
From what I can tell, I now have to go to paypal and create a new button for each toy I sell because they generate a unique ID for each item. If each toy I made wasn't unique, it wouldn't be a big deal.
But I used to cut and paste the button code, change the item name and price. Easy. Why would they make the process more difficult? With more steps?
They suggested I use a pull down menu and customers would have to select the toy name from a list - but I'd end up still creating new buttons each time a toy is sold or made. No less work, and functionally the stupidest thing I can imagine.
At this point, using a separate shopping cart that talks to paypal seems like my best option. But the less coding I need to do, the better. Or create unique IDs based on price and then have customers tell me which toy they want in the comments section. Which is ridiculous.
Is there a workaround I'm missing? Any suggestions for making this as easy as possible for me and my customers?
Thanks. (Let me know if I need to clarify anything. This all seems convoluted, especially because it was so easy five years ago.)
I emailed paypal customer service and got a no-response response.
From what I can tell, I now have to go to paypal and create a new button for each toy I sell because they generate a unique ID for each item. If each toy I made wasn't unique, it wouldn't be a big deal.
But I used to cut and paste the button code, change the item name and price. Easy. Why would they make the process more difficult? With more steps?
They suggested I use a pull down menu and customers would have to select the toy name from a list - but I'd end up still creating new buttons each time a toy is sold or made. No less work, and functionally the stupidest thing I can imagine.
At this point, using a separate shopping cart that talks to paypal seems like my best option. But the less coding I need to do, the better. Or create unique IDs based on price and then have customers tell me which toy they want in the comments section. Which is ridiculous.
Is there a workaround I'm missing? Any suggestions for making this as easy as possible for me and my customers?
Thanks. (Let me know if I need to clarify anything. This all seems convoluted, especially because it was so easy five years ago.)
Best answer: Are you saying that the stuff on this page no longer functions?
Seems like they expressly allow this sort of thing, but I haven't used the buy now buttons in a while.
posted by toomuchpete at 10:53 AM on February 2, 2014
Seems like they expressly allow this sort of thing, but I haven't used the buy now buttons in a while.
posted by toomuchpete at 10:53 AM on February 2, 2014
Response by poster: thanks so much! i have no idea why their customer service rep didn't tell me. i'll try both.
posted by crankyrogalsky at 11:48 AM on February 2, 2014
posted by crankyrogalsky at 11:48 AM on February 2, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
https://www.paypal.com/cart/add=1&business= THIS_IS_YOUR_PAYPAL_EMAIL&amount=37.99&item_name=THIS+IS+THE+ITEM+NAME+SEPARATED+BY+PLUSES.
posted by humboldt32 at 10:52 AM on February 2, 2014 [1 favorite]