PayPal Express Checkout Gets Speedier

September 21, 2006 | In News & Announcements |

Editor’s note apology: My apologies faithful readers. I’ve been deeply involved in getting our upcoming release ready so I haven’t had much gas left in the tank to put up blog posts. I guess that happens to even the best-intentioned bloggers.

In case you haven’t been playing around in the Payment Methods section of the Store Manager, I just thought I would call your attention (belatedly) to a change we made at the end of August. The PayPal Express Checkout Account Optional feature was added and can be used by any merchant that sets up PayPal as a payment processor.

What is PayPal Account Optional and who benefits?

For those of you that have not yet setup a Merchant Account to process credit cards directly in checkout – this feature is for you. With PayPal Account Optional enabled (on by default), your buyers no longer have to sign into PayPal to pay with a credit card. So, as we all know, any change that helps buyers get through checkout quicker is usually a good thing and PayPal Account Optional will save the buyer time in checkout. This feature is beneficial because buyers without a PayPal account may choose to discontinue their order rather than signing up for PayPal to complete their transaction.

The Account Optional feature setting can be manually set by merchants but also automatically changes under certain conditions:

  • PayPal Express Checkout only: For merchants that set up PayPal Express Checkout as the sole payment method, the Require PayPal Account setting is set to “No” allowing buyers to checkout without needing a PayPal account.
  • Merchant Account added: For merchants with PayPal Express Checkout enabled that add a merchant account, the Require PayPal Account setting is reset to “Yes” meaning buyers must use or sign up for a PayPal account in order to checkout with PayPal.
  • PayPal Express Checkout added: For merchants with a merchant account that enable PayPal Express Checkout, the Require PayPal Account setting remains set to “Yes” meaning buyers must use or sign up for a PayPal account in order to checkout with PayPal.
  • Merchant Account removed: For merchants that set up both a merchant account and PayPal Express Checkout, and that remove their merchant account, the Require PayPal Account setting is reset to “No” allowing buyers to checkout without needing a PayPal account.

Merchants that wish to override the default settings for requiring a PayPal account can do so by going to Pay Methods > Payment Processing and click the Advanced Settings link in the Set up PayPal section.

Consult our help for more information about PayPal Account Optional.

Paul Boisvert
Yahoo! Small Business

5 Comments »

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  1. Thank you, this is a great feature!

    One more third-party bill off the table.

    Comment by Adrian Ziemkowski — September 21, 2006 #

  2. Good to have you have back. Is Yahoo! Wallet dead? What’s going on with that?

    Comment by FinnStyle — September 21, 2006 #

  3. Hi Chad,

    Can’t be of much help with that question. Yahoo! Wallet is managed outside of our group so I can’t comment in the current plans for it.

    Paul

    Comment by Administrator — September 22, 2006 #

  4. I was confused by this post and thought you were talking about a feature similar to PayPal’s website payments pro option where a user could use their credit card without going to paypal.com (aka, not signing in to paypal).

    You say that a store can use only PayPal, which is what I’m really hoping for here… But I don’t see how. On the payments page in the checkout it still lists “Pay using Credit Card” and lets a user enter whatever they want and the paypal link still says “You will login, select a funding source and then return to review and complete your order.” Am I wrong?

    Is there a way to exclusively use paypal, even if users then always go to paypal.com? I’d hope that I could hide the “Payment Method” section and just let the user know that they’ll be redirected to paypal.com to make the payment when they click continue and won’t need to create an account.

    Comment by Adrian Ziemkowski — September 25, 2006 #

  5. Adrian,

    Perhaps I can explain a bit more. The PayPal Account Optional is NOT the same thing as PayPal Website Payment Pro. Users will still get sent to PayPal but if you do not require a PayPal account, the user can choose to not sign in or sign up for a PayPal account before paying.

    The reason your checkout still shows credit card payment options is that you likely have credit card options still selected in the Payment Options page under Payment Methods. Go to that page and select “no” for all credit card options and that entire section will not display in checkout–only the PayPal section. The credit card payment is only for merchant accounts.

    Hope that helps.

    Paul

    Comment by Administrator — September 25, 2006 #

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