Force store shipping address to match PayPal shipping address

[DeanP]

Hi friends - I'm hoping you can offer some suggestions for this issue. We use PayPal on a limited basis to take payment for some orders shipping outside the US. I'm sure you know that in order to be compliant with PayPal's protection policies, merchants have to ship to the address listed on the PayPal payment. Great, no problem.

However, the customer will sometimes specify a different shipping address on their webstore order. This creates the problem of needing to contact the customer, explain the policy, confirm that it's okay to send to the PayPal shipping address, and sometimes refund the payment so the customer can pay again with a different shipping address specified. And, sometimes all of this happens with a language barrier.

Do you know of any way to prevent this? I don't see any way to force a match between the store shipping address and PayPal shipping address.

[Toobusy]

Have your customer add the secondary address to their paypal account. I have a couple customers who will be overseas but want me to ship to a US address when they're stateside so they can fly their merchandise home. So far it hasn't been a problem with the seller protection gained by shipping to the verified address of your customer, because each address is verified.

[DeanP]

Thanks for that info Toobusy, but I am looking for a hands-off solution. Customers frequently pay with a confirmed address, but specify an entirely different shipping address on the webstore, and sometimes that can lead to the order getting shipped to an unconfirmed address that is not covered by seller protection.

[TMS Clint]

Unless you want to require that billing and shipping match, then there's no way around it in 3dcart as far as I know. But, supposing you could force the PayPal Seller Protection eligible address to be the shipping address, I imagine that just as many customers would complete the order then call to complain that they want to change the address and you would be in the same boat. It won't fix your problem, but adding a sentence stating that customers paying vial PayPal will have their order shipped to the address associated with the transaction might cut down on the amount of calls you have to make. If you find a solution or work-around that works for you, please post it.

[DeanP]

I'll certainly let you know if I find anything, Clint.

I believe I have bought from stores that send me to PayPal to pay, and then PayPal will send me back to the store, at which point all the store fields have been populated with the PayPal payment information. I'm looking to do something like that.

[TMS Clint]

Ah, yes, I think that's the default setting for pages hosted by PayPal. Which version of PayPal payments are you using?
http://imgur.com/xTmF9Kk

My experience is with PayPal Payments Advanced, and if you use one of their hosted then I think it behaves as you state -- populating the fields from PayPal. However, I think the customer is still capable of altering those fields if they desire.

[DeanP]

I'm using PayPal Payments Standard. There are newer integrations but I remember there was something I didn't like about one of them. I'll revisit them though. Thanks.

[NMTEACO]

If PayPal is populating the feilds (always), and you simply want to prevent the user from changing them, then there is a work around on a technical level. But it might break under certain circumstances... So you want to make sure the situation is always the same.

When the user clicks the PayPal button you set a cookie on the browser that said "paid with PayPal"... Then on the checkout page you have JavaScript check first if the shipping country is set outside the US, and then if the PayPal cookie is enabled. If both are true you disable the input feilds.

Then when they checkout clear the cookie, or if they cancel the PayPal transaction clear the cookie... With this solution you have to think of every possible outcome so someone does not get stuck not being able to edit their shippong when actually they should be able to.

Another solution is to skip the cookie, and just have your JavaScript check if the payment method is PayPal, and shipping country is not US, then disable feilds.

(When someone is checking out with PayPal there is a special payment box that comes up that explains the payment has been authorized, but they still need to "checkout". It should be pretty easy to check if this exists with JavaScript. )