If you have followed the instruction which were provided in Part 1 of this guide, then you would have your first online store up and running by now. However an online store is not much value if you don’t have the capability to accept online payments. The ZenCart online store has the capability of accepting most credit cards, cheque payment and paypal payments. However for online transactions we need to configure credit card and paypal payments.
There are two ways of configuring your ZenCart for credit card payments.
- Setup your own payment processing
This is ideal for large scale stores who have strong connections with local banks. When payment processing is setup locally on your ZenCart, you will retain all the credit card information about a customer in your own database. This information is then forwarded onto a payment gateway (an online interface which will allow you to forward transaction information) provided by the bank for processing. Having a payment gateway to a bank through your store can be quite costly. Also you would need to setup SSL security certificates for your website and take extra precautions to secure the site database. This is absolutely crucial as you will be holding a large amount of valuable and confidential credit card information of your customer. If a hacker gets into your database he/she could get all the credit card information of the customers for malicious activities. Therefore if you are a small operation, it’s best not to do your own payment processing.
- Use a third party payment processing agent such as PayPal
ZenCart has the flexibility to allow a third party payment processing service to process the payments. The latest versions of ZenCart supports several of these services. However PayPal is the most commonly used and the most trusted service used in the industry. Just like we can use PayPal to shop online without exposing our credit card number, we can also use pay pal to process payments. This way all the payment processing is done on the highly secure PayPal servers. Also you will not be retaining any of the customer credit card information in your database. All the necessary information will be kept safe by PayPal which is guarded by very tight PayPal security. Therefore the customer would feel much safer in terms of purchasing off of your website and you would feel more relived as you need not worry about any hacker threats or lawsuits.
Will setup our paypal account and configure the ZenCart next.
1.0 Setting up a PayPal Business Account
Go to www.paypal.com and select the tab “Business”. Click on “Create an account”
Select your country and click on the “Get started” button of the account type which you want to create. For the ZenCart, you would need to select Business if you want to use PayPal with your ZenCart.
Fill up the registration form and press “Agree and Create Account” to setup your account.
If you already have a Personal or Premier account:
- Login to you PayPal account
- Click the Upgrade your Account link.
- Click the Upgrade Now button.
- Choose to upgrade to a Business account and follow instructions to complete the upgrade.
- If you haven't already, add a bank account to become a Verified member. Follow the instructions on the PayPal site. (This process may take 2-3 business days.)
You need to verify your bank account number as this will be the account PayPal would use to deposit the monies it would collect from the customers.
Once you have created or upgraded to a Business account you need to do the following to get your payment API credentials. This information is put into your ZenCart so that it knows to which PayPal account the transaction information should be forwarded.
There are three options for you to choose from with respect to online payment. The best-fit package would be “Website Payments Standard”. This allows you to use your PayPal account through ZenCart.
Note that there are costs involved for transactions although the setup of “Website Payments Standard” is free. PayPal will deduct a small commission from each of the sales you make. The latest rates are available at
- Log in to your PayPal Business account.
- Click the Profile subtab located in the top navigation area
- Click the API Access link under the Account Information header.
- Under the Setting up PayPal API Credentials and Permissions heading, click "Request API Credentials" link
- Click the “Request API signature” radiobox then click “Agree & Submit” button.
- Write down the values listed next to API Username and Password
- Select the value listed next to Signature Hash, copy it, and save it to a file or some other location. This is your API Signature.
You now have all the necessary information required to configure your ZenCart to accept online payments. Next we will add all the API information into the ZenCart.
2.0 Configuring API Signature on your ZenCart
Access the control panel of your online store
Use the username and password you entered during the installation to access the admin panel.
Navigate to Modules > Payment on the top menu
You will see a list of available payment methods. As we are using paypal we would need to disable all the other methods. However you can maintain multiple payment methods.
The red bulb in front of a payment method indicates disabled. The green indicates enabled.
To disable a particular payment method, click on the method and a separate menu will pop up.
Click on “remove” to disable. This will not remove the module from the cart. It will only disable. You can enable it later on if you want.
Once you have disabled all the default payment methods, click on any of the following depending on the package you chose while registering with PayPal. The most appropriate package would be “PayPal IPN - Website Payments Standard”
Click on “PayPal IPN - Website Payments Standard”. Click on “Install” on the pop up menu.
Once installed it will display another menu which you have to configure.
Use the following parameters to configure your ZenCart PayPal account.
| Parameter | Value |
| Do you want to accept PayPal payments? | True |
| Business ID | Provide the exact same e-mail address you provided PayPal during your business registration. |
| PDT Token (Payment Data Transfer) | You can get this by login into your PayPal business account. |
| Transaction Currency | Set to Only USD. PayPal will do the conversion to MR |
| Payment Zone | Not applicable at this point. You can set this up later to your zone. |
| Set Pending Notification Status | Pending [1] |
| Set Order Status | Pending [1] |
| Sort order of display. | 0 |
| Page Style | Primary |
The remaining are more advanced features. You need not worry about these at this point. You can always edit these later.
Press “Update” to finish.
Now you are ready to sell items online. Your customers can purchase items using credit cards and payment will be collected by PayPal and would be transferred onto your bank account.
When customers checkout items from your store, they will be taken to a PayPal page specific to your business. This page will have the default PayPal style. However you can login to your PayPal business account an create your own payment page by uploading logos/images and setting background colours. The best way to do this is to follow the theme of your website on your PayPal payment page as well. This will add consistency and customers will immediately know that the PayPal page is specific to your business.
Once the customer has made the payment, he/she will be brought back to your store. A receipt will be automatically e-mailed to the customer by PayPal and also the ZenCart. You will also receive an e-mail notifying that a customer has made a purchase.
