Changed product price, but some customers still able to pay original price

[PAKoch]

Hi,

I recently changed the price of a product on my website; I created a new PayPal button with the new price.  When I test out the function of the button, it works and charges me the new price.  However, there are some customers that are still able order the product at the original price.  

I am not sure how they are able to do that?  Does anyone have any suggestions about how they can do that and how to ensure that everyone is charged the new cost?

Thank You,

Peter Koch

[snowshoe]

Most likely it's the cookies on the customer's computer.  If any of these people visited your site previous to you changing prices, they still may have that old information stored in their browser cookies.  PayPal's cookies do expire, usually after 21 days.   You do have control over the transaction, you can either honor it or inform the customer that their was a price increase.

[PAKoch]

Yes, the customer that was able to place an order using the original price was a previous customer.  

I find it strange that all it takes is stored cookies on a clients computer from a previous transaction to allow them to order with the old price.  A critical part of any transaction is the price and I would think that particular aspect of the transaction should be refreshed, not derived from a stored cookie?

Thank You,

Peter Koch

[snowshoe]

That's one of the functions of cookies by design.  A customer adds an item to the cart, then either does nothing or bails from the web site but, there's a record of what they put in their shopping cart stored in the cookie, just in case they decide to return to that particular site and resume shopping.  This is nothing new, just common practice.  Either the customer clears his web browser's cookies, temp files and history on a regular basis or the cookie expires.  If the customer takes no action or the cookie has not expired, should he or she return to that particular site, they can simply resume where they left off.

[PAKoch]

OK, thank you for the information.  I knew that cookies stored some browser info and the URL of the site that was visited, but I didn't know they would store the cost of an item that was purchased.  

I would have thought that each transaction would have to go through PayPal for the price of the item and not get it from a stored cookie.  

Do you know if there is any way for me to limit the lifetime of a persistent cookie that is generated by PayPal?

Thanks,

PAKoch

[snowshoe]

Unfortunally not as that info is controlled by PayPal.

The solution would be to use Payments Pro.  With Pro, you control the customer checkout experience, not PayPal.  The customer remains on your web page or site the entire process while behind the scenes, your server passes the credit card info to PayPal for processing.  Pro is a totally different product and requires a bit of programming knowledge as it relies on the use of the various PayPal APIs.  There also PCI requirements on your end plus there's a monthly fee of $30 and you're still subject to the standard transaction processing fees.