Again, customizing merchant's info for multiple websites?

[loudmerchant]

How can I customize my merchant information (e.g. business name, contact name, customer service or contact email, etc.)  for each of the websites I have?

I've read the suggestion to use a generic business name for all the websites you have. OK, that can be done without a big problem.

However, what are you supposed to do with your contact email?

If I had 2 websites called "cars.com" and "donuts.com" selling cars and donuts respectively, I would certainly want a merchant email that matches each site, something like info@cars.com and info@donuts.com.

If I followed the suggesstion of using a generic email to cover both sites and ended up using one of those free email accounts (yahoo, gmail, hotmail, aol, etc.), it would simply look so unprofessional to customers. After all, the idea of having your own domains is to have an email address with your domain in it to build trust.

Any solutions for this? How did others do it?

Thanks.

[skier]

One method that works well, assuming you have a Business Account, you can display a different Business Logo Graphic for each of your sites.  This is very easy to do.

Some tips about displaying your business/logo graphic.

* Your PayPal Account must be a Business Account.
* The maximum size for your business/logo graphic is 750 pixels wide by 90 pixels high.
* The business/logo graphic format can be a gif, jpg or png.
* The business/logo graphic should be stored on a secure or https server.

Note, if your business/logo graphic is not stored on a secure server, each time the PayPal screen is displayed, a security message will say that this page contains both secure and nonsecure items, do you want to display the nonsecure items? This may scare of some of your customers.

If you don't have access to a secure server, there are 3rd party services that can do this for you. For example, check out this site, "www.sslpic.com", the service is free and works well.

If you want to keep it simple, you can use the "cpp_header_image" variable in your button HTML code. The line of code would look similar to the example below. Note, you would need to include this line of code with each item and any View Cart Buttons you have.
Code:

<input type="hidden" name="cpp_header_image" value="https://www.yourwebsite.com/yourlogo.gif">

If you are "hosting" your button code on PayPal Servers you can also use the "cpp_header_image" variable in your button HTML code.
How to modify button code using the "Advanced Variables" in Step 3.
Note the text box near the bottom of the page. There you can insert extra variables.
For example, to insert the "cpp_header_image" variable just enter:
cpp_header_image=https://www.yourwebsite.com/yourlogo.jpg
There's no HTML extras, just the name of the variable, an equal sign and the value.


If you are using text type button links, then you need to include the following in your text link code:

&cpp_header_image=https://www.yourwebsite.com/yourlogo.jpg

You can also setup custom pages through your PayPal Account. To learn more about how to setup your custom pages, download a copy of PayPal's PayPal's Merchant Setup and Administration Guide from here.

Should you have everything setup properly and your business/logo graphic is not displaying try deleting your web browser's cookies. When ever you make changes to HTML Button Code and want to test your new code, you should delete your web browser's cookies, close your browser, reopen and then test. If you don't delete the cookies before you test to see the new email address or business graphic logo on the PayPal Screens, you will still see the old information.

Regards,

skier

[loudmerchant]

I have done all that. I got PayPal to display my correct logo for each website on PayPal's checkout page.

However, my question is about changing my contact email address (also called customer service email, seller email, business email, merchant email, etc. in different places) to match each of my websites, just like the logo.

Can it be done?

Thanks.

[skier]

YES, again very easy however, your item button code must be clear text, not hosted or encrypted.

You simply change the "business" variable value in your item button code. 

Regads,

skier

[loudmerchant]

I just tested it by changing the "business" variable and it did not work. Yes, I use clear text.

The seller email remained unchanged, showing what I have in my profile on PayPal as customer service email, NOT  what I entered in the "business" variable.

What should I do?

Thanks.

[skier]

Delete your web browser's cookies, close your web browser, reopen it and retry your new code changes.

Regards,

skier

[loudmerchant]

No, it did not work. I even tried it on a different computer. The result was the same:

The seller email is determined by what I have in the profile, not in the "business" variable.

To make sure, I changed the customer service email in my profile to something random and as expected, this email address later showed up as the seller email in the customer email receipt, regardless what I had in the "business" variable.

Any idea?

[skier]

Unfortunately we have never had that issue for us or our clients.  What ever email address we use in the item button code works.  The system is designed to allow up to 8 verified email addresses associated with your PayPal Account, it has never been a problem for us as we have setup quite a few sites for folks.

The only way the email address cannot be changed is if you are using "hosted" item button code.  Then the default is your Primary email address.   If you wanted a different email address, then you would have to change the Primary email address in your Account.

Sorry, I can't do anything more for you as my time is volunteered, not paid.  Your next option would be to open a Support Ticket here.    Best of luck.

Regards,

skier

[loudmerchant]

Skier, I really appreciate your time answering my questions.

You're right. Whatever email address I use in the item button code works, as long as it's a verified by PayPal.

But that wasn't my question. My question is about the email address that appears on the customer receipt as the seller email for the customer to contact in case they have a question for the merchant.

Here on the customer receipt below, the seller email is info@mysite.com. This is the email address that I'm trying to change depending on which website of mine I'm selling the product from.

PayPal seems to get the seller email from the customer service email I set in my profile. But I'm trying to change it on the button level. Changing the "business" variable didn't seem to change the seller email. It remained the same as the customer service email in the profile.

So even if I changed the "business" variable to another email of mine, say abc @ xyz. com, the seller email would still show up as info@mysite.com.

With the cpp_header_image variable, I could get a custom logo for each button, which is great. And yet, the seller email cannot be customized to match the company's name shown by the logo. So I'm wondering if I'm missing something here.

Hope this helps.

  Feb 1, 2010 21:37:07 EST
Transaction ID: 3LK3021XXXX1XXXXX

Hello Jack Customer,

You sent a payment of $1.00 USD to MerchantName (info@mysite.com)

It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account.
Merchant
MerchantName
info@mysite.com

Instructions to merchant
You haven't entered any instructions.

Shipping address - confirmed
Jack Customer
234 Main Street
#200
New York, NY 10001
United States

Shipping details
The seller hasn’t provided any shipping details yet.

Description Unit price Qty Amount

Chocolate Item# Cho-100 $1.00 USD 1 $1.00 USD Subtotal $1.00 USD Total $1.00 USD Payment $1.00 USD

Payment sent to info@mysite.com  

=

[loudmerchant]

Anyone?

How is everyone else doing it?