Paypal Express Checkout Help!

trendwatch · Posts: 7

I just opened an ecrater store 2 days ago and I keep getting repeated emails from ecrater saying the following:

'Your PayPal Express Checkout account is currently having a problem that prevents your customers to checkout.

Please note that Express Checkout is only working with Business or Premier accounts, so make sure you are not using a Personal account'

How do I know if I have a business or premier account rather than a personal account? If I have opened a store is it not automatically a business account? If not how do I go about upgrading this as I cannot find any option to do this?

Please help!

tigercreekgifts · Posts: 6293

Well no, just because you opened a store here doesn't mean that paypal knows that. When you signed up for your paypal account you should have been given an option to choose personal, business or premiere. I know some older accounts that were created a few year ago they didn't ask when you sign up so you had to type in a different paypal url that had business in it.

When you login to paypal and are viewing your dashboard (the first page you see after successfully logging in) click the link in the upper right corner that says profile. Does the drop down menu look like this:

Business Profile
Welcome John Doe
Business Set up
Profile and Settings

or do you just see "profile and settings" with your first and last name? If you do not see the business info I listed above then you have a personal account and need to upgrade as the personal account does have a lot of limitations that can affect your business and payment acceptance needs on more than just one website.

SheilaDeesPostcards · moderator Posts: 4620

Just for the record, I have a premier account and when I follow Tiger's instructions I don't see the "Business Account" header. I just see my name and a subtitle that says Joined in xxxx (year I joined). A personal account will only allow you to receive a small number of credit card payments (I think 3) before they require you to upgrade your account to a premier/business account. Using PayPal Express requires a PayPal Premier/Business account.

trendwatch · Posts: 7

Ahh ok sorry I thought the email was talking about my ecrater account being business vs personal. I am new to ecrater so thought maybe there were upgrade options which allowed you to use express checkout.

But now I see that they were actually referring to my paypal account being business vs personal. Whoops! Don't I feel silly!

Thanks for your help guys!

MoonwishesStore · moderator Posts: 17389

@ trendwatch -- I have found that when PP redid their site, they forgot to add in some necessary links or they give instructions to click on links no longer showing. I do better to click on 'see classic site' and then navigate. When I spoke with a delightful young lady at PP last month, I told her that there wasn't actually the link anymore to what I had to do. She was "OOPS!" and promised to fix HER area of PP but that doesn't mean everyone will. So if you can't find what you need, you should see it easier in the classic site.

I have no clue why they redid the site. I can't copy and paste the buyers name and address and have to go back to the classic look each time to copy and paste the address for my endicia account. When I tried to do that in the new format at PP the buyer's name never copied. I think it is their subtle attempt to get more people to use PP postage but I'm not about to!

tigercreekgifts · Posts: 6293

Sheila are you viewing paypal from the older site layout? Because that one is different from the new layout. I don't like the new layout at all but when I click on switch to classic site it's only good for that one time while logged in and every time I log back in I have to click that link again. It does not go back to the old layout permanently in my end but I am using Firefox, maybe it works differently for IE, Chrome, and Safari?