Enabling PayPal Express Checkout

PayPal Website Payments Standard adds PayPal as a payment method in your checkout. The customer submits their order, and is redirected to the PayPal site to make a payment.

PayPal Express Checkout works slightly differently, by adding a checkout button to your Shopping Cart page, so users can checkout through the PayPal interface first, before returning to the Spiffy Stores Checkout. This process is slightly easier for customers and will probably result in less abandoned shopping carts.

If the only payment method that you accept is PayPal, we recommend that you enable both PayPal Website Payments Standard and PayPal Express Checkout. This is because the standard checkout button is displayed regardless of whether you choose to use PayPal Express or not.

Before Starting: You will need a PayPal Business account

To enable PayPal Express Checkout, you will need to have a PayPal Business account. If you don't have a PayPal business account, click here to sign up for a PayPal Business account, and then return to this page.

Part 1 - Enable PayPal Express Checkout in your Spiffy Store

Follow the steps below to enable PayPal Express in your store.

To use PayPal Express alongside PayPal Website Payments Standard (Recommended)

1. Log into your Spiffy Store Toolbox
2. Go to the "Checkout & payment" page in the Preferences section
3. In the PayPal section at the top, choose "PayPal Website Payments Standard"
4. Type your PayPal account email into the "Account Email" field
5. Tick the box next to "Enable PayPal Express", and click the "Activate" button
6. Go to Part 2 below

To use PayPal Express without PayPal Website Payments Standard

1. Log into your Spiffy Store Toolbox
2. Go to the "Checkout & payment" page in the Preferences section
3. In the PayPal section at the top, choose "PayPal Express Checkout"
4. Type your PayPal account email into the "Account Email" field, and click the "Activate" button
5. Go to Part 2 below

Part 2 - Configure your PayPal Account

1. Once you've clicked the "Activate" button in your Spiffy Store, you will be redirected to the PayPal site
2. Log in to PayPal (if you haven't already done so) and you will be asked to grant permissions to Spiffy Stores so that we can use PayPal's API to configure your account to use PayPal Express Checkout.
3. Click the Grant Permission button.

If you also want to enable Website Payments Standard (recommended)…

1. Follow the instructions above and then…
2. Click on "Profile" under "My Account" in the top menu.
3. Click on "My selling tools" in the side-bar on the left.
4. Click on "Shipping calculations - Update" under "Shipping my items"
5. Tick the box that says "Click here to allow transaction-based postage values to override the profile postage settings listed above (if profile settings are enabled)"
6. Click the "Save" button

After you've followed the steps above, your Spiffy Store should now be set up to accept payments through PayPal Express Checkout. To verify that it's all working, go to your store, and add a product to your cart. The PayPal Express button should appear under the "Update cart" and "Checkout" buttons.

Help! PayPal Express is showing errors!

You may get an error when enabling PayPal Express or you may get an error when trying to make a test purchase using PayPal Express. The error could look something like this...

Unable to connect to PayPal Express
You do not have permissions to make this API call
Please contact store for assistance or continue using another payment method 

If you encounter this error, please go to the "Preferences -> Checkout & payment" section of your Toolbox and DISABLE PAYPAL EXPRESS, save the changes, then edit it and try enabling it again. You should be redirected to the PayPal site again, where you will need to log in and approve the API requests that appear on the PayPal site after you've logged in.

If this continues to occur after disabling and re-enabling PayPal Express, please log in to your PayPal account, and go to the "Profile -> My Selling Tools -> API Access Update -> Add or edit API permissions" page, and remove any permissions you've added for "Spiffy Internet Services", then log out of PayPal completely, and try enabling PayPal Express again in your Toolbox.

Help! The PayPal Express button isn't showing up!

If the button isn't there, you may need to add a little code to your theme to make it show up. Instructions on how to do this are below.

Adding the PayPal Express button to your cart page

1. Log into your Spiffy Store Toolbox, and navigate to the "Theme editor" page
2. Scroll down to the "Theme templates" section, and click on your "Cart.liquid" file to edit it
3. Towards the bottom of the code, you should see a line that looks something like this

   <input name="checkout" type="submit" class="button" id="checkout-button" value="Checkout">

4. Add the following code immediately after the checkout button tag, then click "Save"

{% if additional_checkout_buttons %}
  <div class="additional-checkout-buttons">
    <p>- or -</p>
    {{ content_for_additional_checkout_buttons }}
  </div>
{% endif %}

The PayPal Express button should now appear under the "Update cart" and "Checkout" buttons. If you need to adjust the position of the button, you should do this using CSS.