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TUTORIAL: Adding Products to the Affiliate Program

simba — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:42:30 +0000

Adding a product to the affiliate listing can be very beneficial to the promotion of your merchandise and/or services. Before reading this tutorial, make sure you have established at least one product under your 2Checkout account. You can get instruction on how to do this by following the tutorial regarding the creation of products here.

To add an established product to the affiliate program, first locate the product in the listing by logging into the Vendor Administration area and clicking on the Products main tab. Find the product in the listing and click the Edit icon next to that specific product under the Actions column.

Once you are on the page to edit the product, you will see in front of you all the product’s options. Adding the product to the affiliate program requires that you have two additional product settings defined: Product Categories, and Affiliate Commission.

First, scroll through the Product Categories list and click on the category that best fits the product.

Second, specify the commission amount that will be paid out to the affiliate in the Affiliate Commission field. This amount can be either a fixed value or a percentage of the total product price. For example, if your product is worth $10.00 and you set a fixed amount commission of $1.00, you as the vendor will receive $9.00 and the affiliate will receive $1.00. Similarly, if your product is worth $10.00 and you set a percentage commission of 10% (IMPORTANT: do not include the percent sign when specifying the number in the input box), you as the vendor will receive $9.00 and the affiliate will receive $1.00.

After you have selected the product’s category and set the commission rate, click the Save Changes button to apply the settings and add the product to the affiliate program.

Your affiliates are now ready to start offering your product on their websites! You can find a tutorial that will show your affiliates how to sign up for a free account and access products to offer here.

TUTORIAL: Creating 2Checkout Purchase Links

simba — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:17:57 +0000

There are several different ways you can set up your website using the four different parameter sets available in 2Checkout’s purchase system. The system works through sending HTML parameters (aka. variables) to the purchase routine to initiate a sale, whether they be sent by a HTML submission form or a direct purchase link.

As you are working through developing your integration, you can make use of our developers.2Checkout area to test and play around with the various parameter sets and see their interaction with 2Checkout’s purchase routine.

Universal Parameters

Four universal parameters will be available to use with every set. These parameters assist you with various aspects of integrating the 2Checkout purchase system into your website:

demo — You can set this equal to ‘Y’ to tell the purchase routine that the sale is a test. While the cart will act the same, and even ask you for billing details, no monetary transaction will actually take place.
lang — Chinese – zh, Danish – da, Dutch – nl, French – fr, German – gr, Greek – el, Italian – it, Japanese – jp, Norwegian – no, Portuguese – pt, Slovenian – sl, Spanish – es_ib, Spanish – es_la, Swedish – sv, defaults to English if this is absent, but en may be used for English as well.
pay_method — This can be set to one of the following values to specifically set the purchase routine to use the specified payment method: CC for Credit Card, PPI for PayPal.
merchant_order_id — You can set this to any ID number (eg. ‘merchant_order_id=SALE-001′), which will display on the customer’s email receipt of their purchase and can assist you with organizing customers and their purchases within your records. (50 characters max)

The following are explanations of the three individual parameter sets available within our system.

Plug and Play Parameters

The Plug-n-Play parameters provide the simplest method for vendors to sell their products. Using this method, vendors will create products inside of their account and then put links to those products on their site.

Basic Payment Link

To create a direct purchase link using the basic Plug-n-Play parameters after you have set up the products under your 2Checkout account, you will need to use at least the three base required parameters for the set (sid, product_id, quantity). An example direct payment link looks as such:
https://www.2checkout.com/checkout/purchase?sid=123456&product_id=101&quantity=1
To put this in explainable terms, our purchase routine (https://www.2checkout.com/checkout/purchase) is being told that the customer wants to purchase one (quantity=1) of the product that was assigned an ID of “101″ (product_id=101) by our system from this vendor (sid=123456).

This can also be represented within an HTML form, which can provide you more flexibility in terms of how you construct your site. Below is the base required elements to an HTML submission form for a single product:

Multiple Products in One Form

You can also have multiple products within a direct payment link or HTML submission form. This is helpful for vendors who sell products as a package or in bulk. To do this, you would add an incrementing digit to the end of both ‘product_id’ and ‘quantity’ for each individual product to be purchased. A direct payment link would look like this:

https://www.2checkout.com/checkout/purchase?sid=123456&product_id1=101&
quantity1=1&product_id2=202&quantity2=1

The same format would be reflected within the HTML submission form:

Additional Parameters

In addition to the universal parameters, you also have the ‘fixed’ parameter available as part of this set. Setting this equal to ‘Y’ will lock the quantity fields in the purchase routine and remove the continue shopping button.

More Information

For more information on how to use this parameter set, please refer to the link below:

http://www.2checkout.com/?p=205

Pass Through Products Parameters

The Pass Through Products parameters can be used to dynamically pass in tangible/intangible and recurring/non-recurring products, product options, shipping, taxes and coupons as items without having to create the products in the admin area.

Basic Payment Link

When using this parameter set, you are required to pass in your Seller ID using the “sid” parameter, the “mode” parameter with a value of “2CO” and some basic line item identifying parameters shown in the link below:
https://www.2checkout.com/checkout/purchase?sid=1303908&mode=2CO&li_0_type=product&li_0_price=1.00&li_0_quantity=1&li_0_name=Example+Product+Name&li_0_tangible=Y

As you can see, all line item parameters start with “li_” and are then followed by a numeral to identify the line item and insure that each parameter is applied correctly.
In the example link above, the “li_0_type” parameter identifies the line item type as a product. (Line items can also be defined as a “coupon” to apply a coupon deduction from the sale total, “shipping” to define a shipping cost or “tax” to define the tax amount.) The “li_0_name” parameter identifies the line item name, “li_0_price” identifies the line item price, “li_0_quantity” identifies the quantity being ordered and finally the “li_0_tangible” parameter defines that the line item is tangible. Since the line item in this example is tangible, an additional “shipping” line item can be passed in to define the shipping cost or the shipping methods defined in the account can be used. Please Note: If an order includes a product that is defined as tangible or a shipping method it will need to be marked as shipped before it will deposit into your pending payment.

This can also be represented within an HTML form. Below is the base required elements to an HTML submission form for the same product:

Recurring Products

Recurring products can also be passed in using this parameter set by defining a recurrence to determine how often the product will bill, a duration to determine the length of time the product will bill for and start fee (if any). Below is an example recurring product.

Product Options

Product options can also be added to a product line items by defining an option name, any number of option values, a surcharge to be applied per value and associating them with the appropriate line item number. Below is an example that applies an option to the recurring line item example above.

https://www.2checkout.com/checkout/purchase?sid=1303908&mode=2CO&li_0_type=product&li_0_price=1.00&li_0_quantity=1&li_0_name=Example+Product+Name&li_0_tangible=N&li_0_recurrence=1+Month&li_0_duration=Forever&li_0_startup_fee=0.00&li_0_option_0_name=Example+Product+Option&li_0_option_0_value=Example+Option+Value&li_0_option_0_surcharge=1.00

Additional Parameters

In addition to the required parameters, if you are identifying a product you may also pass in the “li_#_product_id” parameter to identify a product id and the “li_#_description” parameter to pass in a product description.

More Information

For more information on how to use this parameter set, please refer to the link below:

http://www.2checkout.com/blog/knowledge-base/merchants/tech-support/3rd-party-carts/parameter-sets/pass-through-product-parameter-set

3rd-Party Cart Parameters

The 3rd-Party Cart parameters works by sending the customer from your website to the 2Checkout purchase routine with only a total amount for the sale and a cart order ID number. This set does not require that you have products established under your 2Checkout account, although it does require that the Product Identification parameters be used to specify the details of the products contained within the cart sale. This parameter set is best for third party cart software since it allows the cart software on your website to handle most of the checkout process, including maintaining product information within your cart’s administrative area and detailing out products within the cart on the customer’s receipt.

Basic Payment Link

To create a direct purchase link using the 3rd-Party Cart parameters, you will need to use at least the three base required parameters for the set (sid, total, cart_order_id). An example direct payment link looks as such:

https://www.2checkout.com/checkout/purchase?sid=123456&total=2.00&
cart_order_id=CART-001

To break this down, our purchase routine is being instructed that the customer wants to purchase the items in the cart (which, the items in the cart will be managed by the shopping cart software on your website) from the vendor (sid=123456), and total sale amount for the items in the cart plus any shipping charges comes to 1 dollar (total 2.00). The cart order has an ID (cart_order_id=CART-001) which will identify this order uniquely to the vendor amongst other orders.

The above direct payment link can also be represented within an HTML form by using the appropriate INPUT tags for the three required parameters. However, the above link is missing the parameters that specify details about the products contained within the cart sale. While the above link will work and the customer will be charged the amount, there will be no record of the items that are being purchased in the cart. To specify product details, use the Product Identification parameters.

Combining with the Product Identification parameters

To specify individual products within the cart sale, you will need to use the following parameters:

c_prod — The ID of the product that is being purchased. The quantity of product being purchased can passed with this parameter by placing a comma after the ID and then the quantity in numeric format.
id_type — Due to changes in with the Product Identification parameters this parameter should be passed in once during the purchase and will need to have its value set to 1.
c_name — This will contain the name of your individual product, and will be displayed at the time of checkout so your customer will know what is being purchased.
c_description — The value of this parameter should contain a short description of the product to be sold. (255 characters max)
c_price — The price of your product. Please note that in order to prevent a discrepancy between the total parameter and the sum of the product identification c_price parameters which may confuse the customer, the product price will not be displayed on the purchase page. (8 characters, decimal, 2 characters: Example: 99999999.99)

A direct purchase link using the Product Identification parameters in its most basic form would look similar to this:

https://www.2checkout.com/checkout/purchase?sid=123456&total=2.00&
cart_order_id=CART-001&id_type=1&c_prod=PRODUCT-10,1&
c_name=Product 10&c_description=This is my 10th product&c_price=1.00

This can also be represented within an HTML form. Below is the base required elements to an HTML submission form for the same product:

Multiple Products in One Form

You can also specify multiple products. To do this, you would add an underscore followed by an incrementing digit to the end of each parameter that defines products (ie. parameters starting with “c_”). A direct purchase link would look like this:



https://www.2checkout.com/checkout/purchase?sid=123456&total=4.00&

cart_order_id=CART-001&id_type=1&c_prod_1=PRODUCT-10,1&
c_name_1=Product 10&c_description_1=This is my 10th product&c_price_1=1.00&
amp;c_prod_2=PRODUCT-20,1&c_name_2=Product 20&c_description_2=This is my 20th
product&c_price_2=2.00

Converting this to an HTML submission form, it would appear as so:

Authorize.net Parameters

This parameter set works just like the 3rd-Party Cart parameter set, except that the parameter names use the Authorize.net naming conventions. The only real change is the names of the parameters, as the behavior of the purchase routine remains the same as if you were using the 3rd-Party Cart parameters. This set simply makes it easier for developers and shopping carts that already know/use the Authorize.net parameter names.

The three required Authorize.net parameters are:

x_login — same as ‘sid’
x_amount — same as ‘total’
x_invoice_num — same as ‘cart_order_id’

Basic Payment Link

Taking from the example purchase link above for the single-product purchase using the 3rd-Party Cart set in combination with the New Product Creation set, a direct purchase link would look like this:

https://www.2checkout.com/checkout/purchase?x_login=123456&x_amount=2.00&
amp;x_invoice_num=CART-001&id_type=1&c_prod=PRODUCT-10,1&
c_name=Product 10&c_description=This is my 10th product&c_price=1.00

Notice that all other parameters stay the same except for the three required parameters. This also means that the set up of the HTML submission form, as well as setting up for multiple products, remains the same regardless of whether you use the 3rd Part Cart parameters or the Authorize.net parameters.

Additional Parameters

In addition, you also have the ‘x_receipt_link_url’ parameter available as part of this set. However, this parameter is given a special exception, as it can be used in *all* parameter sets. This parameter allows you to specify the approved URL (the URL that your customers will return to once the sale has completed successfully) on-the-fly by passing it into the purchase routine.

This parameter has a few very specific behaviors that should be paid attention so that it can be used effectively:

This parameter will over-ride any approved URL set within your account.
Return Method set to “Given links back to my Site” — This parameter will control where the ‘Click Here to Finalize your Order’ button takes the customer after the successful sale. If there are product-specific approved URLs and only one product is ordered, it will over-ride the individual product’s return URLs. If there are product-specific approved URLs and more than one product is ordered, then this parameter will control where the ‘Click Here to Finalize Your Order’ button on the Order Complete page as normal, but any product-specific return URLs will be listed as links on the Order Complete page next to each line item listed out.
Return Method “Direct Return” or “Header Redirect” — This parameter will control where the customer gets directed to automatically after the successful sale. If there are product-specific approved URLs and only one product is ordered, this parameter will *not* over-ride the return URLs on the individual product. If there are product-specific approved URLs and more than one product is ordered, then this parameter will over-ride all the product return URLs.

More Information

For information on the 3rd-Party Cart parameter set, please refer to the article that details this parameter set here.

If you need more information regarding the Authorize.net parameters, please refer to the article that details this parameter set here.

BILLING & SHIPPING INFORMATION

Lastly, the parameter sets offer the ability to take in billing and shipping information. This allows you to create your own interface on your website for requesting customer information, and then passing the customer’s information to the 2Checkout purchase routine to populate the Billing Information and Shipping Information forms. This way, you can record information on your customer before they reach 2Checkout, and customers will not have to enter their information twice.

There are two naming conventions for billing and shipping parameters. The standard naming convention can be used with the Plug-n-Play, Pass Through Products and 3rd-Party Cart parameters. The second naming convention variation is to be used with the Authorize.net set only.

Standard Naming Convention

To populate the Billing Information page, the following parameters can be used:

card_holder_name – Card holder’s name. This can also be populated using the ‘first_name’, ‘middle_initial’, and ‘last_name’ parameters. However, if you use these three parameters, the data will be combined into and returned as ‘card_holder_name’ in the parameters passed back to an Approved URL script.
street_address
street_address2
city
state
zip
country
email
phone
phone_extension

To populate the Shipping Information page, the following parameters can be used:

ship_name
ship_street_address
ship_street_address2
ship_city
ship_state
ship_zip
ship_country

Authorize.net Naming Convention

To populate the Billing Information page, the following parameters can be used:

x_First_Name
x_Last_Name
x_Phone
x_Email
x_Address
x_City
x_State
x_Zip
x_Country

To populate the Shipping Information page, the following parameters can be used:

x_Ship_To_First_Name
x_Ship_To_Last_Name
x_Ship_To_Address
x_Ship_To_City
x_Ship_To_Country
x_Ship_To_State
x_Ship_To_Zip

EXTENDED EXAMPLES

Below are three examples of the parameter sets, which include many of the other available parameters in addition to the ones required for each set.

Plug-n-Play Example

This is a sale for two products, the quantity of which can not be changed due to enabling the ‘fixed’ parameter, and establishing all the billing and shipping information.

Pass Through Product Example

This sale includes 1 product with a quantity of 2, a coupon deduction and both shipping and tax surcharges. The form also passes in all the billing and shipping information.

3rd-Party Cart Example

This is a cart sale establishing two products, using vendor-specified product IDs, specifying the Approved URL that the customer will be taken at the end of the sale, and only populating the billing information.

Authorize.net Example

This is a cart sale using the Authorize.net naming convention that establishes two products, using vendor-specified product IDs and specifies only shipping information.

Admin: Home Page

simba — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:10:41 +0000

The home page displays all information that is immediately pertinent to you regarding your account. Your Account Status, Alerts, and a recent list of sales let you see the most up-to-date details within your account. In addition, you have the ability to search for sales quickly by using the Sales Search located at the right-hand side of the screen.

Account Status -There are three possible statuses:

Y – Allowed to sell. Allowed to be paid.
P – Not allowed to sell. Allowed to be paid. – Suppliers in this status will see a ‘Parameter Error’ on the 2Checkout purchase page when a purchase is attempted.
S – Allowed to sell. Not allowed to be paid.

Pending Balance – This is the estimated amount pending the release of your payment from your 2Checkout account.

Your last login was – You can keep track of when you last logged into your account. This can come in handy if you are keeping track of log-in times.

Alerts
This section includes all the important notifications when major events occur that affect accounts globally, when new documentation needs to be reviewed, and other such alerts requiring your attention.

Summary – Clicking on the title of an alert will open the message up in a modal pop-up box on the page. Once you are finished with reviewing the information, clicking the ‘Mark Read’ button will note that the message was read and will keep the message around for later review, or clicking the ‘Delete’ button will remove the message entirely. The review status of each message is displayed within the Status column as a ‘read’ or ‘unread’ status.

If you have many alerts saved, you will notice that there is a limitation of displaying only the ten (10) most recent items. To view all of your saved alerts, you will need to click on the ‘View All Alerts’ link.

Recent Sales
Here you will find your ten (10) most recent sales in a listing, defaulting in a descending order by the date and time they were placed.

Sale # – Clicking on the sale number link gives you easy access to opening up that specific sale’s details page. The total sale amount that appears under the USD Total column is the total amount for the most current sale under that sale number. This means that any non-recurring sales will have only one total amount that will never change. However, recurring sales that have start-up fees will display whichever is the most current re-billed sale amount. For example, if you have a recurring service that costs $10 per month with a $5 start-up fee, the initial total amount will display as $15, but when it re-bills for the continuous $10 amount it will display as $10.

Sales Search
The Sales Search is positioned along the right-hand side of the home page, which gives you easy access to search for sales as soon as you log into your account.

Vendor Admin: Reports

simba — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:37:20 +0000

You can choose from a variety of reports to run against your account and download in several formats. Reports are offered in PDF, XLS (Microsoft Excel), XML, RTF (Rich Text), CSV (Comma Separated Value). Additionally, you can schedule reports so that information about your account is sent to you regularly via email.

Once you have logged in, click on the ‘Reports’ tab.

The Reporting page will display the following information:

Available Reports – The reports you can run against your account
Report Name – The title of the report
Description - ?A description of information found in the report
Reports In Queue – Any reports that are pending creation by our system
Recently Completed Reports – The five most recent reports that were created
List all Completed Reports – Shows a list of all the reports you have saved

The Reporting also provides you with 4 sub-menus which include Request Report, Report Queue, Completed Reports, and Scheduled Reports.

You can click the ‘Request Report’ tab to view a list of all the available reports that can possibly be run against your account. Over time and with your input, we will begin adding additional reports to this section.

Report Name – The title of the report
Description – A description of information found in the report
Begin Date – The date when you want to start the range of past sales data
End Date – The date when you want to end the range of past sales data
Report Format – Select from the list of formats offered for download

You can click the ‘Report Queue’ tab to view reports that are currently pending creation within our scheduler system. Your report will run as soon as the scheduler is ready.

You can click the ‘Completed Reports’ tab to view all the reports that have been run against your account. Keep in mind, reports will eventually be deleted.

Delete -Check this and click ‘Delete’ to remove the report
Report Name – Click the title to download the report.
Format - The file type of the report
Generated On – Date and time that the report was made
Expires On – When the report will be removed from our system
Re-run Report – Click to run this same report again and generate a new download.

You can click the ‘Scheduled Reports’ tab to view list of all the reports that have been scheduled to run.

Delete – Check this and click the ‘Delete’ button to remove the scheduled report
Edit - Click this icon to edit the options of this report
Report Title – The name given to your report
Format - The file type of the report
Next Schedule Date – When the report is going to run next
Data Date Range – How far back the data history will go from the scheduled date
Last Scheduled Date – When the scheduler will stop running this report

Add Scheduled Report -

To add a Scheduled Report click the Add Scheduled Report link on the right side of the page. – You will then fill out the form with the appropriate information and also set the schedule for the report to be delivered. After entering the appropriate information click the ‘Save’ button to create a report that is scheduled to run at a later date.

Title - The name of your report
Report – The report type
Format – The file type of the report
Starting Date – When you want to start running the report

Admin: Affiliates

simba — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:24:48 +0000

The Affiliates section is for those interested in offering products that our other others sell. With this, you can create online stores where customers can buy a range of items similar to what you’re interested in selling.

Once you have logged in, click on the ‘Affiliates’ tab. Clicking on the Affiliates tab will provide you with the following sub categories:

Browse Opportunities – Look for products that others are offering to re-sell
List Commissions – View the earnings you’ve made
List Fees – View the deductions for service

The Affiliates page will also display the following:

Account Status – The standing of your account balance
Pending Balance – Current total sales amount
Opportunity Locator – Search for affiliate products
Keyword – Enter a word or two about what you’re looking to sell
Category – Narrow your search down, if you want to be more specific

You can view your commissions by clicking the ‘List Commissions’ tab. Here, you will find a list of commissions you have earned for referring sales for other suppliers’ products that are enrolled in the affiliate program.

You may view your Affiliate Fees by clicking the ‘List Fees’ tab. Here, you will find a list of all affiliate commissions you have paid on sales referred by affiliates.

To browse the affiliate resale opportunities, click on the ‘Browse Opportunities’ tab. From here you can select a category and browse through the opportunities. Once you have found a product that interests you, you can click on the product name to obtain the HTML snippets and product image source. This information can then be added to your website to create the product listing and purchase button or link. You will also be provided with the following information when viewing a product:

Image – Thumbnail of the product (if provided by supplier)
Name – Product’s title
Price – Price of product itself
Description – Short product description
Commission – How much you make for selling this item
Category – Type of item

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