This is the next step in the continuing development of 2Checkout.com, providing you with tools, reports, and information that you can use in your online business. We want your time here to be easy, fun, and informative. So, check out the site and the Vendor Area. We want to know what you think. Click Here if you would like to give us some pointers, feedback or a slap on the back!

Enjoy!

I want to thank all the people who gave us their suggestions and tested our Beta API Project. The support and testing is much appreciated. I also want to thank the development team for making this a reality.

Official announcement below…

Columbus, Ohio – 2Checkout.com (2CO), a leading payments solutions provider, has added an application programming interface (API) to its robust ecommerce system for online retailers to immediately integrate.

2CO’s back office admin API is a publically accessible set of routines designed to allow existing clients, as well as third parties interested in developing 2CO compatible cart solutions, the ability to access account, product and online sales information without the additional step of logging in to 2Checkout’s administrative area.

According to 2Checkout’s Chief Marketing Officer Chris Daly, “The back office admin API provides an added value for the online retailers utilizing our e-commerce service by enabling them to remotely interact and gather both reconciliation and product level information from their account, without manually logging in to 2CO’s admin area to gather data and manually export it back to their system. This innovation provides a new layer of flexibility for developers interested in creating unique admin systems or utilizing outsourced designs to manage product and settling data daily generated by their 2Checkout activity.”

A primary advantage offered by the back office admin API is the flexibility it provides online retailers and third party cart developers interested in integrating seamless and fully customizable cart solutions into their websites while continuing to benefit from 2Checkout’s suite of built-in services including fraud protection, PCI data storage, multiple payment methods, and 24-hour customer care. Daly added, “Accessing product and sales data through a preferred means on your own system and alleviating the necessity to login to 2CO’s interface multiple times per day greatly adds to our system’s flexibility. And considering our cart volume, providing third party developers the opportunity to easily integrate 2Checkout into popular open-source shopping cart packages makes sense for everyone involved.”

Currently, any active 2Checkout retailer can request access to the API. For more information visit http://www.2checkout.com/documentation/api/ .

Founded in 2000 and based in Columbus, Ohio, 2Checkout.com (2CO) is a global payments solutions provider servicing approximately 60,000 online retailers. 2CO provides businesses a merchant account alternative and a fully automated suite of backend services, including world-class fraud, customer care, PCI data storage, and multiple payment methods in multiple currencies and languages. For more information visit http://www.2checkout.com.

1. Log into your account.
2. Click on the “Products” tab.
3. Click on the edit icon listed under “Actions” for the product you wish to edit. The edit icon looks like a blue file folder.
4. You will then be redirected to the edit product page for the product you wish to edit. Below is a list of the fields that can be edited and descriptions for those fields.
   • Your Product ID (Required) – This is an internal reference number for your use. A part number, bin location or other reference that will be useful to you. This field can consist of only letters and numbers with no spaces or special characters.
   • Name (Required) – This is the name or title of your product. Keep this as short as possible (no more than 30 characters) or it can cause the payment page to become distorted.
   • Short Description – This is what your product is. We recommend you keep this short as well to keep the payment page from becoming distorted.
   • Long Description – This is a longer description of your product, this will not be shown during the checkout process.
   • Price (Required) – This is how much the customer will be charged each payment cycle. Do not include any currency symbols (like “$”) in this field or errors will result.
   • Tangible (Required) – This indicates whether or not your product is tangible. Tangible goods must be shipped in a timely manner in order for you to receive payment. Tangible goods are also subject to sales tax for Ohio customers. This field must be set correctly, if 2Checkout becomes aware you have deliberately lied about whether or not a good is tangible, your account will be suspended, and further penalties may apply. Note that if you set this field to intangible, the customer will not be charged for shipping and the option to select shipping methods will not be shown on the order page.
   • Weight – If you plan to use our shipping systems and will ship by weight, specify the weight here.
   • Handling - If there are any product-specific handling charges, they go here. These charges are above and beyond your normal shipping charges, and are only applied if this product is purchased, they are applied for each product ordered, i.e. if 3 of this product are ordered, the customer will be charged 3 times this amount. Do not use currency signs (like “$”) and do not use commas. Prices can be specified in whole numbers or as decimals to 2 places (example: 4.95).
   • Start Up Fee – This is a one time fee billed together with the first installment. This amount will be billed only once, not on a recurring basis. The amount you enter here will either be added or subtracted from the base price . If you put a minus(-) sign before the amount it will be subtract from the base price. If you don’t put anything in front of the amount it will be added.
   • Recurring (Required) – This indicates whether or not your product is a recurring product. A recurring product is one which will rebill the customer with a specified recurrence for a specified duration.
   • Recurrence (Required for recurring products) – This is a two-part field. The first part is a numerical field that tells us how long between billings as a number. The second box tells us the unit of time measurement, current options are; weeks, months and years. So, if you want a customer to be billed once every month, you would put in a ’1′ in the first box, and then select “months” from the second drop-down box. Note that we no longer support daily recurring billing.
   • Duration (Required for recurring products) – Like the last setting, this is a two-part field. The first part is a numerical field that tells us how long to continue billing as a number. The second box tells us what unit of time you are referring to. If you put in ’6′ and then selected “months” from the second drop down, your charge would automatically cease billing after 6 months. If you want to bill the customer until they or you cancel, leave the first box blank and select “Forever” from the second box.

   • Product Categories – This is for accounts who participate in the 2CO Affiliate program. You may select the category the product will be shown in when other Affiliates search for selling opportunities.

   • Affiliate Commission – Affiliate Commission can be specified either as an amount (in your pricing currency) or as a percentage. It is how much you want to pay affiliates, re-marketing your products on their websites.
   • Pending URL – This is not used for recurring products/services.
   • Approved URL – This is the URL your customer will be returned to when the payment has been confirmed. Most credit card orders will be sent here.
   • Images – Here you can add images to you product. Theses images will be displayed in the admin and the account order page. For more information on the account order page click here.
5. Once you have edited the product to your satisfaction, press “Save Changes” to save the product to the database.

Related Article:

• Admin: Product Page Advanced View and Enable Editing

Advanced View

By default, the Product page in your account will display the following fields:

• Actions
• Images
• Assigned_product_id
• Vendor_product_id
• Name Price
• Price

Suppliers may select the fields that are displayed on the Products page by enabling Advanced View on their Product page. After you have logged in to your account, click the Product tab on your account homepage. On the Product page, place a check in the Advanced View box on the right side of the Products page and click the gray Update View button. The page will refresh and there will be a new Fields list below the Advance View box on the right side of the page.  You may then place a check in the View box next to any additional field(s) you wish to have displayed on the Product page. You can also remove the checkmark from any default field that you don’t wish to view on the Product page. After you have completed your selections, click the gray Update View button to see the changes applied to your Product page.

Enable Editing

The Advanced View will also allow you to edit product fields from the Products page. To enable editing you will leave a check in the Advanced View box, place a check in the Enable Editing field and then click the gray Update View button. The page will refresh and there will be a new fields list that will allow you to select Edit, View or Skip for the product fields on the right side of the page. You will first want to place a check in the Edit box for any product fields that you will editing, then place a check in either the View or Skip box for any fields that you won’t be editing, or don’t wish to view, and click the gray Update View button below the fields list. The page will then refresh and any fields that you had checked Edit for will now be able to be edited on the Product page. Please note, if you don’t place a check in Edit, View or Skip for a field, that field will not be displayed on the Product page after you click the Update View button. After you have edited the field(s) for the product(s) that required the change, click the gray Save Product Changes button listed on the left side of the page under your products list. The page will then refresh and an “All updates succeeded”  message will be displayed in the top left side of the page.

Related Articles:

• Tutorial: Creating Products in the New Vendors Administration Area
• New Vendor Admin: Adding Product Options
• Attaching Images to Products in the New Vendor Administration Area
• Uploading Product Images

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.

These free accounts are only for individuals who wish to offer current vendors products to customers and earn a commission. If you wish to be a part of the affiliate program and offer your own products for others to sell then you must sign up for a full 2Checkout account. Affiliates can then sign into the account at https://www.2checkout.com/va/

Once you have logged into your account you can browse our affiliate opportunities by clicking on the ‘Affiliates’ tab on your account homepage. Here you may search affiliate resale opportunities by keyword. You can also browse the affiliate resale opportunities by product category.

To search the affiliate resale opportunities please use the ‘Opportunity Locater’ to enter the keyword for your search. You may also narrow the search by selecting a category. Once the search terms have been defined please click on the ‘Search’ button.

To browse the affiliate resale opportunities please click on the ‘Browse Opportunities’ tab. From here you may select a category and browse through the opportunities.

Once you have found a product you are interested in you may 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.

The commissions you have earned on each sale can be viewed by clicking on the ‘List Commissions’ tab on the affiliates page. This page displays a table that includes the commission amount, product name, commission status, date the order was placed and the date you were paid. You can click the column headers at the top of table to sort sales listings by the date, product, status, or commission amount.

In order to be paid out for your commissions you must fill out your payment information in our banking wizard. To do this please select the “Account” tab on your account homepage and then select “Bank Account” from the Account menu. From here, you will need to click on the “Banking Wizard” button and provide the requested information for the payment method you select. Affiliate earnings are held for 60 days before being released to the affiliate.

Once you have logged in please click on the ‘Shipping’ tab.

From the shipping screen click the icon labeled ‘Add New Shipping Method’ to open the Shipping Wizard. The first screen has three sections, as described below.

The shipping method name field is used to create a name for your shipping method. This name will be displayed to customers when the shipping method is available for them to select, so you may want to make it fairly descriptive.

The Tracking URL field. If you will be shipping by a method that will provide tracking numbers, you may want to list that URL in the Tracking URL field as the URL will be included in the shipment confirmation email that can be sent to the customer when the order is marked as shipped.

The options in the Pricing section decide how the cost of your shipping method will be calculated and has three options.

• Free- Will create a shipping method with a base price of ’0.00′. Will show ‘Free’ in the price column at checkout.
• Fixed- Allow you to specify a static flat-fee.
• Price based on delivery country, weight, or order total- Opens more advanced pricing schemes. As the name suggests it can be used to charge a higher shipping fee based on the country the product will be shipped to, how much the products ordered weigh and/or the amount of the order total.

The Countries section is used to specify what countries your shipping method applies to. If you will be using this method to ship internationally select ‘all trusted countries’. If you are only shipping within your home country select ‘home country only’, otherwise you can select ‘custom list’ to select specific countries that your shipping method will be used for.

If you selected a pricing option other then free then you will be presented with the Surcharge Options page. Enter a base price for your shipping method to use. If you selected fixed for your pricing scheme, this will be the flat-rate that is used to calculate shipping, otherwise you will have a chance to add additional surcharges on the next screen. Your base price can be 0.00 but cannot be a negative value.

If you selected price based on delivery country, weight, or order total for pricing then you will also see a Countries section that can be used to further customize the pricing for your method. Select whether you want to customize your shipping method by country, weight, order total or any combination thereof.

The Custom Country List section serves two purposes. It allows you select the applicable countries for your shipping method if you selected the Custom List option and will allow you set country-specific surcharges if you selected price based on delivery country, weight, or order total. You can add countries to your method using the list at the top of the page or remove countries using the list at the bottom. Use the surcharge amount field to enter your desired surcharges for each country if you selected that option earlier in the process, otherwise the field will not be displayed.

The Set Overweight Charge / Add A Weight Surcharge page will be displayed if you chose to add shipping surcharges based on the total weight of the order. The set overweight charge field can be used to specify how much will be added per pound if the order weight goes over your maximum weight division. To create a weight division use the weight max field and specify an amount to be charged if the order weight is under or equal to your weight setting (but above any weight divisions below it). For example, if you create a surcharge for 2 lbs at 2.00 and 4 lbs at 6.00 and the order weighs 1 lb the shipping surcharge will be 2.00 plus your base price. If the order weight is 3 lbs, the surcharge will be 6.00 plus your base price. Another way to think of this process it that the weight of the order is rounded up until it finds the nearest weight max. One thing to keep in mind is that although the weight measurement used throughout the admin area (and, therefor, also in this tutorial) is pounds (lbs), our system doesn’t know the difference between this and any other measurement (ie. ounces or kilograms). Feel free to use your preferred weight measurements so long as you use them globally for your account.

The Add An Order Total Surcharge page is used to specify a total price and how much the surcharge should be if the order total is equal to or below it. This feature works similar to the weight based method in that the order total will be rounded up until the next division is found.

The Confirmation page will give you a quick overview of the options you have selected for your shipping method. Click the ‘Save’ button to complete the shipping wizard or ‘Back’ to return to a previous page and make additional changes.

Log in to your account and click the ‘Account’ tab on the homepage and then click ‘Bank Account’ from the Account menu.

Your profiles will be listed under the Payment Profiles section on the right-hand side of the page. To create a new profile, click on the ‘Banking Wizard’ button and enter the requested information for the payment method you select. When you finish setting up your payment method, you will be asked to enter a Profile Name on the Save Bank Account Profile page (optional) and click the ‘Save Profile’ button.

Once created, this Payment Profile will be displayed on your Bank Account page and will be set as live. You can edit this profile by clicking on the ‘Edit’ link, which will route you back to the Banking Wizard to make your changes. You can switch Payment Profiles by clicking ‘Set Live’ under the desired profile on the Banking Details page.

Your account homepage will display the Alerts section where you can click the title of the Alert you wish to view. The Alert Detail page will display the title of the alert as well as the following information:

• Priority – The priority of the alert (a lower number indicates higher importance).
• Status - Indicates whether or not the alert has been read.
• Alert Message – The full alert message.
• Link – URL that references the origin of the alert.

Once you have read the alert, you can click “Mark Read” to change its status.