Sometimes, instead of creating or deleting products, you will simply want to edit an existing product in your 2Checkout account. This article describes the necessary steps and options you will encounter while doing so.

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To create a new product in our system, you’ll need to first add the item to our database. The steps below should be followed in the order they are given to ensure problem-free results.

1. Login to your account using the new vendor admin here.
2. Click on the “Products” tab.
3. Click on the “Create” sub-tab.
4. You will see a screen with several fields. Below a description of each field follows.

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.

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.

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 other 2CO vendors who act as affiliates, re-marketing your products on their websites.

Pending URL – The Pending URL field is no longer used and may be left blank as 2Checkout no longer accepts e-checks as a payment method.

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.

5. Once you have configured the product to your satisfaction, press ‘Save Changes’ to save the product to the database.

Related Articles:

• Creating a Product CSV

As part of our ongoing series of resources, we’re taking a break from technical resources to feature a couple business/financial resources.

• StorefrontBacktalk: Techniques, Tools and Tirades about Retail Technology and E-Commerce – StorefrontBacktalk has a free e-commerce and retail email newsletter, but also features a wealth of information in web-based articles like Know Your Enemy which is about three kinds of cyber thieves retailers should be aware of.
• Digital Transactions: Trends in the Electronic Exchange of Value – The online version of Digital Transactions is available only in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format, so we can’t link directly to articles, but one good one this month’s issue is Preparing for the Post-Check Future which is about the trend of consumers moving to e-checks and other electronic payment methods. Digital Transactions’ subscriptions are free and available via direct download in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format. They also provide weekly Web Transaction Performance Indexes.

Please add any other related resources you’d like to recommend to the comments.

Related Articles:

• Resource Links (Part 1) – Site-building Tools and HTML/CSS
• Resource Links (Part 2) – PHP and Javascript
• Resource Links (Part 3) – Statistics and Graphics/Design
• Resource Links (Part 5) – Design/Usability

This is the second part of our ongoing series of site-building resources. Today we’ll be focusing on PHP and Javascript.

PHP

• PHP.net – “PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML.”
• W3Schools’ PHP Tutorial – This site was previously listed in Resource Links (Part 1) for HTML/CSS
• PHP Object Generator – “PHP Object Generator, (POG) is an open source
  PHP code generator which automatically generates clean & tested Object Oriented code for your PHP4/PHP5 application.”
• Smarty – PHP template engine that helps separate application code from presentation.

Javascript

• W3Schools’ Javascript Tutorial – This site was previously listed in Resource Links (Part 1) for HTML/CSS
• Core JavaScript 1.5 Reference – “provides reference material for the core JavaScript language”
• quirksmode.org – quirksmode.org’s online companion to ppk on JavaScript
• script.aculo.us – “script.aculo.us provides you with easy-to-use, cross-browser user interface JavaScript libraries to make your web sites and web applications fly.”
• MooTools – “MooTools is a compact, modular, Object-Oriented JavaScript framework designed for the intermediate to advanced JavaScript developer. It allows you to write powerful, flexible, and cross-browser code with its elegant, well documented, and coherent API.”
• The mooWalkthrough – “… a step -by step guide with examples, tips, a maybe a few secrets, for the Javascript Framework Mootools.”
• The “Mootorial” – a MooTools tutorial

Do you have a site-building or PHP or Javascript recommendation you would like to share? Please tell us about it in the comments.

Related Articles:

• Resource Links (Part 1) – Site-building Tools and HTML/CSS
• Resource Links (Part 3) – Statistics and Graphics/Design
• Resource Links (Part 4) – Business/Financial
• Resource Links (Part 5) – Design/Usability

One of the most utilized features available to our suppliers is the ability to return a customer, along with information regarding their order, to the page from which their order originated.

Although this process can be extremely useful and powerful, it can also be misunderstood by someone who does not have all of the available information. This article contains detailed information about the Direct Return process, and is moderate to very technical in design. The target audience of this article is most likely web developers and suppliers who are developing their own custom scripts or configuring a third party solution. Also, throughout this article the phrase “return URL” is used to collectively refer to the approved URL, configurable within your 2Checkout account.
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