Having fielded questions in relation to TTG Highslide Gallery Pro and PayPal shipping fee handling, we come to yet another brief tutorial.
TTG Highslide Gallery Pro’s PayPal shopping cart accepts two values for shipping, as pictured.
TTG Highslide Gallery Pro's PayPal shipping options.
“Shipping” is added per line item. Therefore, if a buyer purchases one print each of two different photos, shipping set to $2.00:
| Image | Quantity | Shipping |
| _MG_001 | 1 | $2 |
| _MG_002 | 1 | $2 | Total: | $4.00 |
… then each image will be counted as a line item and the shipping value will be incurred twice — once for each image. The total would be $4.00 ( $2 x 2 line items = $4 ).
Now, let’s assume shipping remains set at $2.00, while the shipping per additional item is set to zero:
| Image | Quantity | Shipping |
| _MG_001 | 2 | $2 |
| _MG_002 | 2 | $2 | Total: | $4.00 |
If that same buyer purchases two prints each of two different photos, making a total four prints of two images, they will be charged the same shipping amount as above. This is because we are still dealing only with two images, and therefore two line items, despite there being four prints. Three of one print and one of the other would likewise amount to the same in shipping.
Now, let’s fill in “Shipping per additional item” as $1.00. This is the shipping value added to each line item per additional print after the first. Our first example, ordering a single print of two separate images remains the same:
| Image | Quantity | Shipping |
| _MG_001 | 1 | $2 |
| _MG_002 | 1 | $2 | Total: | $4.00 |
Our second example, however, now adds an additional dollar per print after the first for each line item.
| Image | Quantity | Shipping |
| _MG_001 | 2 | $3 |
| _MG_002 | 2 | $3 | Total: | $6.00 |
Let’s make a third example. Please note the difference in quantities and the effect his has on price:
| Image | Quantity | Shipping |
| _MG_001 | 2 | $3 |
| _MG_002 | 3 | $4 | Total: | $7.00 |
In summary, shipping is calculated per line item. Each line item has a base shipping rate set according to “Shipping” value. Each additional item after the first causes the shipping for that line item to be increased by the value of “Shipping per additional item”. The total cost of shipping is the sum total of all line items.
And if that’s how you want to calculate your shipping rates, it’s perfect. But what if you prefer another way? Maybe you want to charge a flat shipping rate, or make shipping a percentage of the total order? In such cases, we turn to PayPal.
Create a PayPal shipping profile.
To get here, login to your PayPal account, select the tab “Merchant Services” and then locate the hyperlink “Shipping calculator” under Shipping & Tax.
From here, PayPal will walk you through the process. You will be able to configure various shipping options, calculating price either as a fixed amount or as a percentage of order total. You will be able to setup different shipping methods and prices by state, region or country, and by order quantity, cost or weight.
But this is the important part:
On the final page of setup for each shipping option, you will see this:
DISABLE THE CHECKBOX!
It is very important that you disable the checkbox “Use the shipping fee in the transaction instead of my calculator’s settings:”. By turning this off, you tell PayPal to ignore the shipping numbers in your cart.
And that’s it. Whether you choose to use the shipping calculations in TTG Highslide Gallery Pro, or to setup your own shipping profiles via your PayPal Merchant Services, you should have all the tools you need to ship it your way.
Now, go sell stuff and make tons of money. Happy shipping!!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Does your Paypal shoppingcart solution support the paypal digital goods(i.e. direct download of digital files) feature? I can not find anything about it, and if not, can you please add support for it, I think the fotomoto solution are way to expensive(15% for downloads and i have to transfer my files to fotomotos servers).
Paypal on its own does not support downloadable products. To sell digital goods requires additional, fourth-party software — Paypal already being the third party — usually powered by a database and PHP scripting, things that Lightroom cannot create or interact with from the web module.
To wit, no, my products do not support digital goods delivery via Paypal.
actually, its just some php(but i’m not a programmer nor a webdesigner)
here is a link: http://www.ngcoders.com/php/selling-digital-goods-with-paypal-ipn-and-php
That script is new to me, though cannot be embedded into a Lightroom gallery. It requires the product array to be embedded directly within the PHP. Lightroom cannot properly parse PHP scripting and thus cannot embed this array for your images.