Payment
Amazon Pay
Checkout by Amazon was discontinued in PR8 Update 11 and replaced with Amazon Pay (formerly Amazon Payments). You can continue to use Checkout by Amazon if you wish, but it will not be maintained in new releases of Miva Merchant.
Amazon Pay is a third party checkout, similar to PayPal Express Checkout. There are a few differences between Amazon Pay and the old module, Checkout by Amazon:
| Amazon Pay | Checkout by Amazon |
| In-line verification. During checkout the customer uses a popup window to log into their Amazon account and does not leave your store. | Standard verification. During checkout customers are redirected to an Amazon web page to log into their Amazon account. |
| In-line authorization. During checkout the customer uses a JavaScript widget to select payment and shipping options from their Amazon account and does not leave your store. | Standard authorization. After logging into their Amazon account, the customer uses Amazon web pages to select payment and shipping options. After the customer selects their payment and shipping options, they are redirected back to normal checkout in your store. Analytic tools, like Google Analytics, can't track the user while they are not on your store pages. |
| Supports your store Coupons | Did not support your store coupons. |
| Shipping method is always selected from your Miva Merchant store. | Checkout by Amazon maintained its own list of shipping methods which did not always match the list of shipping methods supported in your Miva Merchant store. |
| Supports use of Miva Merchant shipping rules. | Did not allow Miva Merchant shipping rules to be used. |
But see also Enable In Context Checkout for the way that PayPal implements the same feature in a slightly different way.
Amazon Ship To / Bill To Information
Amazon Pay is an "in-line" payment transaction, which means that customers go through the entire payment process without leaving your website. However, Amazon Pay does use an embedded "widget" (a piece of software) in the checkout process that lets customers sign into their Amazon accounts. During the payment process, customers can select Ship To / Bill To information from their Amazon account. The problem is, although Amazon will tell Miva Merchant what Ship To address the customer selected, they will not tell us what Bill To information the customer selected.
The fact that Amazon won't return Bill To information is not a big deal for Miva Merchant. We still have the Ship To information and that is good enough for most orders. However, some third-party order fulfillment products may respond with an error if there is no Bill To information.
To resolve this issue, Miva Merchant made a small change in 9.0004 to the way it works with Amazon Pay. When a customer uses Amazon Pay, the Ship To information is copied over to the Bill To fields.
To Register for Amazon Pay
You must register for the Amazon Pay service before you can use it in your Miva Merchant store.
- Go to: https://sellercentral.amazon.com
- Use your existing Checkout by Amazon account, and the Amazon Pay service will be added. Your Checkout by Amazon account and the Amazon Pay service use the same Access Key and Secret Key.
To Enable Amazon Pay in Miva Merchant
After you register for the Amazon Pay service you can enable the feature in your Miva Merchant store.
- Go to
> Payments > Add/Remove Modules tab > Available Modules section. - Click Install under Amazon Pay.
Merchant Id: Access Key: Secret Key: Confirm Secret Key: |
Each of these fields is a credential that is created when you set up your Amazon Seller Account. |
| Currency Code: | Select the currency code that you want to pass to Amazon. Usually this matches the currency you have set for your store (see Currency Formatting). |
| Transaction Timeout: | After your customer completes checkout using Amazon Pay, Amazon gives you a certain amount of time to change the order. For example, after completing checkout in your store, the customer might call you and want to drop an item, add an item, or change the shipping or payment information. As a store manager or admin, you can log into the Miva Merchant admin interface, edit the customer's order, and make any necessary changes. The transaction timeout is a the amount of time, after checkout, that you will allow an order placed using Amazon Pay to be edited. If you set the transaction timeout to 30 minutes, and the customer calls you 1 hour after they complete checkout to change the order, you won't be able to resubmit the order to Amazon. In that case you would have to cancel the order and ask the customer to start over. The max timeout you can enter in this field is 1,440 minutes (24 hours), which is the max allowed by Amazon. |
| Polling Interval: | Amazon does some fraud processing before they authorize a transaction. The Polling Interval determines how often you want Miva Merchant software to contact Amazon to check on the transaction status. For example, if you set the Polling Interval to 30 minutes, Miva Merchant will contact Amazon every 30 minutes to get a status update on the order. For example:
|
| Instantly Capture Payment (requires prior approval from Amazon) | If you select this option, the funds will be captured as soon as Amazon marks the transaction as Authorized. If you do not select this option, you must:
Before you can use this feature in your Miva Merchant store you must contact Amazon and ask for it to be enabled in your Amazon seller account. |
| Server: | If you select "Production", Amazon Pay will be enabled in your on-line store. Select "Sandbox" if you want to experiment with Amazon Pay in an isolated environment. Before you can select the sandbox option here you must have a sandbox setup with your Amazon seller account. Your Amazon sandbox will have separate credentials for Merchant ID, Access Key, and Secret Key, which you must also enter in this tab. |
Amazon Pay In-line Checkout
If you enable Amazon Pay in-context checkout, the customer can do verification and authorization without leaving your store. But see also Enable In Context Checkout for the way that PayPal implements the same feature in a slightly different way.
In the Basket Contents screen (BASK), the customer clicks the "Pay with Amazon" button.
A popup window appears on top of the Basket Contents screen. The customer enters their Amazon account credentials and clicks the sign in button.
The customer is now on a Miva Merchant page only used for Amazon Pay (Amazon Pay - OCST ). The address book shows all of the addresses in the customer's Amazon account. The customer selects a shipping address and clicks the Continue button.
This is the second custom Amazon Pay screen (Amazon Pay - OSEL). The customer selects a shipping method and clicks the Continue button.
This is the next custom Amazon Pay screen (Amazon Pay - OPAY). The screen shows the customer all of the payment methods that are enabled in their Amazon account. The customer selects a payment method and clicks the Continue button. The order is now complete. The status of the order will show up as "Pending" in the Miva Merchant admin interface until Amazon authorizes the transaction.
In the last checkout screen, the customer sees your standard invoice page (INVC).