Commerce service is confusing

Hi all-
The commerce service seems like it has great potential but it almost feels like it is an after thought and has been neglected since it began.

First, the Beta commerce dashboard at the bottom for developers links to: Coinbase Commerce it was only after I was linked to Welcome by support where it shows that the previous link is deprecated. This should certainly be fixed.

Secondly, the updated set of docs that we are supposed to use do not even discuss the Checkout product like they do with the Charge product. How come?

My main question is, what is the difference between Charge and Checkout? Do they both have a hosted checkout for the user? What is the use case for each one?

Secondly, trying to use Checkout, there seems to be no way to redirect user to a specific page after sale (or if user cancels the sale). Charge allows for a redirect and cancel url as parameters, why wouldnt this be an option for Checkout as well?

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Hello @cryptonut! Welcome to the forum! Thank you for taking an interest in trying out Coinbase APIs. For the details regarding your concern, we will check on this for you with our team. We will get back to you once we have more information. Keep in touch!

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Hello @cryptonut! Welcome to the forum!

The main difference between Charge and Checkout is that:

  • Charges are generated for each payment, and will expire after a waiting period if no payment has been detected.

On the other hand,

  • Checkouts can have many charges and each charge is automatically generated on a per customer basis.

Unfortunately, as per checking, there is no functionality with Checkouts to redirect users to a specific page after a sale. We would suggest that you post this to our Feedback Section of the forum, as that way it can be reviewed by our product managers when planning which features to build next.

Hope this helps and again welcome to the community!

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Thanks for that however can you further clarify things? Does Checkout and Charge both have a hosted checkout?

What is the use case for each, or better yet, why would a merchant choose one over the other?

In my case, I sell fixed price products. Could either of the two be used?

You said Charges are generated for each payment…do you mean payment addresses are generated for each payment when using Charge?

bump…any further answers / clarifications to my questions that you can share?

Hi @cryptonut! Apologies for the delay in our response. Please see our answers to your questions below:

  1. Yes, both Charge and Checkout have a hosted checkout.

  2. A Checkout can be created via the UI and the API, when a payer navigates to a checkout, a Charge is created and this Charge has various receiving addresses attached, depending on which currencies are enabled. While a stand alone Charge can only be generated through the API and is not associated with a Checkout/Invoice. Using the API gives merchants a more bespoke experience where they can implement custom flows, like shopping carts etc.

  3. Yes, both can be used to sell fixed price products.

  4. Yes, a payment address for each supported cryptocurrency will be generated when using Charge or a Checkout since it will also generate a charge.

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@cryptonut - quick follow here as we continue to look at this and are working on updates to help make our documentation clearer and more helpful.

Please continue to refer to our Commerce Documentation for these updates.

We truly appreciate the feedback - please let us know of anything else that you believe would help make your experiences with Coinbase products better.

Great stuff, thanks for sharing the knowledge

With a charge, how do you specify the Ethereum, Bitcoin, and any other addresses to receive the payments?

Coinbase provides the addresses in the cart and they are credited to your commerce account which you can see your holdings when you login to commerce as the merchant. From there you can send to yuor own wallets if you wish.

The seedphrase they provide when setting up the eCommerce account, works for Ethereum if you want to load it into your own Wallet App like MetaMask. I want to know how to get the seedphrase / private keys for my bitcoin, litecoin, and other available wallets.

@jmclendon - quickly checking in here to see if this is a question for Coinbase and, if so, if you could lay out your use case and issues so that we can help you! Thank you!