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I noticed a $0.40 service fee on each payment. I understand why you're doing this (fixed payment processor fee), but you could be a bit smarter about it. For e

I noticed a $0.40 service fee on each payment. I understand why you're doing this (fixed payment processor fee), but you could be a bit smarter about it. For example, eat it on the first order to validate the payment method and reduce a bit of risk. Then on subsequent orders, don't bill the card immediately. Allow the customer some amount of credit based on e.g. how many previous orders they have paid for successfully and the age of their account. Once you've reached your threshold for whatever amount the user is allowed to buy before you bill, you then bill the card and send a receipt with the orders you've just charged for. This will take some work, but it will reduce the friction of users seeing that fee on checkout.

timgriffin77 7y ago
Really great suggestion, definitely something we could do in the future. We just rolled that service fee out this week, so we're watching it closely. Right now, we offer 5 free purchases regardless of how the user pays, but something that's already clear is that we'll need to remove it from the stored balance reload. As we add payment options like ACH, PayPal, etc. we'll have more wiggle room to adjust the fee based on the final payment method, and establishing a running total like you suggest could increase that variability even more.
- ryanworl 7y ago
  If you want to push your app's wallet (for cash-flow, loyalty, interest margin), you could offer additional reward bonuses for larger reloads. i.e. a $10 reload gets no bonus, but a $30+ reload gets an extra dollar in rewards. Presumably you've already seen the CUPS coffee app, but check it out if you haven't. They're dead as a company now from what I can tell, but they had a very streamlined experience. They even tried a fixed price model where each vendor would receive a fixed payment for each cup users redeemed and users would subscribe to a plan with a certain number of cups a month.
  - timgriffin77 7y ago
    Completely agree - definitely a feature, we're building (Bird as a great UX for this, if you haven't seen it). Also familiar with CUPS, subscription plans were/are such a gamble for shops, but I can see why it was tempting to try. I think they're still operating in some capacity, but they definitely have a limited consumer presence.

timgriffin77 7y ago

Really great suggestion, definitely something we could do in the future. We just rolled that service fee out this week, so we're watching it closely. Right now, we offer 5 free purchases regardless of how the user pays, but something that's already clear is that we'll need to remove it from the stored balance reload. As we add payment options like ACH, PayPal, etc. we'll have more wiggle room to adjust the fee based on the final payment method, and establishing a running total like you suggest could increase that variability even more.

ryanworl 7y ago
If you want to push your app's wallet (for cash-flow, loyalty, interest margin), you could offer additional reward bonuses for larger reloads. i.e. a $10 reload gets no bonus, but a $30+ reload gets an extra dollar in rewards. Presumably you've already seen the CUPS coffee app, but check it out if you haven't. They're dead as a company now from what I can tell, but they had a very streamlined experience. They even tried a fixed price model where each vendor would receive a fixed payment for each cup users redeemed and users would subscribe to a plan with a certain number of cups a month.
- timgriffin77 7y ago
  Completely agree - definitely a feature, we're building (Bird as a great UX for this, if you haven't seen it). Also familiar with CUPS, subscription plans were/are such a gamble for shops, but I can see why it was tempting to try. I think they're still operating in some capacity, but they definitely have a limited consumer presence.