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It's neither anecdata nor zero sum. We have very good data on that kind of thing, and everyone in e-commerce is intimately aware of how that works. The 'buyin

It's neither anecdata nor zero sum. We have very good data on that kind of thing, and everyone in e-commerce is intimately aware of how that works. The 'buying funnel' is so segmented that operations will definitely have a bunch of layers for 'checkout' or 'shopping cart' anyhow i.e. 'browsing' 'intent' 'initiated' 'partially completed' 'completed'. And very aware of what pricing shock, shipping shock etc. does to the funnel. 75% abandoned is about right because most carts these days are not filled with 'intent to purchased' they are used kind of as a 'bookmark'. Anyone integrating Bolt would know that. It's also not 'zero sum' - online buying behaviour is not fully rational - it's instinctive. (We are conspicuous consumers - we likely don't need 1/2 the stuff we buy!) For example - a 2 page checkout, streamlined with absolutely do more in sales than a longer checkout process. Bolt is very legit concept, with a networking concept i.e. that they already have your 'data' in the system from purchases at other sites, they can make checkout at your site quicker. All of that said, I'm not fully sure how defensible it is. Lastly, it's weird that they are sued. E-Commerce people are not dupes, they would have some sense about how well this could work and would definitely have some skepticism and not sure what kind of guarantees bolt would offer anyhow.

nowherebeen 5y ago
> We have very good data I am not aware of your username, but who has very good data?
- jollybean 5y ago
  Everyone with more than $2M in sales and larger companies have very deep data on it. The industry as a whole is very knowledgeable, it's very sophisticated.
Jedd 5y ago
What I meant by anecdata with my first point is that it was purely a personal observation, an action that was a consequence of a consistently poor shopping experience in my part of the world, for the types of things I buy online. Typically I was only ever going to purchase the item(s) from one vendor, but need to generate & abandon multiple vendor carts to work out the cheapest option. Like many things in life, I assume everyone does this, but acknowledged that this may in fact be uncommon. With my second point, I might have been ambiguous in my comment about reliability of the number -- I was not disputing the 75% (or 85% on mobile) claim, as I have no doubt there are good numbers about this, and it's probably reliable to extrapolate those numbers from the various larger online shops that release those stats. I was suggesting the 'one trillion dollar problem' was a dubiously sounding figure -- apart from very large, very round numbers inevitably sounding like hyperbole, and something someone trying to sell me something to 'fix' that problem would very much want to talk up, there's the non-trivial problem of obtaining the total-$ figure on all those abandoned carts across every vendor's system over the year. The zero-sum reference is to the implied (and ludicrous) claim that if a trillion dollars worth of sales were abandoned, every year, and just in the USA alone, those dollars are still 'out there', unspent, sitting in someone's cookie jar, and all it would take is for a more streamlined checkout system in order to magically summon them forth and deliver them directly into the pockets of Bolt's customers.
- jollybean 5y ago
  Of course $1T problem is ridiculous. That said, it's a big problem.

nowherebeen 5y ago

> We have very good data I am not aware of your username, but who has very good data?

jollybean 5y ago
Everyone with more than $2M in sales and larger companies have very deep data on it. The industry as a whole is very knowledgeable, it's very sophisticated.

Jedd 5y ago

What I meant by anecdata with my first point is that it was purely a personal observation, an action that was a consequence of a consistently poor shopping experience in my part of the world, for the types of things I buy online. Typically I was only ever going to purchase the item(s) from one vendor, but need to generate & abandon multiple vendor carts to work out the cheapest option. Like many things in life, I assume everyone does this, but acknowledged that this may in fact be uncommon. With my second point, I might have been ambiguous in my comment about reliability of the number -- I was not disputing the 75% (or 85% on mobile) claim, as I have no doubt there are good numbers about this, and it's probably reliable to extrapolate those numbers from the various larger online shops that release those stats. I was suggesting the 'one trillion dollar problem' was a dubiously sounding figure -- apart from very large, very round numbers inevitably sounding like hyperbole, and something someone trying to sell me something to 'fix' that problem would very much want to talk up, there's the non-trivial problem of obtaining the total-$ figure on all those abandoned carts across every vendor's system over the year. The zero-sum reference is to the implied (and ludicrous) claim that if a trillion dollars worth of sales were abandoned, every year, and just in the USA alone, those dollars are still 'out there', unspent, sitting in someone's cookie jar, and all it would take is for a more streamlined checkout system in order to magically summon them forth and deliver them directly into the pockets of Bolt's customers.

jollybean 5y ago
Of course $1T problem is ridiculous. That said, it's a big problem.