4 ms·

There was a HN comment about competitors tracking how many new signups are happening and increasing the discounts/sales push based on that. Something like this.

JetSetIlly 10mo ago
In a business I once worked for, one of the users of the online ordering system represented over 50% of the business' income, something you wouldn't necessarily want them to know. However, because the online ordering system assigned order numbers sequentially, it would have been trivial for that company to determine how important their business was. For example, over the course of a month, they could order something at the start of the month and something at the end of the month. That would give them the total number of orders in that period. They already know how many orders they have placed during the month, so company_orders / total_orders = percentage_of_business It doesn't even have to be accurate, just an approximation. I don't know if they figured out that they could do that but it wouldn't surprise me if they had.
- pezezin 10mo ago
  This is also something that depends heavily on regulations. In my home country, invoice numbers have to be sequential by law, although you can restart the numbering every year.
  - hexbin010 10mo ago
    A global sequence, or sequence-per-account? I suspect the latter?
    - pezezin 10mo ago
      A sequence per "series", where a series can be a fiscal year, a department or category, etc. But I am not sure if you can have one series per customer, I only find conflicting information. You can have more details here, in the section "Complete invoice": https://sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es/Sede/en_gb/iva/facturacion-registro/facturacion-iva/contenido-facturas.html https://sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es/Sede/en_gb/iva/factura... https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2012-14696#a6 https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2012-14696#a6 (Spanish only)
  - JetSetIlly 10mo ago
    Yes, even if it's not a legal requirement it's definitely best practice to have sequential invoice numbers. I thought about this at the time but these numbers aren't invoice numbers, only order numbers.
0x3f 10mo ago
That's happening everywhere. You can order industrial parts from a Fortune 500 and check some of the numbers on it too, if they're not careful about it.

JetSetIlly 10mo ago

In a business I once worked for, one of the users of the online ordering system represented over 50% of the business' income, something you wouldn't necessarily want them to know. However, because the online ordering system assigned order numbers sequentially, it would have been trivial for that company to determine how important their business was. For example, over the course of a month, they could order something at the start of the month and something at the end of the month. That would give them the total number of orders in that period. They already know how many orders they have placed during the month, so company_orders / total_orders = percentage_of_business It doesn't even have to be accurate, just an approximation. I don't know if they figured out that they could do that but it wouldn't surprise me if they had.

pezezin 10mo ago
This is also something that depends heavily on regulations. In my home country, invoice numbers have to be sequential by law, although you can restart the numbering every year.
- hexbin010 10mo ago
  A global sequence, or sequence-per-account? I suspect the latter?
  - pezezin 10mo ago
    A sequence per "series", where a series can be a fiscal year, a department or category, etc. But I am not sure if you can have one series per customer, I only find conflicting information. You can have more details here, in the section "Complete invoice": https://sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es/Sede/en_gb/iva/facturacion-registro/facturacion-iva/contenido-facturas.html https://sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es/Sede/en_gb/iva/factura... https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2012-14696#a6 https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2012-14696#a6 (Spanish only)
- JetSetIlly 10mo ago
  Yes, even if it's not a legal requirement it's definitely best practice to have sequential invoice numbers. I thought about this at the time but these numbers aren't invoice numbers, only order numbers.

0x3f 10mo ago

That's happening everywhere. You can order industrial parts from a Fortune 500 and check some of the numbers on it too, if they're not careful about it.