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One of the bread & butter services @ ConversionVoodoo.com is fixing broken UI's around checkout / carts. I have yet to meet a retailer that we can't hit at lea

by aresant 14y ago

One of the bread & butter services @ ConversionVoodoo.com is fixing broken UI's around checkout / carts. I have yet to meet a retailer that we can't hit at least 15 - 25% improvement in sales by testing and fixing their checkout. Take those gains and multiply that times the entire internet and Stripe has the opportunity to make a major impact on the GDP (I'm only half kidding). A few years back I shared one of our "low hanging fruit" cart optimization strategies that almost always works: http://www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/07/proper-placement-of-trust-logos-can-make-a-huge-difference-in-conversion-rate/ http://www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/07/proper-placemen... Despite being nearly 3-year old advice, moving security / trust symbols into the visual field of sensitive information remains an easy conversion gain that we see STILL work nearly every time to the order of 5 - 10% gains. But the current reality is that even being able to test your checkout process on most of the leading "off the shelf" ecommerce platforms is an incredible pain in the ass (I'm looking at you Magento, Oracle ATG, etc) If Stripe executes on this idea - scaled cart testing - every dollar that an organization pays for Stripe fees is easily cancelled out by a properly optimized checkout form. This is huge.

kami8845 14y ago
>I have yet to meet a retailer that we can't hit at least 15 - 25% improvement in sales by testing and fixing their checkout. >make a major impact on the GDP I agree on the percentages (I'm myself a big advocate for A/B testing), but I do think that a lot of those gains are made because a certain company becomes a lot "better" than their competitors by employing these kinds of techniques. Example from my personal life today: I looked at gyms in London. After about looking at 5 I got slightly annoyed: They tried to hide their prices, generally broken UI and I felt they were trying to trick me into a high-paying contract. I then stumbled over site 6: Clear value proposition, not afraid to ask their prices and super easy to do a first training. Sold. If every single gym out there had a great website, I still would only get 1 gym membership. Though it would probably help if it didn't cause me so much time & pain to do it. But most of the pain is not in the checkout process (punch in credit card numbers). In fact I don't think I've ever not made a purchase because the credit card form wasn't to my liking, the buy/no buy decision generally gets made much earlier and that's an issue that I don't think is for Stripe to fix, but rather for individual companies learning about & implementing great sales channels.
- freyfogle 14y ago
  I live in London and need a new gym. Which one was it? Thx.
- loceng 14y ago
  Gains eliminated once everyone on level playing field.
  - reitzensteinm 14y ago
    I don't think that's true at all. It will certainly disproportionately benefit companies that smooth out the kinks before their competitors do, and that will be eliminated with industry wide adoption. But take the inverse; if every transaction in the world were made more difficult (eg, by removing credit cards and bank transfers, leaving cash and mailed cheques), do you believe that wouldn't shrink the economy? Worldwide adoption of best practices certainly wouldn't suddenly increase the worldwide GDP 20%, but the rising tide of demand due to reduced transaction friction would lift all boats, so to speak.
    - loceng 14y ago
      I think people would make better and smarter purchases if things weren't so easily purchased.
      - jfoster 14y ago
        That could be one effect, but another effect could be shrinking of the economy. (eg. cases where someone would have made a good & smart purchase but didn't due to amount of effort involved)
        loceng 14y ago
        Why the high value for a constantly growing economy? GDP is the wrong set of metrics to follow anyway because if you do something that causes pollution and harm to people and the environment, it's recorded as a positive increase.
up_and_up 14y ago
> moving security / trust symbols into the visual field of sensitive information remains an easy conversion gain I recommend reading Web Design for ROI for other tips such as that. [http://www.amazon.com/Web-Design-ROI-Browsers-Prospects/dp/0321489829 http://www.amazon.com/Web-Design-ROI-Browsers-Prospects/dp/0...] - I am not the author, I just found this book interesting in how impactful certain ecommerce design modifications can be towards increasing sales.
greghinch 14y ago
> make a major impact on the GDP I appreciate the sentiment, but it's worth pointing out that online retail I the US only accounts for about 5-7% of the market. The UK is doing probably the highest at around 12-15%. So it might make a blip, but don't get too carried away

by aresant 14y ago

kami8845 14y ago

>I have yet to meet a retailer that we can't hit at least 15 - 25% improvement in sales by testing and fixing their checkout. >make a major impact on the GDP I agree on the percentages (I'm myself a big advocate for A/B testing), but I do think that a lot of those gains are made because a certain company becomes a lot "better" than their competitors by employing these kinds of techniques. Example from my personal life today: I looked at gyms in London. After about looking at 5 I got slightly annoyed: They tried to hide their prices, generally broken UI and I felt they were trying to trick me into a high-paying contract. I then stumbled over site 6: Clear value proposition, not afraid to ask their prices and super easy to do a first training. Sold. If every single gym out there had a great website, I still would only get 1 gym membership. Though it would probably help if it didn't cause me so much time & pain to do it. But most of the pain is not in the checkout process (punch in credit card numbers). In fact I don't think I've ever not made a purchase because the credit card form wasn't to my liking, the buy/no buy decision generally gets made much earlier and that's an issue that I don't think is for Stripe to fix, but rather for individual companies learning about & implementing great sales channels.

freyfogle 14y ago
I live in London and need a new gym. Which one was it? Thx.
loceng 14y ago
Gains eliminated once everyone on level playing field.
- reitzensteinm 14y ago
  I don't think that's true at all. It will certainly disproportionately benefit companies that smooth out the kinks before their competitors do, and that will be eliminated with industry wide adoption. But take the inverse; if every transaction in the world were made more difficult (eg, by removing credit cards and bank transfers, leaving cash and mailed cheques), do you believe that wouldn't shrink the economy? Worldwide adoption of best practices certainly wouldn't suddenly increase the worldwide GDP 20%, but the rising tide of demand due to reduced transaction friction would lift all boats, so to speak.
  - loceng 14y ago
    I think people would make better and smarter purchases if things weren't so easily purchased.
    - jfoster 14y ago
      That could be one effect, but another effect could be shrinking of the economy. (eg. cases where someone would have made a good & smart purchase but didn't due to amount of effort involved)
      - loceng 14y ago
        Why the high value for a constantly growing economy? GDP is the wrong set of metrics to follow anyway because if you do something that causes pollution and harm to people and the environment, it's recorded as a positive increase.

up_and_up 14y ago

> moving security / trust symbols into the visual field of sensitive information remains an easy conversion gain I recommend reading Web Design for ROI for other tips such as that. [http://www.amazon.com/Web-Design-ROI-Browsers-Prospects/dp/0321489829 http://www.amazon.com/Web-Design-ROI-Browsers-Prospects/dp/0...] - I am not the author, I just found this book interesting in how impactful certain ecommerce design modifications can be towards increasing sales.

greghinch 14y ago

> make a major impact on the GDP I appreciate the sentiment, but it's worth pointing out that online retail I the US only accounts for about 5-7% of the market. The UK is doing probably the highest at around 12-15%. So it might make a blip, but don't get too carried away