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>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 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.
        jfoster 14y ago
        I'm not sure whether a constantly growing economy is good or bad. Seems very multi-faceted and almost meaningless, really. An economy could be growing or shrinking for so many good or bad reasons. I think the point we're making is that if people couldn't make the transactions that they wanted to make, it would definitely shrink. That feels like a bad reason for why an economy should shrink.
        loceng 14y ago
        Agreed.
jontas 14y ago
If you dont mind, could you share some of the gym websites you mention in your comment (especially the good one)? I'm a web developer and I happen to have a lot of clients in the health club business so I am very curious to see the sites you looked at (and hope none of the bad ones were me! :)

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.
      - jfoster 14y ago
        I'm not sure whether a constantly growing economy is good or bad. Seems very multi-faceted and almost meaningless, really. An economy could be growing or shrinking for so many good or bad reasons. I think the point we're making is that if people couldn't make the transactions that they wanted to make, it would definitely shrink. That feels like a bad reason for why an economy should shrink.
        loceng 14y ago
        Agreed.

jontas 14y ago

If you dont mind, could you share some of the gym websites you mention in your comment (especially the good one)? I'm a web developer and I happen to have a lot of clients in the health club business so I am very curious to see the sites you looked at (and hope none of the bad ones were me! :)