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Thanks for the long and considerate comment. To briefly respond -- > So, we’re planning to dump Checkout for a few reasons, but first among them is that Stripe

by pc 13y ago

Thanks for the long and considerate comment. To briefly respond -- > So, we’re planning to dump Checkout for a few reasons, but first among them is that Stripe changed our users’ experience for the worse, without our knowledge or consent. When we first launched Checkout, we tried to emphasize that this was a canvas for Stripe to test out improvements. The last paragraph of the launch blog post[1] was: "Ultimately, we think the structural shift is most important. Normally, you build a payment form and move on. Maybe you eventually get time to revisit it a year later. By integrating Stripe’s payment form, your checkout is continually improving. As we refine and iterate over time, we’ll be able to immediately pass enhancements on to anyone who uses it. We’re looking forward to seeing what you build, and to doing our part to help improve commerce on the web." Still, I apologize that it was surprising -- and, especially, that it caused any issues for your customers. I think we likely made a mistake not emphasizing this even more than we have. Checkout is very much an ongoing work. > For example, our customers typically sign up once for a subscription and then never enter their card details again, so the remember-me changes do absolutely nothing positive for them or us. Well, the goal isn't just to store card details for your customers -- the idea is also that people don't have to type details on your site if they've already typed them on some other site. Your points on the flow are well-taken (we now enable you to pre-fill email addresses nicely), and you're right that we should probably create a customer-facing "Why you should trust Stripe" page. While Stripe.js will always be a first-class citizen on Stripe, and you're obviously very welcome to use it, my sense after reading your comment is that most of your issues are likely solvable. If you've any interest in talking more, I'm patrick@stripe.com. [1] https://stripe.com/blog/stripe-checkout https://stripe.com/blog/stripe-checkout

teach 13y ago
I know additional anecdotes aren't worth much, and I'm a very small fish, but the addition of the email address and the "remember me" checkbox was an unpleasant surprise for me as well and seems to have increased confusion/uncertainty for my customers. I'm the author of "Learn Java the Hard Way". My customers aren't interested in a "relationship" with me or my site. They just want my PDF. Since you implemented this change, 1) my total sales are down and 2) the fraction of users buying with PayPal instead of Stripe has increased. My 'N' is pretty small, so I can't with confidence say the thing is statistically significant, but it's something I have noticed. I would VERY MUCH like the option to hide both the "email address" prompt and the "remember me" checkbox.
- pc 13y ago
  Hm, could you email me? patrick@stripe.com. I suspect that this is an anomaly, as you say (almost all small samples will randomly skew in one direction or another), and our data strongly suggests and testing suggests that this increases sales -- but if you're right, not only will we add the option to hide it, but we'll proactively do it ourselves.
  - natemcguire 13y ago
    So, I as a user see the remember me option ONCE, and it's only the first time I check out with stripe, right? Then in theory I go to some other site and it increases conversion on site b because it pre-fills my saved CC info, etc. It seems plausible that change will increase conversion on the second site, but as appears to be the case anecdotally, the change can decrease conversions on the first site. Seems like this could be painful for a site with one-time sales. Could it instead be a dialogue that pops up with clear stripe branding that asks if you want to remember the card for future visits on the web and explains what it is? We roll our own stripe forms, so this hasn't caused us any issues. Knew that checkout was not something we would use for this reason.
    - sroussey 13y ago
      The important thing to see, I think, is that the gains will come not on the first day this rolled out, but over time. One tiny merchant on a single day as the only data point is a sad sample to base decisions on. Particularly for said tiny merchant. Their pick up in sales will not happen immediately, but with time. Removing the "Remember Me" in freakout mode will likely be just shooting themselves in the foot, in a very short term way. But then again, even big companies only worry about the next quarter's financials, and the government so longer invests in infrastructure, so I guess this is the new normal.
      - teach 13y ago
        I'm not talking about a change in a single day. The change in question happened in late December, so I do have SOME data. If I lose sales for two years and then EVENTUALLY get a bump, that's two years of network effects and word-of-mouth that I've missed out on.
Chris_Newton 13y ago
When we first launched Checkout, we tried to emphasize that this was a canvas for Stripe to test out improvements. The last paragraph of the launch blog post[1] was For anything it’s worth, I had never come across the idea of Checkout as a test platform before this discussion, nor seen that blog post. We first discovered Checkout while looking through the basic integration documentation on your site as it was at the time (probably about a year ago) and it seemed like the obvious way to go rather than having yet another form to implement manually and then use stripe.js. If that has always been the policy, perhaps we should have known and somehow we missed it. In any case, while you’re almost certainly right that most of the issues I mentioned are fixable, it seems like an even clearer decision to move to stripe.js now, because the one issue that it seems won’t be fixed — because it’s already working as intended from your point of view — is ensuring stability in our UX. we should probably create a customer-facing "Why you should trust Stripe" page I could not agree with this more strongly. If I could have directed my hesitant prospect to a single page setting out Stripe’s credentials, preferably linked to reputable independent sources for verification, then if nothing else it would have saved us a lot of time trying to figure out what to say and then probably coming up with much the same answer as 1,964 other businesses who use Stripe anyway. :-)
pseudoanon723 13y ago
I was also unpleasantly surprised. My initial reaction was that Stripe had jumped the shark to create a Paypalesque checkout experience. I switched to Stripe Checkout to allow me to focus on other tasks. I was using a versioned API (v2 in the URI), and then it was changed unexpededly. I had to stop in the middle of busy week and go code up my own payment form and get it into production. My chagrin wasn't just over the UI changes, it was also that the data fields collected and passed to my app changed. (The "Name on Card" field was dropped and email address added) I think it would've been prudent to respect the versioned API (https://checkout.stripe.com/v2/checkout.js https://checkout.stripe.com/v2/checkout.js), and do A/B testing on the latest (https://checkout.stripe.com/checkout.js https://checkout.stripe.com/checkout.js).

by pc 13y ago

teach 13y ago

I know additional anecdotes aren't worth much, and I'm a very small fish, but the addition of the email address and the "remember me" checkbox was an unpleasant surprise for me as well and seems to have increased confusion/uncertainty for my customers. I'm the author of "Learn Java the Hard Way". My customers aren't interested in a "relationship" with me or my site. They just want my PDF. Since you implemented this change, 1) my total sales are down and 2) the fraction of users buying with PayPal instead of Stripe has increased. My 'N' is pretty small, so I can't with confidence say the thing is statistically significant, but it's something I have noticed. I would VERY MUCH like the option to hide both the "email address" prompt and the "remember me" checkbox.

pc 13y ago
Hm, could you email me? patrick@stripe.com. I suspect that this is an anomaly, as you say (almost all small samples will randomly skew in one direction or another), and our data strongly suggests and testing suggests that this increases sales -- but if you're right, not only will we add the option to hide it, but we'll proactively do it ourselves.
- natemcguire 13y ago
  So, I as a user see the remember me option ONCE, and it's only the first time I check out with stripe, right? Then in theory I go to some other site and it increases conversion on site b because it pre-fills my saved CC info, etc. It seems plausible that change will increase conversion on the second site, but as appears to be the case anecdotally, the change can decrease conversions on the first site. Seems like this could be painful for a site with one-time sales. Could it instead be a dialogue that pops up with clear stripe branding that asks if you want to remember the card for future visits on the web and explains what it is? We roll our own stripe forms, so this hasn't caused us any issues. Knew that checkout was not something we would use for this reason.
  - sroussey 13y ago
    The important thing to see, I think, is that the gains will come not on the first day this rolled out, but over time. One tiny merchant on a single day as the only data point is a sad sample to base decisions on. Particularly for said tiny merchant. Their pick up in sales will not happen immediately, but with time. Removing the "Remember Me" in freakout mode will likely be just shooting themselves in the foot, in a very short term way. But then again, even big companies only worry about the next quarter's financials, and the government so longer invests in infrastructure, so I guess this is the new normal.
    - teach 13y ago
      I'm not talking about a change in a single day. The change in question happened in late December, so I do have SOME data. If I lose sales for two years and then EVENTUALLY get a bump, that's two years of network effects and word-of-mouth that I've missed out on.

Chris_Newton 13y ago

When we first launched Checkout, we tried to emphasize that this was a canvas for Stripe to test out improvements. The last paragraph of the launch blog post[1] was For anything it’s worth, I had never come across the idea of Checkout as a test platform before this discussion, nor seen that blog post. We first discovered Checkout while looking through the basic integration documentation on your site as it was at the time (probably about a year ago) and it seemed like the obvious way to go rather than having yet another form to implement manually and then use stripe.js. If that has always been the policy, perhaps we should have known and somehow we missed it. In any case, while you’re almost certainly right that most of the issues I mentioned are fixable, it seems like an even clearer decision to move to stripe.js now, because the one issue that it seems won’t be fixed — because it’s already working as intended from your point of view — is ensuring stability in our UX. we should probably create a customer-facing "Why you should trust Stripe" page I could not agree with this more strongly. If I could have directed my hesitant prospect to a single page setting out Stripe’s credentials, preferably linked to reputable independent sources for verification, then if nothing else it would have saved us a lot of time trying to figure out what to say and then probably coming up with much the same answer as 1,964 other businesses who use Stripe anyway. :-)

pseudoanon723 13y ago

I was also unpleasantly surprised. My initial reaction was that Stripe had jumped the shark to create a Paypalesque checkout experience. I switched to Stripe Checkout to allow me to focus on other tasks. I was using a versioned API (v2 in the URI), and then it was changed unexpededly. I had to stop in the middle of busy week and go code up my own payment form and get it into production. My chagrin wasn't just over the UI changes, it was also that the data fields collected and passed to my app changed. (The "Name on Card" field was dropped and email address added) I think it would've been prudent to respect the versioned API (https://checkout.stripe.com/v2/checkout.js https://checkout.stripe.com/v2/checkout.js), and do A/B testing on the latest (https://checkout.stripe.com/checkout.js https://checkout.stripe.com/checkout.js).